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English
Series:
Part 1 of Skeleton Stories
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Published:
2019-09-15
Completed:
2022-06-12
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485,933
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86/86
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1,967
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(The Last of the) Real Ones

Summary:

You had been raised to be a hero, to defend humanity against monsters if they should ever show, but when they do-there's no need for heroes and no need for you.

Years later you get summoned by your old boss to help with a problem that threatens the peace between monster and human kind. Someone you knew is tearing apart the fabric of reality and bringing boss monsters from alternative worlds to yours. You need to team up with the monster mascot and his boss brother plus their softer, alternative versions to track down the new arrivals and...make nice. But is that all?
 

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: Sunshine Riptide 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The world tried to burn all the mercy out of me
But you know I wouldn't let it
It tried to teach me the hard way
I can't forget it

Sunshine Riptide
FallOutBoy


You get the notification in the middle of the night and wake up to read the scrawling message across your old pager. You half thought it was a dream, the way the archaic technology buzzed to life the first time in four…five years?

You’ve been summoned.

The dark persists endlessly above you but New Ebott never sleeps and that’s reflected in the dozens of neon signs and city lights that color the storefronts as you make your way across the vibrant district.

The Embassy stands devoid of color, tall, stark, and white with greek column that stretch up for more than just two stories and doors tall enough for even the tallest of monsters to get through without issue. But that’s just the front. The back of the building is devoid of marble, official seals, and guided banisters. The back of the building is all glass and metal.

You take the elevator and punch in the number of the floor you need to get to, watching the world as your glass box ascends. A dozen different nocturnal bodies drift through the streets and you can tell most of the time which ones are humans and which ones are monsters.

The television from the Embassy continues to play behind your head as the elevators continues to rise.

On this five year anniversary of the Mt. Ebott barrier collapse several noteworthy celebrities have shown up in attendance to show support and share in the love for our favorite new neighbors…   

You can see the reflection in the glass from the television as different photos slide across the screen from last spring’s celebration. You recognize some of the faces including the monster ambassadors and the ten year old human spokes person.

Your mouth tingles and it’s all sour and sharp so you dig in your pockets for something sweet to suck on. Suckers, mints, honey sticks, jawbreakers…

You find the wooden end of a packaged rock candy and rip the plastic off. The sugar helps ground you and you lean back, resting your shoulders against the glass and wait for the rest of the trip to finish.

More than five years since the barrier came down, that meant it had been four years since you were last here, four years since they last needed you. Funny how you never expected to hear back from your old boss. You figured after his business went dark he would pretend it never happened and canoodle with the monsters like the rest of the world.

You bite off a chunk of rock crystal and sigh. You don’t like being bitter and you wish you could help it better. You’ve made plenty of new monster friends and live a decent life, but…

The elevator dings and then stops. At the end of the hall you look at see how opposite elevator has an additional security pad that hadn’t been there four years ago. Your pager has the new code to open it and when you step in the cage is more mirror than glass.

You’re able to watch yourself as the ride starts anew. The base of your skull is all but bare as your undercut is still fresh and the rest of your hair is curled into a victory roll to keep it off your ears. Aside from the hair and maybe a faded scar over your left eye that cuts through your eyebrow, there’s nothing substantial to separate or differentiate you from most of the other humans.

You see the black skinny jeans, a denim jacket with patches and a dark muscle shirt underneath it all that makes your nordic rune pendent stand out. There’s also a thick pair of wireless headphones resting around your neck.  It’s pretty standard fashion in a place as flamboyant as your city. Yesterday you ran into a monster who was still on fire and dressed in nothing more than a gold speedo. Just another day in the neighborhood.

The elevator stops and dings. 

The doors slide open to a clean hall with several glass walls and a few opaque ones. You expected it to be empty and quiet but you hear footsteps running around up ahead. They grow louder until someone rounds the bend and you have to step back to avoid a collision.

“I’M SO SORRY! I DIDN’T SEE YOU THERE WHEN I WAS RUNNING AROUND TRYING TO FIND THE WAY BACK-OH!”

The way he talks is familiar and even though it’s not a sound you can see, you feel like he’s talking in all caps, despite the relatively normal volume. It’s a monster thing. He’s a head or so shorter than you and dressed toe to tip in blue. His eyes…you see stars in his skeleton sockets.

He reminds you of one of the monster ambassadors.

You pull the rock candy out of your mouth and manage an easy smile, feeling something honest and soft around him. You’re one to trust your gut and it’s never let you down yet.

“No problem, hun. You looking for someplace?”

He stops to stare up at you and you watch as his skeletal face shifts into something close to slack interest. His cheeks are dusted with powder blue.

Cute.

“Hun?”

“YOU-Y-DO YOU WORK HERE?”

Loaded question.

“Nah, but I know the place pretty decently. Can I help you get somewhere?”

“YOU KNOW WHERE THERE ARE SOME VENDING MACHINES I CAN GET SOMETHING OUT OF?”

You know for a fact there are none on this floor and your face gives that fact away. The monster’s expression drops and your heart skitters. He looked too much like a kicked puppy.

“What did you need out of the vending machine?” You pat at your pockets. “I’ve got some spare candy. Nothing too fancy but…”

You let your words trail off as you pull out two handfuls of treats for him to inspect. He lights up and touches the honey sticks.  “ARE THESE MADE OUT OF REAL HONEY?”

“Yup,” you say popping the ‘p’ sound.

Honey is one of the few foods that both humans and monsters can consume and gain nutrients from as well as magic. Monsters needed food that gives them magic and humans…well, they didn’t need sugar but it still counts as something they can eat for energy. Some foods gave more magic, others nutrients, but almost all food was edible for both species.

“CAN I…?” He hesitates, hand hovering.

“Go for it hon,” you laugh.”You sure you don’t want anything else? That’s not a lot.”

“IT’S NOT FOR ME, BUT MY BROTHER NEEDED SOMETHING.”

“That’s…sweet.”

His eyes sparkle bit and he gasps, not quite believing you capable of making a pun. You shrug and replace the rest of the treats before reaching for your rock candy.

“You know how to get back?”

“YUP! ARE YOU HEADING ANYWHERE IN PARTICULAR YOURSELF?”

“Uh, just a briefing room to see an old boss man about some work I guess.” You blink down at the monster and then smile, offering him your hand and your name. “Nice to meet you by the way.”

His eyes are shinning in brilliant, blue star shapes again. “I AM NONE OTHER THAN THE MAGNIFICENT SA-BLUEBERRY! ALSO I AM GOING TO A BRIEFING ROOM WHERE I JUST LEFT SO MAYBE YOU ARE GOING TO THE SAME PLACE?”

“Maybe.”

You nod down the hall and walk with him, listening as he talks to you about some of his favorite candies and treats, then says they all are nothing in comparison to his famous friendship tacos. He’s delightful and the longer you stand beside him the softer your heart feels. Just standing beside him seemed to clean out the worry that had been darkening your soul.

You turn the last corner and the door on the other side is flanked with reflective glass and you falter, knowing that it’s the type that allows those inside to see out. The man inside knows you’re there. No going back.

Before you can reach the door it swings open on its own and a taller skeleton in orange paces out. “blue, we were worried about you. where did you go?” he exclaimed.

The way he talked grated at you momentarily before you realized why. It was more monster speak. It wasn’t something you could see, but if you could it would probably be a mess of words with nothing important enough to capitalize.

Monsters.

Honestly.

It would get better in a few days if you hung out with them long enough. It always did.

When you glanced up again you realized you had missed a part of their conversation and that Blue was handing the other skeleton his honey stick and pointing at you. Weakly, you lifted a single hand and waved two fingers.

“Hey.”

“THIS IS MY BROTHER, I MENTIONED HIM, AND HIS NAME IS STRETCH. BEHOLD HIS AWESOMENESS THAT IS NOT AS AWESOME AS MY AWESOMENESS BUT ALMOST!”

Stretch nodded in your direction and you mirrored the gesture, picking up on a new vibe from this monster. Soft…like Blue….but there was something stronger at the core that felt like power. And then…something else? Like a bulletproof vest he was holding onto but not wearing? A moment later you realized what the feeling meant. Protective…of his brother.   

He must have just finished summarizing you as well as a slow grin spread across his face. You passed some sort of test as you feel a barrier come down. 

“thanks for helping out blue and thanks for this too. name’s stretch.” He offered a hand and you took it, noticing his grip.

Decent but not threatening.

“I guess you’re here for the same thing maybe as you just came out of where I’m heading,” you say and then point to the room. All around you the walls are white or clear with mirrors and glass, but inside you know it’s dark with low lights and black walls that hide a dozen different cameras. 

Stretch grinned and then bowed over his arm and gestured for the both of you to head in first. Blue called out to follow him and you let the smaller monster grab your wrist without flinching so that he could drag you along.   

You follow Blueberry in and it’s as you remembered it from the last time you were in the conference room with the long long table with the glass top and twenty different plush seats pushed up around it. There are four other people inside waiting for you and the two you recognize stand while the two you remember only have to turn.

Hightower and Whitely look like they haven’t aged a day and maybe they haven’t, as Hightower still has the same number of subtle wrinkles around his salt and pepper hair while Whitely looks like he came straight out the building with a noble profile and marble white skin lightly veined and thin.

The other two are unmistakable though you’ve never been allowed to be so close.

Sans and Papyrus, two monster celebrities that took up a lot of social feed early on before fading to the background to let newer, flashier monsters take center stage. Still, they rank highly in the King’s court and you don’t understand what they’re doing in such a place.

Or what you’re there for.

You look to Hightower, knowing Whitely won’t speak or offer anything verbally.  Hightower is the one who pulls he strings after all.

And the one who cuts them.

“Ah, SevenA, so good of you to finally join us, and I see you brought one of wayward guests back to us. Such a noble shepard.”

Your smile almost slips into something manic at the sound of your old name. Not that it really counted as a name. It was a title. A rank. Something they branded you with years ago before the barrier came down and before the world learned how harmless the monsters really were. It hurt to hear the name again but you don’t dare start shit in front of celebrities.

You glance at the two skeleton brothers and force back a panicked chuckle.

“Just trying to be helpful, sir. You said you wanted to see me?”

He gestured to Sans and Papyrus and introduced the two of them with fancy titles and official names that you’ve heard a hundred times before. You hardly hear him as you get caught in San’s stare. It’s….forever. Both are looking at you but you can feel the depth of Sans' more profoundly and it makes you sweat. He’s a monster in every sense of the word, but there’s nothing vile about him. He’s a powerhouse and you knew that but had never felt it before.

You force your gaze to shift to Papyrus and it’s like tearing metal away from a magnet. He’s…bright and as shining as the tvs made him out to be. Honest, clear, true, noble, good….yeah.

You force yourself to wave and in a voice that sounds far off you say your name before adding, “But some people still call me by my old name I guess.”

“HELLO HUMAN, IT IS FANTASTIC TO MAKE YOUR ACQUAINTANCE AT LONG LAST AS I UNDERSTAND YOU ARE QUITE A FRIENDLY FIGURE IN THIS CITY WITH LOTS OF FRIENDS AND I HOPE TO BE ONE!”

Papyrus rounds the table and you reach out for a handshake but he surprises you by reaching down and scooping you up into a bone crushing hug. You crunch a chunk of rock candy off the stick into your mouth and flush at the friendliness. His soul is shining and you want to shield away from it, but also warm yourself in it? 

“‘sup, you seem cool,” Sans said from behind Papyrus. He waves but keeps his distance and you wonder if that’s a bad or good thing.

“Thanks, good to meet the both of you.” Papyrus still has you in a hug that rocks you from side to side but he starts to let you down once he hears you speaking. He takes a step back and with your hands free you reach up to remove the rock candy from your mouth and smile. “It’s like meeting celebrities.”

“NYEH HEH HEH! INDEED IT IS JUST SO, AS I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS HAVE BECOME A SKELETON WITH MANY FRIENDS AND POPULARITY WITHOUT NEEDING THE ROYAL GUARD. ARE YOU OVERWHELMED?”

“A bit,” you admit, causing him to laugh some more. It was unique but there was something about the way he was speaking that made you feel off, like you had heard it before. Funny.

“As pleasantries are over, we can begin,” The man named Hightower said, interrupting you. He snapped and the echo made the door shut on its own and several of the lights in the room grow dim. “Please take your seats and we can begin. I’m sure some of you will have questions.”

“or some of us are questions…” Stretch cryptically muttered under his breath.

Everyone took a seat and the lights dimmed further. The table blinked and the glass surface started to come alive with different lights. A control panel flashed closest to Hightower and he interacted with it to manipulate the table into projecting prepared images.

Maps, readings, charts.

Then there was a list of names you recognized.

“I’ll be brief so we can get a move on. We have a situation. Last month we were alerted to the existence of a pair of abnormals in our reality.”

On the other side of the table you could feel both Blueberry and his brother stiffen and something in your heart throbbed.

Hightower went on. “Later on we were able to bring in the pair of abnormalities and ascertain the nature of their situation. Both Blueberry and Stretch, as we are calling them now, are alternative versions of Sans and Papyrus from another world, one we have dubbed ‘Underswap’ for the time being.”

The images shifted to show photos of both sets of brothers parallel. Side by side you could see how similar they were. You had assumed it to be a skeleton thing, but the similarities were striking when compared side by side.

You roll what is left of your rock candy around in your mouth and look back to Hightower before the images flash to photos of an alternative world where…things look similar but different.

“We are aware of the other world but can not interact with it with our limited resources,” Hightower explained. “The reason for this abnormality comes from FourB.”

Your heart drops as an old photo comes up on the screen. The boy with sad eyes and a face full of baby fat is from years and years ago and you wonder why they haven’t updated it. Surly they have a newer version. The though goes through your brain before Hightower flicks to several newer photos all on his own, showing the way the human child with sad eyes grew up into what should have been a man about your age.

“What about him?” you force yourself to ask, feeling ants under you skin and an itch behind your eyes. You’re using all the self control you have to stay calm and not freak or show the mania you hold back.

“He was the one who caused the rifts.”

You pop the candy out and glance around the room, seeing as how this information was known to everyone but you. Sans, Papyrus, Blueberry, and Stretch were all watching you. Hightower went on but their gazes didn’t abate except momentariellyt to watch new photos manifest in the air.

“An abnormality all on his own, FourB is a human who is able to use low levels of magic and until recently this was beyond his abilities.”

“funny story, doc,” Sans laughed. “i’ve never heard of a case where a human could use magic. that’s just…mystifying news. ”

Hightower waved San’s suspicious smile away along with the poor pun. “All humans have magic but it is only utilized when we die, as such our souls are everlasting beyond the mortal coil. In rare cases humans have been known to learn how to tap into that magic.”

For a price.

“and now this guy can use magic to do things monsters never could, like tear a hold in the fabric of reality and pluck characters out of it like this,” Stretch sighed, gesturing to himself and his brother. “and it gets better…”

You glance back at the table and follow the lights to see a projection of two new skeletons. Another Sans and Papyrus set, only this set was a bit darker and edgier. The Sans was a bit thicker with fangs and a gold tooth that flashed with his leering and the Papyrus beside him was taller with his own fangs and a spiked leather jacket and a mean scowl. He also sported a scar running from his right eye.

“We’ve dubbed them Red and Edge respectively,” Hightower stated, "based on social media chatter."

“They look…friendly?”

From across the table Stretch snorted and Blueberry groaned. One of the two understood sarcasm it seemed.

“Their universe has been dubbed Underfell. It appears to be harsher and more brutal than the previous universe these two came from. The personalities and demeanors of these individuals is currently unknown.”

“i don’t know, if you ask me, it looks like the two of those might have a bone to pick,” Sans chuckled, causing Papyrus to gasp in horror and look to you and then his brother before covering his face with his hands and sinking in his seat while Sans continued to chuckle. 

“That’s the summary of current events so far. We need assistance in locating and capturing FourB as well as the renegade Sans and Papyrus for the security of the rest of the world. They have not sworn an oath to the King or Queen and can not be trusted to run free like Blueberry and Stretch here.” Hightower motioned to the two brothers and they in turn smiled or shot two thumbs way up in the air.

“WE’RE LEGIT!”

“In addition, more information on FourB’s actions this past month would be helpful as well. As it stands he’s successfully managed to bypass our security and stayed off radar. That’s where you come in, SevenA.” The room’s attention turned back to you. “You were close with FourB. You’ll be able to track him down and find the two renegades while you’re out. We’re prepared to pay you a month’s wages upfront as an incentive bonus, and then salary will continue as stated in a Level A contractor agreement for the company.”

Your blood ran cold.

“That’s a lot of money,” you laugh nervously before the paper is even in front of you.

But there’s no paper, only a digital file that lights up on the table in front of you, visible only to the person directly in front of it. It’s not short, either, and you know if you studied it long enough you’d find the snakes hiding in between the words and lines.

So you do.

You read as fast as possible and the room grows tense around you in the meanwhile. You hear hushed whispers and the beeps of different hands manipulating the touch screen and projections.

Your eyes caught a couple of lines you highlighted with a virtual tool before moving on. You finished reading all three pages in record time and then went back to the second page to look over the highlighted parts.

Contingency guidelines for the apprehension of subject FourB…

Should subject prove unresponsive to nonlethal persuasion…

Class S

Lethal

Coexistence

Subjects A1&2, B1&2, C1&2

Unstable Variables

You dismiss the entire document unsigned and stand up. The room goes still enough to hear the crack of your molars breaking off the last of your rock candy. Hightower levels a look in your direction that should have sent you to your knees, but he stopped being your boss four years ago when he threw you out and that was fine.

You weren’t going to be that person again.

“I’ll help but I’m no good with contacts,” you lie through your teeth. “Consider this a favor.”

Hightower has you pinned and it is pissing him off to see you still standing. You feel your heart racing and bite on the wooden stick of your finished treat to keep the manic grin off your face.

“…You won’t be financially compensated.”

“No big deal.”

“This will constitute a substantial loss of income if it persists for more than a couple of weeks.”

“I’ve got savings.”

Hightower’s eyes narrow behind his rimless glasses and then he shifts back, the glare making his eyes unreadable behind the white light’s reflection. “Very well then. You are familiar with the common rooms for employees I assume. Whitely, show our guests there while transportation arrangements are made.”

“WE’RE LEAVING TONIGHT?” Blueberry exclaimed, looking caught between excitement and apprehension.

The table lit up with a map. “The Underfell brothers have been located in this general area.” A marker popped up on the map. “And once you are near enough SevenA will be able to pick up on more exact locations.”

“I will?” you echo. “I’ve never met these two before.”

Hightower gestured to Sans and Papyrus. “That won’t be an issue. They read the same as theses two when searching. Same could be said for Blueberry and Stretch. In addition to that, you’ll also be locating FourB as you are the only one who has encountered him before.”

He tapped something on the table and the images flickered before going out. The room lights brightened and the door to outside opened on its own.Whitely, who had been silent and dull the entire time, ushered everyone else out of the room but lightly pushed you back when you tried to leave, eyeing Hightower just once before following the brothers outside.    

You tense as the door shuts behind the last person and you feel Hightower behind you. You don’t turn around but he places a smartphone into your hand. You glance back over your shoulder and his glare is still there.

“The contract is on the device for when you change your mind. Remember who you are dealing with, child. Don't try to be a hero.”

“I’ve not been a child in a long time, sir,” you bit out. But you pocket the phone and stomp out, yanking the door back and turning down the hallway with memorized steps.

Behind you the room goes dark once more.

 


 

The common rooms for employees were….empty. Your fingers itch for another piece of rock candy but the barren stick from the first one is still in your mouth and it tastes sweet enough to nervously chew. The sour tingle in your mouth isn’t too bad. You’ll be fine.

With a deep inhale you pull up a Map using magic. It’s bright and made out of neon white lights that made a picture in your head to see by. You zoom into it  looking up and seeing the layout of the floor, where everyplace you’ve ever been is clear. It’s been a while since you last used location magic, because that had been one of the main issues for living indecently like a normal human in the city. Also, out of all the things you could do, location magic was some of the least impressive.

Like Hightower said, both sets of brothers showed up on the screen as labeled dots. One Sans was a dark navy blue while the other was brighter and vibrant. One Papyrus is gold and the other orange.

They’re nowhere near you.

Where was Whitely?

You found his gray dot on the map somewhere else, drifting at his usual slow pace and you wonder what could have happened to remove him from the rest of the group. But then you recognize the room the boys are in front of and it becomes more clear. No doubt someone had gotten distracted and left the common area.

Your money was on Blue. He seemed the type.

You dismissed the map, knowing no one else but you could see it even if they were sensitive to you using some form of magic. It was still magic and humans using magic was supposed to be a secret.

Not like there were a ton of you or whatnot.

You take a familiar turn down the hall and there are short stairs leading down to the first level entrance of the training grounds, but when you push open the door, the interior is nothing like you remember it.

The sand pits are gone, along with the obstacles and reflective lights. Now the floors are wooden and pained with the boundary lines for a basketball court to match the nets on either side. The far wall is lined with different colored balls, and another wall has a pair of water coolers between two benches. The upper level entrance filters out to a handful of spectator seats and for a hot minute you remember what those had been used for.

You hear your name being called and its sudden enough to make you bite through the wood in your mouth, splintering the end of your rock candy stick. Wincing at the taste, you pull it out and toss into a nearby trash can.

Blue is running across the field with a yellow dodgeball in hand while in the background Papyrus is furiously trying to nail either Stretch or Sans with the collection of balls he’s amassed. Sans and Stretch look like the laziest bodies in the room but move like experts, wasting no energy.

“Hey, it looks like you found the….gym.”

“THAT OTHER GUY SAID IT WOULD BE OKAY IF WE WONDERED OFF. ARE YOU REALLY GOOD AT FINDING PEOPLE OR WAS THAT JUST SOMETHING HE SAID? I’M SORRY IF YOU WERE STARTLED BY OUR ABSENCE BUT ISN’T THIS PLACE BETTER?”

“It’s no problem. I’m…used to this place and figured you might be down here. What are you doing?”

Blue held up his ball and smiled brightly. “WATCH!”

He then launched the dodgeball straight across the room and you watch as Stretch sees it coming only to juuuuuuust barely get hit as he dramatically tried to make a show out of running away. Sans, in the same moment, takes a hit from Papyrus and goes down just as flat.

“you’re the coolest, bro,” Stretch coughs from the ground while Sans just lifts a single thumb up in the air to praise his brother. 

Blue puffs himself up and seems to swell a inch or two taller with pride from his brother’s compliment and you can’t help but think how cute he seems. His soul echoes like a warm light and when it brushes up against yours you can feel-oh, it almost feels like running your face and hands across a really plush, thick carpet or blanket or maybe a meadow with soft grasses. It had been a while since you let yourself linger on the reverberations of another’s soul.

“So, what were you going to do when they came to fetch you later on?”

You didn’t miss how Stretch and Papyrus had started heading your way while Sans hung back, distracted with a cherry red squish ball that he turned over and over.

“THAT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A PROBLEM AS YOU ARE VERY GOOD AT FINDING US SO IT WOULD ONLY MAKE SENSE THAT THEY WOULD EVENTUALLY FIND US ALL AS WELL,” Blue answered easily.  Then he snapped his fingers. “SPEAKING OF WHICH, DO YOU KNOW ENOUGH TO GIVE US A TOUR OF THIS PLACE?”

At that Sans lifted his head and over the shoulders of the other two the light of his eye lights pin you in place. You’re cold all the way down to your bones and rooted to the spot and as frightening as the experience is, what’s more memorable is the look of surprise on his face when you don’t flinch or back down. Maybe he can tell you’re shaken, but you’re not shaken enough to show it outwardly.

There’s no sugar or rock candy in your mouth to mask the swell of sour tang flooding your taste buds.

Magic.  

“a tour would be nice,” Sans called out, dropping the ball along with the overwhelming sense of his magic, rolling off him  in waves that you’re sure the others are aware of, but not bothered by.

Papyrus at least turns back to look at his brother and fists his hands over his hips, his expression dour. “BROTHER, YOU SHOULD BE MORE CAREFUL AROUND YOUR HUMAN FRIENDS AND NOT FORGET YOU CAN BE OVERWHELMING AFTER EXERCISE. SHOW OFF YOUR BETTER POINTS INSTEAD.”

Papyrus’ voice rings inside your head the same way Blue’s voice did, like it was a sound in all caps without the volume being turned all the way up. Loud, but not loud. It would give you a headache eventually but you hoped that before the migrant you’d adapt to their speaking patterns.

“….that shouldn’t be too hard,” Sans chuckled, “ you could say…”

Please don’t be a pun, please don’t be a pun, please don’t be a pun, pleasedon’tbeapunplease-

“…i’m a knife guy with plenty of sharp points.”

Blue and Papyrus groan with one voice while you just shut your eyes and pray to any higher power that bothers to listen that you don’t fall back into your bad habits.

“sans, that’s enough of your cutting remarks,” Stretch chastised.

Blue’s eyes went wide and his mouth hung open in blank horror, too stunned to say anything while Papyrus covered his face with his hands.

Sans eyed the slouching Papyrus copy and grinned, recognizing something. “hey stretch, don’t cut in with your mediocre puns thinking you’re sharper than me. i’m a cut above the rest.”

“hey, I don’t mean to be confrontational with you, there’s no point to it.”

“Please,” you sigh with fingers pinching the bridge of your nose like that would help. You’re talking before you even know what you’re saying and it’s only after the words are out of your mouth, “cut it out,” that your realize what you’ve done.

Your eyes go wide and instead of pinching the bridge of your nose your hands slap to your face while Sans and Stretch both turn to you with wide grins. It’s better than San’s overwhelming aura from earlier, but you’re so upset with yourself for giving in and slipping up it doesn’t matter as much as it should.

Punning.

It’s such a bad habit.

“A tour,” you finally manage to say. “You wanted a tour, right?”

“sure, it’d be knife,” Sans said, stuffing his hands into the blue jacket lined with white fur. He shoots Stretch a sideways look that Stretch doesn’t have any problem ignoring.

Blue jumps in-between you and Sans, waving his arms for attention. “A TOUR, YES! A TOUR AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. CAN WE LEAVE NOW?”

“Su-sure. It’s not going to be a long tour, I don’t remember everything and they changed plenty since I was last here, but it’s something I guess.”

“WELL, CAN WE START WITH WHAT YOUR FAVORITE PLACE WAS? OR WOULD IT BE BETTER FOR YOU IF WE JUST DID THE THINGS THAT ARE CLOSEST TO HERE. OH, DID YOU HAVE A BEDROOM IN THIS BUILDING I CAN SEE?”

“No bedroom, nothing like that anymore, but we got plenty of dorms somewhere around here. Favorite place would probably be the mess hall but I don’t know if it even has food stocked in it anymore since…ah, well, we can go check it out at least.”

That seems to encourage Papyrus to start on a tangent about his world famous friendship spaghetti, a dish you had seen on a youtube how-to where he partnered up with several celebrity chefs and made it in front of an audience. It was a meal plenty of monster restaurants served as the trend caught on and peaked a couple years back before other monster meals and foods took over.

It was a bit surreal to be standing in front of a figure that had been on stage alongside singers, actors, and talk show hosts for years. Second only to the ‘robot with a soul’ Papyrus’ media presence was nothing to scoff at. If you thought about it too much, he seemed larger than life and yet….

His soul was like Blueberry’s but brighter or bolder. Yes, there as softness there as well, but even if they were alternate versions or swapped versions of one another, each monster was his own unique individual with quirks and details exclusive to him and him alone. Papyrus was like…sunshine and beaches and lemonade and…oh yeah, that feeling of driving down a long open road with a clear sky and the wind rushing past you. A moment of pure elation.

You blinked at the sound of your name being called. The tang of something sour dulled in your mouth.

“The mess hall?” you echo, realizing what it was Blue had been trying to say to you. “Sure, I know the way.”

You turn to lead them out but don’t miss how only three of the four trail behind you. Sans is gone and you know well enough that he’s taken a ‘shortcut’ somewhere else. You could track him down if you wanted to, since you’ve met him once and know the building’s layout extensively, but it almost feels better without his presence.

“So,” you begin to say, taking the stairs up two at a time. “How long have the three-er-four of you been getting to know one another?” You look back at Papyrus. “I mean, when were you and your brother dragged on board?”

“A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO! I WAS SO SURPRISED WHEN SANS WAS CONTACTED BY THIS PLACE SO SUDDENLY. WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE ON A WORK HIATUS AND IT WAS THE FIRST TIME IN WEEKS WE WERE TOGETHER FOR MORE THAN A DAY.” Something in Papyrus’ voice changed, pitching higher. “I’M GLAD IT WAS WORK FOR THE BOTH OF US AS HE SO RARELY GOES ALONG WITH ME TO PLACES I VISIT.”

That makes sense. Sans never struck you as the media personality. Even after meeting in person, you didn’t believe he was the type of monster to enjoy being looked at by people he couldn’t look back at. Other monsters like Papyrus and Mettaton seemed to enjoy the stardom better.

And yet.

“It must have been hard to be separated from your brother for so long when you’re as close as you are,” you said in a tone you hoped came off as casual. You know what a sensitive subject is when you see it. Fame wasn’t always the blessing it seemed to be.

“SORRY TO BE CONSIDERED WORK,” Blue pouted, crossing his arms as he walked up behind you.

Papyrus flustered. “NOT WORK LIKE THAT! YOUR COMPANIONSHIP HAS BEEN NOTHING BUT DELIGHTFUL, AND I WOULDN’T CONSIDER IT ANYTHING LESS FOR A MILLISECOND. I AM ALWAYS EAGER TO MAKE A NEW FRIEND. IT’S BEEN AGES SINCE I LAST MADE A NEW ONE.”

“s’okay, blue understands that, don’t ya, blue?” Stretch interjected.

And for some odd reason Blue looks at you before replying. “I SUPPOSE YOU ARE RIGHT, BROTHER.” Blue shifted his focus to you, brightening considerably. “WE’VE BEEN HERE ON THE ABOVEGROUND SIDE OF THIS WORLD FOR FIVE WEEKS FOUR DAYS, BUT WE’VE ONLY BEEN ALLOWED OUT TWO WEEKS AGO AND THAT’S WHEN WE ALL MET UP AND GET TOGETHER.”

“The Embassy let you go outside? Where did you guys end up going?”

Blue rushed to answer first. “WE GOT TO TRAVEL TO SOME REALLY NICE PARKS AND WE VISITED A LAKE AND STAYED OUT UNTIL PAST MIDNIGHT TO SEE THE STARS AND SPENT THE NIGHT AT AN OBSERVATORY. WE EVEN WENT SHOPPING FOR CLOTHING IN THE NEXT TOWN OVER OUTSIDE OF THE CITY BUT THAT’S IT. WE’RE STAYING AT THE GOVERNMENT HOUSING PROJECTS JUST NEXT DOOR, THE ONES ON THE SAME CITY BLOCK AS THE EMBASSY. DO YOU KNOW THEM?”

His words came out as a rush but you listened to them all, nodding in time and humming when appropriate.

“Yeah, I used to live there for a while after I got-after leaving here.” You don’t miss how Stretch’s attention shift subtly, a reaction to your words but you do ignore it. “It was my first time on my own and an added bonus of the projects is that they have social workers who can help people and monsters acclimate to society and learn stuff like how to establish credit to be considered for a tenant in a complex. They’re good people there.”

“THE MISTER HIGHTOWER MENTIONED YOUR COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT.”

You guided them around the bend in the hallway and up to a set of push doors with long metal handles running across the front. They didn’t protest other than with a bit of squeaking when he leaned into them.

“Yeah,” you said while opening the door. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised the old fart keeps tabs on his old kids. It would be weird if he didn’t.” The room was dark but the wall switches weren’t far and you found them without problem. 

The room came into focus and for a flash of a second, the room was filled with bodies. A dozen different kids and teenagers arguing at the plastic tables and metal chairs about the awful high protein diets and vitamin milkshakes that still tasted like chalk even with chocolate. Someone threw their food on purpose and a girl screamed about it landing in her hair. The light flickered. Then the bodies were gone.

“fancy digs you got here.”

You glance to the side but Stretch isn’t looking at the room. His eyesights are on you, watching your face fill back up with the color that had drained only moments ago. You stare back and then look away first. Something against the far wall catches your attention.

“Blue, looks like I was wrong. They added those after I left I think.”

Blue gasps at the different vending machines stocked up with monster and human foods as well as drinks. He rushes off to one and Papyrus goes on to check out the kitchen and see if there is anything ‘he can use’ for food making you presume.

“PAPS, LOOK AT THIS!” Blueberry exclaimed in front of the Monster Munchies vending machine. “THEY HAVE CHOCO-TACOS!”

Before his brother moves Blue is already pulling out his money to buy the human treat turned monster delicacy. With the number of silver dollars he inserts you don’t doubt he’s buying multiples for him and his brother.

“so, this place look all that different or more of the same?” Stretch asked, stepping up alongside you. “….everything in this building feels the same to me but…you knew it before it was like this, didn’t you?”

“Before?” you echoed.

Stretch shrugged and then shuffled in his pockets for something. He pulled out a lighter and then glanced your way before replacing it and shuffling his feet awkwardly. “that sans already suspected it from earlier, and I guess I just noticed it late, but this place was….refurbished? the gym for example.”

You felt yourself nod. The motion is slow and halted, almost robotic. Half of your mind is scattered and the other half whirrs too fast to catch. You want to wear your headphones and just wait until everyone in the room leaves, but you know better. There are times when you can cope with your problems and times when you face them.

This is one of those ‘face them’ moments.

“Yeah, there used to be a sandpit in the gym and no basketball nets. This place, it looks almost the same except for the monster additions.” You point to the oversized chairs and monster food dispenser. “And there were more people in here when I remember it.”

“friends?”

“Something like that.”   

“people like you?”

“We had plenty to bond over I guess.”

You turn to look pointedly at Blue while Stretch watches you. And, unlike Sans, Stretch lets a little of his magic ebb out, tentative and hesitant, checking you out. Humans aren’t supposed to know they’re being sized up so you don’t react, letting him explore to an extent that satisfied him. Unlike monsters, you couldn’t read stats the way they could, but you picked up on other things.

Stretch had a steady soul, thick and healthy like honey and honesty and a warm bed with plenty of blankets and pillows all soft and fuzzy. It made you want to run your hands through the magic of his soul and feel the texture of it. 

Blue dashed out of the kitchen laughing loudly to himself with a number of items in his hands. Papyrus follows him to the edge with something in his hands you hear him shout about. Blueberry’s beeline is straight for you and his brother and he stops short, just in time for Stretch to pull his magic back and pretend he wasn’t being nosey without a nose.

Damn puns.

“WHAT WERE YOU TALKING ABOUT?”   

It was easy to smile at the sight of Blueberry. “Nothing super important. What do you got there?”

Blue’s smile makes his eyes spin with white stars in delight. “THE NEXT BEST THING TO FRIENDSHIP TACOS, AN ALMOST HOMEMADE FRIENDSHIP CHOCO TACO. HERE, PA-STRETCH.”

Papyrus left the edge of the kitchen with a choco taco in one hand and cell phone in the next, looking confused. "IT IS NOT FRIENDSHIP SPAGHETTI SO I DON’T KNOW IF IT WAS MADE WITH LOVE."

Blueberry handed his brother a wrapped up choco taco from the vending machine and then turned your way. His smile stretched and a soft powder blue color flared up under his eyes, almost like a blush. He still had two more choco tacos but he took one and held it up hesitantly.

“I DIDN’T MAKE IT MYSELF B-BUT,” the color on his face darkened. “BUT HERE, I WANT TO SHARE A FRIENDSHIP TACO WITH YOU. WILL YOU…WILL YOU HAVE ONE WITH ME?”

It almost hurt when your heart throbbed at the sound of his voice combined with his expression. He was so cute and soft and vulnerable. He bought you a choco taco and asked with his eyes so full of pleading. It was like a puppy begging for pets and it made your heart warm.

“Of course.” You couldn’t help but laugh through your smile. You took the packaged wrapper from his hand and nodded to the table. “I’d love to share this with you.”

And it was just as easy as that. The three of you shuffled over to a table and sat down together to eat the melting treat. Blueberry took a seat next to you and scooted it close while Stretch sat across from his brother, next to Papyrus. Stretch asked Papyrus where Sans was and then the conversation turned into predicting where Sans ended up lost, followed by questions for you about your time at the embassy and how different it was. Those were questions you danced around, saying the things Hightower taught you to say and diverting to other topics.

The choco tacos were gone but the conversation still carried until a crackling sound overhead made you all stop. Then the intercom came on.

“Would SevenA please come to Adjunct media room 1, SevenA please report to the Adjunct media room 1,” the robotic voice echoed before shutting off.

You picked up a spare napkin to wipe at your face with and stand, stoping only when Blueberry stands to follow you.

“I’ll be right back I think. You don’t have to follow.”

“you also weren’t called up, blue. lets just wait here for now,” Stretch said. “papyrus was just going to tell us about spider doughnuts.”

Papyrus looked up from his phone, surprised and clearly not planning on going into a conversation about spider doughnuts, but shut his mouth fast thanks to a look from Stretch. Blue still looked to you, expression torn, but you waved and left before he could say or do anything to convince you to bring him along.

You had a feeling where you were going wasn’t somewhere he wanted to be.

The media rooms were scattered on each floor but the first one was on a level above you, so that meant an elevator ride requiring your old employee identification code to go anywhere.

The media room’s door was unlocked and left partway open. When you stepped inside you saw the control panel and then the two dozen different sized monitors mounted overhead. Half of them were on only to static while the others flickered through different video feeds scattered throughout the building.

One last one stood out from the rest.

You recognize the old clip from nearly six years ago, before the monsters surfaced, before the secret was public knowledge, before the embassy was open and friendly. The boy uses his blue magic to tear apart a pig carcass dangling from the ceiling.

San turned around in the plush lab chair with the tall back, facing you as the door behind you closes with his blue magic.

“hey sport, fancy meeting you here.” His grin was almost as manic as yours.

The video from six years ago ran out and an error message came up sending the rest of the cameras into a panic. Sans frowned as all the feeds cut out and a firewall kicked him in. He made a dissatisfied sound before fixing his eye lights back on you, watching the way you shiver.

“its nothing I didn’t already know. heh, you know that a part of the peace treaty included turning over information about anti-monster units that may or may not have been funded by local and federal governments?”

You don’t move. Your insides are cold as more of his magic leaks out but you don’t move.

“your name wasn’t on our list, but this place was….it made me curious. couldn’t dig much more than this but you’ll be honest with me, won’t you, pal?”

And you feel it.

Other monsters call it an ‘encounter’ and it’s something you were trained a long time ago to recognize. Sans’ magic is tugging you apart and there is nothing you can do at this proximity to stop it. The door behind you is closed and his magic swells to new heights. There is a flicker of light as your soul emerges from your chest, open and exposed.

In the background the error messages flash red and then yellow, but San’s eyes are black voids.

“you’re gonna have a b a d  t i m e.”

 

Notes:

Behold my self indulgent, wish fulfillment, monster romance story.
Reader in this fic started out being as a 'blank' reader insert, but I couldn't keep it that way. I just wanted to write something and have fun with it, so I poured a lot of my self indulgent wishes into this fic. I blame my partner in crime Jaylene for leading me down this path. I just wanted to write fluffy things and emotional hurt/comfort but I wouldn't have gotten so far without her encouragement. (So if you end up enjoying it blame/thank her.)

If you have any questions feel free to ask, otherwise, read, enjoy, and lurk to your heart's content. Hope you have fun. You can find me on tumblr at: https://vesperlionheart.tumblr.com/ but it's all sorta just random stuff.

Chapter 2: Sunshine Riptide 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When you were younger the magic had colors. You were young enough to see what the adults couldn't.  As you grew older you lost your ability to distinguish magic by its color like all children at the Embassy.

'I can't see them anymore! I can't see their souls! Why can't I see them anymore?' 

But your weren’t left blind.

Instead, you developed a new way to sense magic and understand it.

As a child you lacked experience and exposure to the world, but as you grew older you began to associate different stimuli with the colors and shades of a soul, seeing past just one distinguishing trait. When you lost the ability to see souls or ‘auras’ as Hightower called them, you felt them in new ways.

Red is DETERMINATION,
Orange is BRAVERY,
Yellow is JUSTICE,
Green is KINDNESS,
Cyan is PATIENCE,
Blue is INTEGRITY and
Purple is PERSEVERANCE….

Red felt like a brick house in a thunderstorm.

Orange was a roaring lion

Yellow was a lighthouse on the ocean during a storm with bobbing waters and frothing waves, as bad as it got, yellow was a lighthouse that never wavered

Green was a grass field filled with flowers

Cyan was a bed of soft pillows on a cold day, or a dog with long fur that curled up next to your side for pets

Blue is…. a harder one for you to pin down, as so few had it around you, but….integrity was food, pilfered rations, rest, and the echo of someone telling you, ‘you don’t deserve this

Perseverance is the comfortable sting that follows a long run or workout as well as the sunrise you managed to see after climbing the mountain in time

You remember brushing up against different auras and souls, eager to learn their secrets before your youth ran out and you were no longer able to learn. Back then, no matter how hard it had been, it never kept you down. You were needed. You were necessary. If someone needed you, it was so much easier to keep going.

You know what we’re doing here. We can’t be fair in an unfair world.'

'One day humanity will need you to be its hero.'

'Stand up. Take it again. You need to be stronger, there are monsters under our feet…

The tang of bitterness in your mouth grounds you and brings you back to the present. You can’t afford to drift off in such a volatile situation, hence the adaptation. You swallow and it’s like drinking tart lemonade.

“Questions?” you ask, forcing your voice to remain passive, to stay neutral, to run like an even river of sound that didn’t betray anything of what was going on in your heart. Never mind he could probably tell with just his magic, you weren’t about to give Sans the easy satisfaction.

The room flashes with the colors from the error message all around you. Sans remained unmoving, watching you from where he stood. 

“yeah, I got plenty of them so feel free to speak up whenever, like for when I ask, do ‘ya got magic like us or just-thwip-the skills?”

It wasn’t a real question because the attack came before he was even finished speaking. Your body moves before you even know what you should do. Bones come out of nowhere and then wink out of existence before they can hit the back wall, but you’ve vaulted over them all before they got close enough to hurt your heart.

Soul.

Monsters attack the soul.

One of the monitors behind Sans breaks free from the flashes and plays an old video of the same boy from before, slashing through the pig with his magic only for the scientists to measure the depth of the cuts and berate him for it.

‘You can’t protect anyone with just this,’ the man in the video chastises. There’s no audio and the lips are too grainy to read, but you know.

“well, there’s skill at least, but what if I did this?” sans hummed. 

You wasted your turn on the video and there’s another barrage of attacks, bones at odd angles you have to launch yourself through instead of running from. The opening nearly closes up before your ankles clear and you roll onto the floor only to spring up again, popping onto your feet and falling into a sway.

“This isn’t the best way to make friends, bud,” you laugh, trying to keep your voice from warbling. “Why don’t we share a taco or something?”

“not the type.”

And instead of bones there is a face, skeletal and horrifying. It opens its mouth and the beam comes next, passing harmlessly through your arm but your soul shivers from the proximity.

You duck and roll away before the third, fourth, and fifth beams can land a hit. You stumble, bracing agains the control panel as Sans turned towards you again. There was a pause between his attacks where he had to ‘give you a turn’ or ready his next move. It felt too much like a video game or something you would train against and you can’t help but feel a rush.

You’ve never been in a real encounter with a monster before, (just the for fun flirty types) and out of all of them, was there someone more formidable that the king’s Judge?

“You don’t sound like you’re interested in asking questions any more than you are in hearing the answers. Weren’t you curious?” you pant, more breathless from the thrill than the physical labor of moving so fast.

He chuckled. “i’m getting plenty of info out of you this way too.”

And he was. Another barrage of bones came your way, impossible to dodge completely unless you knew what to avoid and what the let pass over you. Half were illusions and half were dangerous. Sans watched and learned what you knew through the attack then braced once it was your turn.

“You really planning on beating me here? What will you tell your brother and the others?”

The Gaster Blasters come out again with their awful faces, more unsettling than the actual beam attack. You stared into the mouth and then ducked under it before the beam could launch. You were fast, but not even you were faster than light.

“that’s not really what you should be worrying about right now, buddy,” he said.

“Then why are you doing this? At least tell me that,” you snapped back before the next wave of bone attacks came your way. You practically had to run up the wall to avoid them this time. San’s magic swelled thicker around you, mounting.

“that’s a silly question since you know i know what you are, ya know, he he.” The monitor behind him loops and the boy is back, cutting through the pig. “…a great defender of humanity aren’t ‘cha….or just a monster hunter?”

And you have nothing to say to that because, yeah, that’s exactly it. Sans knew about this place and after seeing the way you had moved there was no way he wouldn’t be able to put two and two together.

One day humanity will need you to be its hero….

You need to be stronger, there are monsters under our feet…

From OneA to SevenB, all the kids Hightower could get his hands on…. FourB, SixA, ThreeD, the names you could only whisper, all of them had been born, broken, and bred the same way.

To be humanity’s hero.

This time when Sans attacked it wasn’t with bones or blasters, but his eyes flashed with magic and the whole room shifted. Stray pens and a coffee mug, long abandoned on the dash, lifted into the air along with you. Sans hand was in the air and then his eye flashed once more. You came crashing down with all the force of a warped moment of gravity. Unlike the other attacks, you took damage when a bone attack took advantage of your distraction and immobility.

"You're wrong about me," you shouted out. "I'm not an enemy and I'm not a monster hunter. That's all in the past and I'd never hurt a monster."

“you think i would expose my brother to such a risk? he likes humanity. he trusts most of ya and doesn’t need to know about this place and yeah, humans can be plenty swell, but don’t mean i trust every tim dick and terry.”

And even though your body was bruised and your heart-soul-was a little damaged, it was his words that make you want to snap more than anything.

You remember watching the video feed along with all the other kids. You remember the fear and the excitement that filled the room. You could open your mouth and taste it, the tension was so thick.

This was it.

This was what you’ve been training so hard so long for.

Finally

But then the human ambassador Frisk came out and spoke of peace. None of you believed it at first, but then the monsters followed, kind, polite, and goofy. So many of them comically weak it made your gut roll. There were no dragons or demons or troll sized behemoths with blood and baby limbs in their teeth. Their were… dog monsters that had short term memory problems and monster families, monsters in love, monsters who were afraid, and monsters who were brave.

You saw the humanity that you were supposed to be defending come crawling up out of the broken barrier and it was…

‘A trick,’ someone had said behind you, and then the whole room was agreeing with one mind.

FourB caught your eye and his face was a pale color as his eyes glazed with angry tears. His hands were fists and he wasn’t the only one.

You waited as one for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. You watched the reels and listened to the interviews. Podcasts and internet videos never ran out. The complete account, unedited, was made available to you all, for tactical purposes, but you got caught in the details and the dialogue more than the strategies and stats.

A ten year old kid that had once been no different than you or anyone else, had done something impossible. Not with magic, not with weapons, not with prowess, or Olympic worthy agility….just…

‘A trick, it’s just a trick. These are all lies.’

One day humanity will need you to be its hero…. 

If it wasn’t a trick then what was the point of it all. What had you endured all that for? Instead of being a hero you were a what? A…waste? A mistake?

Worse.

Unnecessary.

You tasted lemons in your mouth, stronger and meaner than before. It was enough to pull you out of your memories and face Sans once more. 

“Yeah, pal, I know all about it, so don’t look like you’re offended." Sans shook his head. "it’s clever for them to have hidden away a sleeper ages or two, since you and that other bud never showed up during the treaty talks. I had to go digging a little deeper on my own.”

“I’m not a sleeper agent and I’m not someone who wants to hurt you guys, or any monsters,” you take your turn to shout back. “I’m just trying to help.”

A moment more and then Sans has his blasters out and you make your body move just enough.

  “i can’t take that risk. that creep hightower can pick up your dust himself just to teach him to go behind our backs. we’ll handle the rest.”

“How does that make you any better?” you snarl before you reach for the chair that’s close and use it to get the height you need. The bone attacks sweep harmlessly through your knees and ankles as you fall down from your high.

“i don’t need to be better, I just need to keep my brother alive, no hard feelings,” Sans answered, breathing heavier. He reached up to wipe at excess magic on his face, shining blue like sweat.  “‘sides, its the same for you guys too, we saw plenty of vides and read plenty of transcripts. i can’t blame you. how else were you supposed to turn out? we get it, you couldn’t help it.”

But that wasn’t all you were.

Did that really matter to someone as paranoid as Sans?

Yes, you had been broken and molded out of your bodily ruins into something new. Hightower had crafted you alongside the others with the singular purpose of being a defense against the monsters and it hadn’t been so terrible that you had wanted to give up along the way. You had believed him when he said you were going to be a hero. It wasn’t like you were going to ever go into the underground to invade it and kill the monsters in their beds.

You weren’t a murderer.

You were a hero.

Humanity’s hero....or you were supposed to be. 

 Another gravity attack had you slamming up against the ceiling harshly, before dropping onto the floor.You recovered with only enough time to roll away from another bone attack. He watched the way you moved and saw your own magic following you, protecting and shielding you from the worst of his attacks.

“i’m curious how you managed that,” he said while pointing at the burning magic around your hands. “i’ve not ever actually seen a human use it before. though it was a myth ‘till the peace treaty and even then, videos don’t do it justice. heh do something else.”

You tried to reach the door but it was still sealed shut with blue magic.

"I don't want to fight you, Sans," you shouted. 

“why not? i’m giving you what you’ve always wanted, a monster to attack and go all out against, you would just be defending yourself if you attacked now, come on, be a hero,” Sans called.

The goading made you grimace, but you force you back to straighten. When you don’t move San’s face falls. The grin is gone and his hands drop out of his pockets to hang loose at his sides. He couldn’t be an easier target.

“not gonna do it? how….noble, or maybe you’re just lacking determination.”

He was wrong.

You felt your heart and all the magic you once called aura surge around you, swelling up to meet his, maybe not as extensive, but just as resolute. You hadn’t missed how the tingle in your mouth had dulled. He was running out. The sweat was another clue.

Four different blasters came up fast and went off at the same time, and then another four at different angles. You watched without moving, feeling the damage they did to your heart as you refused to move.

Determination lacking?

You?

A dozen different bones all passed through you, some hitting, others missing as you stood firm in your place. A third attack barely connected but you took the full force of it.

“…heh…you….giving up then, didn’t take long.”

The next blast clearly missed and it was so transparent you didn’t even dignify it with a flinch. His attacks were slower. He was telegraphing more. The patterns were becoming less complex. Was that because of his decision or because he was running low on reserves of magic?

Your soul was battered but it didn’t take any more damage from another gravity shift or the bones or the blasters. Your body hit the ceiling then the floor, hard enough that you knew there would be bruises in the morning. You pushed yourself up onto your hands and then your feet, pulling your magic with you in a surge of warmth. You faced Sans without flinching once more and dared him with all the power of a look, to try it again.

His eye lights were back, white and small. “you’re going to be dust at this rate, kid… just, do whatever you want now, you’re beaten up enough for it…this is what they want you to do.”

You took a step and then another. Sans lashed out with another attack and it connected, hurting as your heart soul takes the damage. 

Sans seemed startled that it actually hurt you at all, or maybe he was startled that you didn’t make a move to avoid it. There’s more sweat on his skull and it’s hard to be frightened of him anymore. His magic was thin and you don’t hate him cause yeah, years ago all you were living for was a chance to be a hero through the blood sweat and tears of a lie.

You stop close enough to touch Sans, but you keep yourself from reaching for him. You move for something in your pocket with your turn and he flinches, but you just pull out another stick of rock candy and rip off the wrapper. You twist it into your mouth and purposefully ignore the tang that told you, you were in danger from magic.

He didn’t know the significance behind the candy but he didn’t miss the meaning of the nonchalant stance you took in front of him. Most of your body’s weight shifts onto one hip and you tilt your chin up to stare down your nose at him, daring him to take out the rest of your HP points or whatever it was the monsters called it.

It was his turn and he just watches you. You feel his magic swell over and then through you, searching you, learning about you and you let him. No more barriers around your soul, there’s nothing he can’t see.

“…and here i was thinking you would be difficult to take down, didn’t know this is the reason i’d break a sweat, or are you just waiting to look your best for an attack you can’t miss with?”

Your throat is full of words and your eyes hurt but you force your mouth to move and punctuate each word with a swell of your own magic.

“I am not what they made me. I’m whatever the hell I want to be and I don’t want to be a killer.”

You take that last step, going toe to toe with Sans, staring down at him as he’s only hair shorter than you when he slouches.

And you can’t make me one.”

The magic is gone, like it was sucked out of the room. The door behind you is released from the blue magic keeping it shut and you hear it swing open all on its own. The sugar taste in your mouth is stronger as all the sour tingles dissipate.

“ok.”

You take a step back, realizing the encounter as over. “What?” you echo, feeling numb from the magical whiplash. There’s no magic left in the room and Sans isn’t sweating anymore. He looks bored if anything.

“ok,” he repeats for your benefit. “i guess that’s how it is then.”

He slid his hands into his pockets and shuffled towards the open door, turning his back to you, unguarded and open. You watch him go, barely realizing what it all means. He hadn’t wanted to kill you? Did he trust you now? What did that ok mean?

The light from the doorway was a bright white that his form cut into as Sans shuffled out. You take the steps to reach him, yanking the door back all the way only to freeze when you see Hightower there, hands clasps behind his back, glasses glaring in the bright overhead lights. His expression is as smooth as still water and just as unreadable as ever.

Hightower inclined his head in San’s direction and smiled politely, like it was a calculated emotion. (Knowing Hightower, it likely was.)

“If you are lost, sir, we can offer you a map. I assume you were able to right yourself thanks to our former employee’s efforts.”

A serpent under a flower. His voice was like the hiss of a snake.

“…yeah, something like that,” Sans mumbled, sounding bored. 

Hightower nodded. “Then I hope you have a restful evening. Unfortunately, our transportation issues have multiplied and it will be another several hours before a replacement can be procured. You’ll set out in five to seven hours. I suggest you return to your temporary lodging.”

Sans shrugged. “that’s fine.”

Sans took a step around Hightower and continued on down the rest of the hallway. There was a flicker of magic as soon as his back was to Hightower, but that was it-only a flicker.

The sight of San’s back makes your hackles rise. He just gets to walk away, after all that?

“H-hey, wait a second. We’re not done here,” you exclaim, stepping forward. You weren’t satisfied with a simple ‘ok’ after all that.    

But as soon as you’re close enough Hightower reaches out and grabs your elbow. You felt his fingers dig and you’re jerked back. Glancing over your shoulder you can see his eyes from behind the glasses, peering back at you with a hard look-a look that you’ve been bucking for years.

“Where do you think you’re going with your health so low?”

“Let go of me, old man.”

You shook hard and he let go of your elbow, but it’s not by choice. You catch the grimace on his face and it makes your heart throb a bit with vindictive pride. His days of holding you back are over.

When you turn back you see the look on San’s face for only an instant before he’s gone. With a simple shortcut he’s gone, leaving you with an impression and too many questions.

Uck

“SevenA.”

You turned back but didn’t let Hightower reach for you again. He didn’t move, already knowing which one of you was the stronger force.

“You’re in no state to stand in front of the others. Go sleep it off.”

“You telling me what to do?”

“Don't embarrass yourself. You’re one encounter away from dropping.”

It’s been years since he last saw you in action, but it’s not been long enough for either of you to forget.

Your voice comes out low, each word enunciated with purpose. “I’m only dropping if I want to.”

There was a comment on his tongue but he swallowed it back and held it behind his teeth. You watched Hightower study you for a moment more like one predator watching another.

“Then so be it. Do as you wish.”

Breaking off first, Hightower turned back around and headed off into the media room to see to all the red and yellow error messages left flashing.

With your soul burning inside your chest you ran down the end of the hall and turned sharply into the stairwell leading up to the tower’s uppermost levels. The elevators only went so far, but you knew the stairs would take you there, to where you needed to go.

The door to outside slammed open and you stumbled out onto the roof, feeling the sting of early morning wind on your face. It ripped your hair out of its curl and sent it dancing.

It tasted sweet.

The morning was a blue so dark it was nearly black, but then the sky cracked open like the yoke of an egg and brilliant yellow light bled into the sky. Reds and yellows chased away the purple dawn as the sunrise turned blinding in the sky.

You felt the moisture on your face and taste the rock candy left in your mouth. The wind made your hair dance.

No one can hear you breath, no one can hear you inhale, no one can hear you think so far up in the sky. Thirty stories up in the air, no one else was around you.

One day humanity will need you to be its hero…. 

this is what they want you to do

a monster to attack and go all out against…. come on, be a hero.

You grab the railing and pull yourself up, leaning over the edge as far as you dare. When you scream into the wind your voice is swallowed right up, but your souls still swells in a hurricane of emotions that leaves you laughing.

“I’m whatever the hell I want to be and I’m going to be good, goddamn it! I’m going to be good!”


 

Sans stalled in the hallway outside their rooms and Stretch froze the same way. The two of them looked like mirrored deer caught in the headlights of oncoming traffic. Sans was the one who moved first, since he had instigated the deer-stare off.

“hey.”

Stretch nodded back. “hey.”

The tone was painfully similar even if the voice was a little different.

Sans glanced to the dorm room doors where the rest of the monsters were staying while at the Embassy. If Stretch’s Blue was anything like Sans’ Papyrus it would be a safe guess to assume the energetic battery of vigor was recharging.

For a moment Sans wondered if Stretch read to his brother, or if it was the other way around. The pair of them were the opposite, with flipper personalities and powers, but not flipped ages. Blue was the older brother to Stretch just like how Sans was the older brother to Papyrus.

“you were missed,” Stretch said, sounding only mildly convincing. Sans doubted he cared.

Sans answered with a shrug first. “‘was busy.”

“huh.”

Stretch nodded and then turned away, heading towards his room. When he turned Sans could see the book tucked under his arm. It wasn’t a science text or book on theory. There was something cute and childlike on the cover that suited Stretch as much as a topcoat suited a watermelon.

A minute later and Sans heard the door click in to place behind Stretch. From inside Blue started to speak, sounding as energetic as ever.

Maybe Papyrus was still awake.

Sans found the door and tried for the handle. It wasn’t locked, which made Sans frown. He let himself in and paused only once he heard the snores from in the dark. He looked until he saw the longer bed in the back where his brother lay, tangled in his sheets and loudly sleeping.

On the bedside table his phone was plugged into the wall to charge, but every so often it lit up with an alert or notification. His brother was so cool. Of course he had a ton of fans and friends.

Sans close the door behind him and locked it before taking a shortcut straight back to his bedroom. He wobbled a little and then fell backwards, lightheaded from the rush of magic while still burning fumes.

Absently he played with the drawstring to his hoodie while he waited for his head to settle. He had spent more of himself on flashy tricks and hadn’t realized how much that took out of him. It had been a long time since he last had to try.

He wondered if Stretch would have done any better if their roles had been swapped.

“…probably knot,” Sans muttered to himself while staring at the knot he had made at the end of his hoodie drawstring. He laughed to himself, but there was no one to hear it.

Whatever.

Tomorrow was a new day and he needed to sleep. 

Sans tied another knot at the end of his other drawstring and compared it to the first string, then undid both of them before re-knotting them, one after the other. 

He was tired.

Sans climbed onto the edge of his bed and turned around to toe of his slippers before reaching for his phone. Papyrus had uploaded another story Sans hadn't seen. There were some other photos too. 

He needed to sleep.

Sans played the movie, even as the lights in his room turned off from their timer and the clock ticked on. One minute turned into two, and one movie turned into three. 

He really needed to sleep. 

'Just one more photo set.' 

Nyhahah, look at this magnificent taco I got to eat today-what's that? You don't think it's a taco? Clever human, you are right. It is indeed no mere taco but in fact a legendary friendship taco! Behold the magnificence of the chocolate. Taste the friendship!

Notes:

It's up! I had meant t publish this last night but didn't get home until waaaaay late, so I did it first thing this morning. Typically, I want to be publish weekly updates on Friday night/Saturday morning.

A Sans chapter. I'm curious who thinks his actions are justified and who thinks they aren't. You get a bit more insight into reader/MC too and what it would say if you checked their stats. The first draft didn't have San's reaction after the encounter but I thought it was important to show where he is coming from and what he is dealing with. He's been topside for over five years with his brother and they've changed a bit. (There is a reason one of the 'relationship' tags is GEN because these boys need to bond more.)

Hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 3: Sunshine Riptide 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

(Blueberry’s POV Chapter….mostly)

Sans finally decided to join the others down in the parking garage ten minutes after the first announcement had gone out. Everyone else, including lazybones Papy-er Stretch , managed to make it to the parking garage within five minutes, but it was obvious Sans had meandered, considering his obvious love of shortcut magic.  

Even Hightower and his assistant, the guy who never talked, (what was his name?) were downstairs and ready. The only one missing was….

“IS SHE COMING DOWN SOON?” Blueberry asked, as soon as Hightower finished with his customary morning greetings. 

“Ah, SevenA will be joining us momentarily. She had an eventful early morning and a physician needed to sign her off,” Hightower replied in an off the cuff tone. His eyes were focused on the screen of his touch phone, idly scrolling with his thumb to read more of the virtual document. He glanced up to gauge Blue’s expression before adding, “It’s standard procedure for the humans, nothing to worry about.” 

“IF YOU SAY SO.”

Hightower stepped away to make a call that removed him several paces from the group and the tour grade bus that had been repaired in time for the group’s use. 

While it was oversized and cumbersome, the bus had won out over the smaller shuttle due to the nebulous time frame of their tasks. If it was a job assured to be over in a week, the van would be fine, but the timeline for tracking down renegade brothers from different universes as well as the human rift creator was indeterminate. 

Papyrus was excited to share the tour bus with his new friends, recounting for each of them the other busses he had visited and used when on his goodwill tours or when he dropped in to see celebrities. The bus would have more than enough room for all five of them, plus the new brothers whenever they were picked up.

“….worried?”

Blueberry almost jumped at the sound of his brother’s voice, but merely flinched. “TH-THERE IS NOTHING I SHOULD BE WORRIED ABOUT. WE FINALLY HAVE OUR TRANSPORTATION. WHY DO YOU ASK IF I’M WORRIED?”

“…because I know you. it’s the girl from yesterday, yeah?” 

“SH-SHE HAS A NAME,” Blue stuttered, turning a light shade of blue under his eye sockets thanks to the slip on his magic. He was flustered and even people who weren’t his brother could tell probably. “BUT I-I’M NOT WORRIED JUST…I DON’T KNOW WHY BUT I FEEL NERVOUS. NO I’M ANXIOUS! I’M JUST ANXIOUS TO GET THIS TRIP STARTED…WITH HER. SPECIFICALLY WITH HER I THINK AND-OH, UH, PLEASE DON’T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, PAPS. I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT IS EITHER.” 

“you don’t think I don’t recognize what’s going on here?”

“OF COURSE YOU DO, I JUST TOLD YOU I WAS ANXIOUS TO GET STARTED.”

Stretch tilted his head at an angle and watched his brother openly, encouraging Blueberry’s blush to grow darker. “…if you say so.”

“I DO SAY SO. MWEH HEH HE.” It was a nervous laugh bit Pa- Stretch smiled easy and then reached into his pockets for a cigarette and lighter. 

When Sans arrived he hung out for only a couple of minutes before ducking inside the bus to scope out the sleeping arrangements and claim one for himself. His HP was fine but his magic was lower than it normal was after a couple of shortcuts. 

Papyrus’ voice was loud and booming as he climbed up the steps, boasting about his inside knowledge on the best bunks on a bus for monsters and humans. Stretch didn’t go far, but he rounded the back end of the bus to duck out of sight while he smoked, knowing that humans were still sensitive to things that monsters weren’t. 

Blue shuffled from one foot to the next, waiting like it was the only thing left for him to do. He didn’t have friends like this world’s Papyrus or know people like this world’s Sans knew people. Stretch didn’t seem to mind the solitude and the humans who were managing their stay in this weird backwards world were…stiff and unapproachable. Blue might have been willing to extend his friendship to the both of them at first purely for the fact that they were doing so much for him and his brother, but Hightower and White…whatever his name was, the both of them were pretty closed off even by normal human standards. The people at the restaurants and museums were nice enough but… ah, it was starting to get lonely. 

There was a sound from the elevator and then you were there, stepping out alongside another woman dressed in all white with the red cross patch on her shirt pocket. Blue noticed that second to the scowl on your face. You were listening to the nurse looking lady berate you on something.

Before he knew what he was doing Blue started to jog over to you, calling out your name. When you recognize him the scowl softens into an honest smile and it’s almost enough to make Blue trip. 

In addition to that soft smile your hair was poofier, not as curled, and you were wearing aviators. Oh, and instead of the clothes from yesterday, well, maybe they were the same, Blue didn’t really remember that well, but instead of a jacket you had a big, soft looking, green sweater tucked into the front of your black jeans. It looked soft to the touch and that was really the only, ONLY, reason Blue was tempted to-to…to…???!!!

“Good morning Blueberry.” You pushed up your shades and Blue saw the way the corners of your eyes creased the go along with your smile. A perfect match. 

“GOOD MORNING TO YOU TO. DID YOU HAVE A GOOD REST LAST NIGHT. HUMANS NEED PLENTY OF SLEEP, EVEN MORE SO THAN MONSTERS I’VE BEEN TOLD.”

“Ah yeah, I forgot you mentioned in your timeline there were no human visits in the underground. But yeah, I had a great sleep, a little cold, but good enough for me.”

The nurse beside you made a frustrated sound that only cause you to laugh and scratch at your cheek with your free hand. The other hand carried a small duffle. 

“Falling asleep on the sky deck shouldn’t be considered a ‘good sleep,’” the nurse lady quipped.

“Thanks for that information, Julie. I’ll remember it for next time.”

When you glanced back over at the nurse she only huffed again and then trust out a paper bag, marked with messy black sharpie notes. “Don’t forget to take these until those bruises fade. Don’t skip meals.”

“You got it doc,” you sigh, taking the bag and nodding towards the bus. “I’m heading out now. You gonna give me a clean bill of health or not?” 

“I can’t hold you back-”

“Great!” you interrupt, smiling and reaching to throw an arm around Blueberry’s shoulders. “I’m checking out with my friend then, bye!”

He can feel the texture of your sweater right away and it was, really, just as soft and warm as he thought. You’re not much taller than him, and that’s likely in part due to the heels on your boots, but he has a hard time looking up at your face, knowing you’re laughing so close to him.

“I slept great last night, no matter what she says, by the way. But what about you? You and your brother get settled alright?”

Blue can’t smell nearly as well as a human can, but thanks to magic he has that sense, if a bit muted, and the smoke and soap smell from your sweater is almost as comfortable as the touch.

“WE SLEPT GREAT, BUT THAT IS NOT NEW NEWS AS WE ALWAYS SLEEP GREAT. I AM MOST EXCITED TO SET OUT ON THIS ROAD TRIP ADVENTURE. I WAS ON THE INTERNET LAST NIGHT AND PA-EH STRETCH AND I FOUND SOME GAMES WE COULD TRY DEPENDING ON WHO DRIVES. HAVE YOU SEEN THE INSIDE OF A PARTY BUS BEFORE?”

You laugh again, and it’s so stinking cute, especially with the smile and matching eye crease that Blue just can’t get enough of. It’s almost enough to trip his heart into a friendly encounter, but one of the first things monsters who lived among humans had to learn was the importance of consent with encounters. Humans couldn’t trigger them without their own magic, and since monster are all made with magic, encounters were naturally just another part of their culture for all things ranging from fights to fli-fl- flirting . But consent was needed before an encounter and to ignore that is considered just straight up rude.

“Yeah, Blue, I’ve seen the inside of a party bus before, but it wasn’t anything to write home about. It was around New Years and my friends and I were all pretty sloshed. Fun times, but the hangover was not my favorite. Is it really a party bus or is it supposed to be a tour bus?” 

“I…I DON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.” 

“Tour busses are better for sleeping in and living while on the road. Party busses have st-” Your eyes go wide enough for him to catch the way you stop your own words and then self correct. “They have lots of open space to dance and party, but not sleep or relax.”

“I LIKE DANCING! CAN WE STILL DANCE ON A NORMAL TOUR BUS?”

“Yeah, you can probably dance wherever you want to, but yeah I’m sure there’s enough room to move a little bit.”

“You’re here.”

Blue and You look up like one to see Hightower walking over with his phone still in the air. Blue doesn’t miss the way your arm over his shoulders goes a little tense, like a bowstring being stretched and readied. But your face is smooth and natural, hiding your discomfort. Somehow knowing that you weren’t friends with Hightower made Blue feel better about not wanting to be friends with the human.  

“Checking in for the morning I guess, boss man. You need me for anything else?” 

“Considering you’ve managed to get the last of your affairs in order, the rest of your compatriots are ready to set out. Sans and Papyrus already know where they need to go first, but you’ll be taking point on guiding them with more specifics and details as they are made available,” Hightower said, pocketing his phone to give you his full attention. 

To Blue it looked less like respect and more like caution, the way someone watched something dangerous but not volatile. 

“I know that much.”

“Sans and Papyrus know this as well, but to remind you, when you encounter the subject Red and Edge you’ll have final call on integrating them to help with finding FourB or bringing them back here to debrief.” 

You whistle low and tilt your chin up. “You trusting me with that call?”

“If you make the wrong one the onboard computer system can alert us in case of emergencies. We don’t need daily updates but once a week, minimum, we would appreciate the contact as well as any updates on the situation regarding other potential versions of the brothers.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure. If that’s all, we can head out.” You tug and Blue follows without encouragement, happy to still be in contact.

From the back of the bus Stretch emerged, dropping the burned down but of his cigarette onto the concrete. You watched him grind it with his heel before slipping your arm off Blue and gesture to the stairs leading up. Blue is proud about how he keeps his complains to himself once he feels the loss of your contact. 

“You first.”

Blue glanced back at his brother, dragging his heels like a lazybones and huffed. It wouldn’t make any sense to wait up for Stretch and you were right behind him, so Blue pulled himself up  via the railings and hopped up the last few steps.

“OH WOWZERS, THIS IS PRETTY NEAT. LOOK AT ALL THIS ROOM.” He turned back around to look down the stairs at you climbing up with Stretch bringing up the rear. 

Sans was in the driver’s seat, but his heels were up on the dash and the chair was stretched out like a recliner. Papyrus looked up when he heard Blue and pulled open several cabinets around the kitchenette. There were a couple cake mix boxes left out on the counter next to the microwave.

“Looks like they don’t expect us to live off the fast food.”

“such a shame,” Stretch sighed, rubbing at his jaw. “i could go for some greasy fast food right about now. surface food taste so much fresher, don’t think i’ll get tired of it.”  

“WE WILL NEED TO RESTOCK SOMETIME SOON IF WE ALL PLAN ON EATING TOGETHER. THERE ISN’T A LOT OF FOOD PACKAGED AND READY FOR SO MANY PEOPLE,” Papyrus explained. 

“Did you all eat?” you called out, looking around at everyone while the door shut behind Stretch who had finally climbed up the stairs. 

The lights under the dash started to blink on their own and the wheel rotated the same moment the engine turned on. Sans blinked one eye open, watching the onboard AI computer Hightower had mentioned begin to take over. From the dashboard a small monitor popped up with a pre programmed GPS route, highlighted in red, leading out of the city New Ebott. 

“There’s not a lot left for us to do it seems,” Stretch commented around a yawn. 

The monitor blinked with a message: BEGIN TRIP? SELECT YES - NO

Stretch leaned over to touch the YES with his finger but glanced back over his shoulder at the rest of the cabin. “…this okay?” he asked, seemingly unsure. 

You stepped up, placing one hand on the back of Stretch’s chair and nodded. “The sooner we get started the sooner we can take a break for burgers. There’s a couple of pretty good places along this route we can pause at.”

“IT WILL LET US PAUSE OR…OR CHANGE THE COURSE?” Blue asked, taking a side step closer to your side. 

You leaned closer to the screen and push YES before Stretch and then the bus starts to rumble as the wheel turned on its own, pointing it out as it inched forward. While the bus moved on its own you clicked a few things and the brothers watched you select a few option. Whenever you made a course correction it would ask for a confirmation but nothing more.

“I’ll be able to edit our trip, yeah. But for now it’s locked in and I know even with the lighter morning traffic, it’ll be a couple hours before we’re out of the city, maybe more considering how big this thing is,” you say. “But aside from keeping an eye on the road for a good stop, I think we’re free to do as we please. Has anyone picked out their bunk?”

“…bunk?” Stretch dully echoed. 

“IT IS WHAT I WAS TELLING YOU ABOUT, OTHER ME,” Papyrus exclaimed, jumping away from the cake mix and jogging down the center hallway before turning around and spreading his arms out, gesturing to the two rows of beds built into the walls. “BEHOLD THE ULTIMATE BONDING EXPERIENCE. THERE ARE SIX BEDS FOR EACH OF US, THREE ON THIS SIDE, THREE ON THAT SIDE. AND LOOK HOW THEY ARE MONSTER SIZED FOR EACH OF US.” 

San’s loud snore punctuated the silence once Papyrus finished speaking. 

“THAT BROTHER OF MINE!” Papyrus exclaimed, flushing lightly in embarrassment for his brother.

 Stretch grinned, looking on the exchange fondly. It almost reminded Blue of something that might have happened between them, but with Stretch being the one that dozes off instead of Sans.   

“Let him have his nap,” you interject in a neutral tone of voice less friendly than when you had been talking to them about the gps. “He sounds like he tired himself out last night.”

Sans’ snores went on uninterrupted.  

Papyrus let out a forced breath and crossed his arms over his ribs, nodding thoughtfully. “BROTHER DID COME BACK TO HIS ROOM EARLIER THAN USUAL, THOUGH I NOTICED HIS MAGIC WAS ALMOST DEPLETED. MAYBE HE SPENT TOO MUCH OF IT RUNNING AROUND THE CITY AND TIRED HIMSELF OUT WITHOUT MEANING TO.”

“Taking shortcuts can tire your brother out that much?” you asked with an even flatter, dryer voice. It almost sounded disbelieving. 

“MY BROTHER IS FAIRLY COMPETENT WHEN HE WANTS TO BE, BUT THAT IS UNUSUAL. WHEN HE IS AWAKE I CAN ASK HIM ABOUT IT, BUT YOU ARE RIGHT ABOUT LETTING HIM SLEEP. I WILL LET HIS LAZINESS SLIDE THIS ONCE.” Papyrus uncrossed his arms and dropped them to his sides as a new idea made him smile. “INSTEAD, WE SHOULD ALL TAKE THIS TIME TO FORMALLY EXCHANGE CONTACT INFORMATION, WHICH WE WERE NOT ABLE TO DO WITH YOU LAST NIGHT AFTER TACOS, Y/N.” 

Blue yanked his phone out first, screen already at the NEW CONTACTS page with a blinking icon waiting for new information to be typed in. You smiled at Blue while Papyrus shuffled through his pockets looking for his own phone before coming over. 

When you handed you phone back to Blue it was with a wink that made his fingers numb and clumsy around his phone. He knew his brother was watching but he didn’t care. He had to step aside so Papyrus could hand over his phone to you, but he stayed as close as possible, too sensitive to your scent and your soul’s vibrations to stray too far.

Last night, well before tacos, when he had found you in the hallway Blue had been surprised by your kindness and casual kindness, but more than that, the echo of your soul that met his was… nice . It wasn’t an encounter so he couldn’t tell, but it was almost like meeting another monster with magic that wore a lot of their personality on their sleeve. He had been able to pick up on a number of things, no doubt like his brother had. (Stretch was a notorious snoop when it came to new people.) 

Nice.

He wished there was a better word for it and he blamed himself, not a good enough vocabulary. But Nice…nice…yeah. Just nice in spite of so much. You were sweet and easy going. You were generous and honest in wanting to help him with his silly little problem. And dang if you weren’t terribly cute for a human. 

Blue remembered your arm on his shoulder, the warmth and the scent, and he felt his soul throb a little faster. Really cute! 

It was such a nice feeling and he didn’t have many friends in this new surface world, but he knew he had wanted to make you one of them as soon as possible. Taking with you over tacos had been his favorite activity since surfacing in this dimension. He hadn’t wanted it to end. 

Something in his hands shook and he glanced down to see a new text message under his notifications highlighted in blue. He clicked and it unfolded open with a small pip sound.

 You: Glad to get connected ;) 

He blinked and then looked up, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was color on his face. You were looking over at him and winked once more before dropping your phone into your pocket.  

“Stretch, I don’t have your number yet,” you say, looking away. By the time Stretch gets his phone out and turns it on Blueberry thinks his face is back to normal and almost everyone is connected. You didn’t ask Sans for his information, but since he was asleep that wasn’t surprising. 

“So, now that we’re mostly connected, you guys up for a team meeting?” you ask. Your thumbs were hooked into the belt loops of your jeans. 

“TEAM MEETING, LIKE WITH SUPERHEROES OR-OR A SPACE STATION CREW?” Papyrus exclaimed.

“Well, we are sorta a team, aren’t we?” 

“WITH A TEAM NAME?” Blue asked.

“I mean, we can bring that up and decide on it later, but…we can just be a team without a name for now if you don’t mind. Seeing as how we don’t have to worry about driving, there’s nothing to stop us from getting some things out in the open.”    

“SHOULDN’T WE WAIT UNTIL SANS IS AWAKE TO INCLUDE HIM?” Papyrus asked. 

You shrugged. “If you wanna do that it’s fine, but we already had a chat about it last night and I mostly just wanted to catch the rest of you up to speed.”

You…and Sans had a chat last night? What had you talked about. When had that been? Was he there in the media room when you got that call? Did Sans send out that request or was he just there by chance? 

“IF WE NEED TO WE CAN JUST REPEAT IT FOR SANS LATER. I SAY WE HAVE THE MEETING. AND LOOK, THERE IS EVEN A TABLE NEXT TO THIS COUCH FOR US TO USE FOR IMPORTANT BUSINESS MEETING TALKS!”

If Blue sounds nervous its only a coincidence.

Papyrus glances back at his brother, asleep at the wheel and then slowly nods. “IF YOU SAY SO. I AM, AFTER ALL, AN EXCELLENT NOTE TAKER AND THE PERFECT PERSON TO CATCH MY BROTHER UP SHOULD HE MISS ANYTHING. YOU CAN COUNT ON THE GREAT PAPYRUS FOR THAT!” 

That somehow makes you laugh even though it wasn’t even that funny. He didn’t even strike a complimentary pose, just puffed his chest out a little. Lazy styling if ever Blue saw it. 

“Stretch?” you asked. 

You looked back over your shoulder before heading towards the table Papyrus was already seated at. He got up and followed you and Blue to the table, squeezing in next to Papyrus so the two tallest skeletons were against the window wall.

“PERFECT FOR A MEETING,” Papyrus laughed, tapping his hands against the side of the table. “WHEN DO WE BEGIN?”

“I guess we can start now,” you say with another easy smile. You reached dup to remove your sunglasses and fold them over the collar of your sweater. “Let me first just start with asking you guys about what you already know about the Embassy, specifically what it used to be before the peace treaty with the monsters and humans.”

Blue and Stretch shared a look. Neither of them knew anything beyond what they had been told that first week, about it being a place that helped monster integrate into human society. 

“WASN’T IT ….USED TO HELP HUMANS FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD INTEGRATE TO LOCAL SOCIETY? THERE ARE OTHER EMBASSIES IN OTHER COUNTRIES AS WELL THAT STILL DO THAT.” 

“Yeah, and that was a really convenient cover, but I guess Sans was the only one who had access to those old documents because of his position. Um, so yeah, a long time ago, before the barrier came down you might have heard that humans didn’t know monsters were even real.” 

Blueberry shared another look with his brother, nodding along. He felt a little left out of the loop seeing the easy way Papyrus nodded along, understanding better than the two of them. 

“Yeah, that was true for almost everyone but not exactly. Hightower ran a project that was basically a domestic defense against sub terrestrials, or a…a project to help defend against another monster war or invasion.” 

Papyrus snapped his finger and gasped. “I HEARD RUMORS ABOUT THAT, AND IT WOULD MAKE SENSE. YOUR ANCESTORS WERE AT WAR WITH THE MONSTERS. I ALWAYS THOUGHT IT WAS ODD HOW FAST YOU FORGOT AND FORGAVE. SANS WOULD BE THE ONE TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THIS SIDE OF THINGS, LAZY AS HE IS.” 

“…what does that have to do with you, or were you really a part of the defense squad back then?” Stretch asked.

You wince. “Yeah, that was me. I, along with several other children, were raised and trained for the possibility of another monster invasion. We were supposed to be the first line of defense or something like that.”

“you look a little ashamed of that,” Stretch said. “but you were just doing what you thought was right to protect people, wen’t you?”   

Blue watched as the tense line of your shoulders lowered, easing up. 

“You’re not mad or….or angry that this was a secret?”

“THE KING AND QUEEN, SEPARATED AS THEY MAY BE, BOTH HAVE PLENTY OF THEIR OWN SECRETS THAT THEY KEEP FOR THE SAKE OF THEIR PEOPLE’S SAFETY, I’M SURE,” Papyrus said. “A HUMAN GOVERNMENT SHOULD BE NO DIFFERENT. I CAN TELL YOU’RE NOT A BAD PERSON WHO WANTS TO HURT MONSTER.”

You almost slipped in your seat, dropping your hands onto the table top and leaning low over it, a shocked expression pulled at your face. “Wh-what? That’s it? Just like that?” 

“IT ALSO MAKES SENSE WHY YOU WOULD BE ADDED TO THIS JOB IF YOU WERE TRAINED TO DEFEND AGAINST THE MONSTER KIND. BLUE AND STRETCH ARE EXCELLENT FRIENDS, BUT I DON’T KNOW ABOUT THIS EDGE OR RED GUY. THEY COULD BE DANGEROUS. I’M GLAD YOU ARE ON MY SIDE.” 

 “…yeah, can’t say I understand everything about this world, but that sounds about right. You don’t hate monsters or anything, do you?”

“No!” you say before anyone could worry. “Of course not.”

Stretch shrugged. “then its all fine, isn’t it?” 

“You’re really just okay with hearing that? You trust that easily?” 

“OF COURSE WE DO,” Blue exclaimed, nearly standing on his seat as he pushed up on the table. “WE SHARED FRIENDSHIP TACOS AND YOU HELPED ME FIND CANDY FOR MY BROTHER. YOU’RE NOT A BAD PERSON AND I TRUST YOU 100%.”

You glanced between the three of them, reading one expression after another, seemingly unnerved by the honesty and confession. You had been braced for less pleasant news, but that didn’t make sense to Blue. Who would be stupid enough to miss how good your soul was? That person would have to be blind or paranoid. 

“…was that it?” Stretch asked after another moment of silence.

“I mean…uh, mostly, yeah. That was the main thing, but let me finish real quick. Uh, um…yeah, hang on. There’s something else. I’m not like you guys exactly, but the kids who got labels from Hightower, FourB, SevenA, it meant that we would use magic, not to the extent that you monsters can, but we can tap into it.”

“YOU CAN USE MAGIC?!” Blue exclaimed, lighting up in delight.

You turned his way and managed a weak smile. “It’s how I know where to go to find the other Sans and Papyrus as well as anyone else I’ve met before. But there are some limitations, like I can’t use shortcut magic, since my body isn’t made from magic like yours. I can’t trigger an encounter either, but I’ve been in a few before, none of them more serious than just the friendly type.” 

You frowned and glanced back at Sans but Blue was distracted with the idea that maybe…you wouldn’t be opposed to a friendly encounter with him sometime later. You were friends so you could ask later.

“…you willing to answer some other questions we might have about you or that place, later on?” Stretch asked. He covered his mouth to yawn and nodded. 

“Of course. I’m not opposed to that.”

“then I’m going to join the lazy guy up there for a nap and I guess we can talk later.”

Blue huffed. “BROTHER YOU HAD PLENTY OF SLEEP LAST NIGHT. I SWEAR YOU ARE SUCH A LA-AH, UH…UHHHH…..” Blueberry’s face colored with magic and he could feel the sweat droplets as he caught himself. He glanced your way while Stretch and Papyrus watched on.

You raised a single brow, seemingly unaware by his almost slip up.

“A lazy bones?” you supplied, voice level. 

Blue blushed and he saw his brother color as well. Papyrus chuckled and looked away, finding the curtains fascinating while you just blinked, expression unaware. 

“Ah…maybe….um, maybe not say that to a skeleton,” Stretch chuckled, rubbing at the back of his head.

“Oh shoot, sorry. Was that rude?” you asked, sounding worried.

“not rude exactly,” Stretch explained.

Papyrus shuffled closer and whispered loud enough to hear in your ear, ‘it’s sometimes considered lewd to say.”

But your face didn’t flush. You just nodded once and apologized before sliding out, letting Blue and Papyrus get out themselves. 

Stretch hung around a moment longer while Blueberry and Papyrus decided to explore the video games that were set up in front of the master bed in the back. Blue turned to you and tugged at your wrist, inviting you along and you obediently follow.

It was hours later when you emerged again, leaving the pair of loud skeletons to their own devices on the excuse that you needed to use the bathroom. So wrapped up in his game Blue never noticed how long you stayed gone, or how after the bathroom you drifted up to the front of the bus to watch Stretch play Tetris on his phone.

“So….sorry about what I said earlier, didn’t know that was actually a thing.”

“oh, it’s not, not really.” 

“Wh-what?” Your voice was a little tight at being seemingly tricked and it was enough to make Stretch chuckle. “Then why did Papyrus say that to me then? Everyone else got flustered at it.” 

“well it’s not exactly a lie. It is end, but not on its own.” Stretched leaned up over the seat and met your eyes unflinchingly. “it’s only lewd when you say it.” 

“Oh, why is that?”

“cause you’re you, and a, uh… you .”

You blink once and don’t move for a minute more before leaning over, closer so that there was no way for Stretch to miss the direction of your stare. You held his gaze a moment longer before speaking.

La-zy bones.”

Notes:

The boys have a bunch of bone related nicknames and insults for each other, but once a cutie starts using those names it turns lewd. And honestly, HONESTLY, if you knew that flustered them, wouldn't you want to rattle their bones a bit more? be honest.

And for real, writing a chapter from Blue's POV is just the most fun, he's such a sweetheart and I love him to the moon and back. He's (gonna be) a good datemate. I'm not saying I have a favorite so far...

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! (For the month of October I'll be rolling along with the biweekly updates...as in two updates every week.)

Chapter 4: Sunshine Riptide 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You don’t remember napping, but you wake up on the bed behind Blueberry and Papyrus playing their video game, so you doubt you were asleep for long. The time on your phone confirms it. You get up again and stretch, sliding off the edge of the bed.

At the sound, Blueberry lets his character die so he can turn around and face you. “ARE YOU HUNGRY?” he asked.

“Famished,” you admitted ahead of another yawn. “I could go for something greasy right now. Are the others ready for lunch-er, I mean dinner? It’s still a little early but by the time we find a place to stop and order it should be fine.”

“IF FOR NO OTHER REASON I SHOULD LIKE TO STOP AND STRETCH MY LEGS A BIT. I THINK THE OTHERS WOULD APPRECIATE THE DETOR AS WELL. WE’VE MADE GOOD TIME ACCORDING TO THE GPS,” Papyrus added, properly pausing the video game instead of letting his character perish.

You stood and rubbed at your stomach through your sweater, feeling the familiar burn of hunger. Thanks to your nap you had missed lunch, but if the instant macaroni smell was anything to go by, it seems several of the brothers had fed themselves.

When you stepped into the hallway you could see straight up to the front where the driver’s seat was empty. Stretch was still playing a game in the passenger’s seat but Sans was missing.

There weren’t a ton of places on the bus for him to hide, but the bathroom was empty and so were all the beds. There were steps up to the roof and the hatch was left cracked partway. You could smell the wind as your bus rolled on down the winding road off the mountain city.

You updated the GPS, inputting your destination for a grease trap burger joint and found something that suited your tastes. It updated your projected arrival time, setting it back an hour, but you didn’t plan on staying that long.

Beside you, Stretched watched you make the changes and caught your frowning. “i think its fine if we stay late. there’s no rush.”

You glanced his way and there’s a subtle, almost unnoticeable stiffening to his shoulders as he remembers, no doubt, the last thing you said to him when you were by his chair. It’s enough to make you smirk and that set off another blush he hides by looking away. When Blueberry blushes the color is a light blue, but Stretch’s color is closer to yellow or orange if he’s blushing really hard.

“Oh,” you hummed, enjoying the way he watched you wearily. It was cute.

"are all humans so brazen or just you?” he huffed, chancing another glance over his shoulder. “tibia honest I feel like you’re just being mean but that’s okay, it takes a lot more than that to get under my skin.”

“Don’t.”

“what? don’t tell me you can’t stomach a few jokes.” His grin smacked of sweet revenge. “you were the one who had a bone to pick with me first.”

“You’re not funny.”

“no, just humorous.”

You groaned loudly, hating how easy it was for the puns to just roll off the preverbal tongue for Stretch. They were just so bad and you, you…didn’t want to laugh. They were bad! They really were.

“and here i was thinking i’d be the one cracking up. didn’t mean to rattle your bones, sweetheart.”

Stop!” you gasped, your face red no doubt. There was a laugh somewhere that wanted to be released, but you trapped it behind an angry expression. It only served to make Stretch’s smile grow. “You’re terrible. The worst.”

Stretch leaned closer to you and it seemed like he might be in a bit more forgiving move so you didn’t pull away. “you know what’s even better than a good pun?” he asked.

“I don’t think I want to know.”

His grin was downright mischievous. “it's watching someone get upset and bluster out loud. you remember how Blue got last night? couldn’t ask for a better reaction.”

And wasn’t that just what you gave him?

“….Horrible. Utterly horrible,” you huffed, leaning back away and turning back towards the ladder leading to the roof. Behind you Stretch set down his phone and stood.

“I think the original is up there,” he called out to you.

“Good, I’ve been meaning to chew his ear off for something.”

“he don’t have ears, honey.”

When you flipped Stretch off over your shoulder it only made him laugh louder.

The stairs up to the roof are easy enough to scramble up. The hatch was left open ajar but still required a strong arm to push open the rest of the way. The hatch cuts into the wind draft and you’re reminded of the dawn on top of the Embassy building. Like before your hair is pulled apart and left a mess.

Whatever.

You saw Sans before you were even up, seemingly passed out with one arm over his eyes. It’s not enough to fool you. His magic is spilling and cautious around him like a nervous aura. He had been given plenty of time to think about what he wanted to say to you. This encounter was past due.

“I know you’re not sleeping.” You climbed the rest of the way up but don’t stand. Instead you get on your knees and crawl over until you’re close enough to swat at his skull. “Come on.”

Sans lifts one arm up over his eye sockets and you see the blue light before his arm drops again. “…i can hear ya just fine like this,” he grumbled. With the wind it was almost too soft for you to pick up.

With a scowl you reach for his jacket and yank hard enough for the rest of him to follow. You pulled him up in spite of his protests and turned him around before pushing him back. He catches himself on the heels of his hands and braces against the roof, watching you wearily.

“I’m not pulling you into a stupid encounter or anything,” you admit with a huff. “Don’t look so constipated.”

“…humans shouldn’t be able to initiate encounters.”

“I can hit you just fine without the formal ceremony, Sans, don’t try your luck.”

There’s color on his skull face blooming like blood under skin but it doesn’t match his blank expression. He’s not flustered but maybe you managed to embarrass him at least.

“what are you doing up here then?”

“We’re going to have a talk about what went down last night, if that wasn’t obvious.”

He blinked and the gesture seemed owlish with his purposefully neutral face. “i….don’t have anything to say.”

“Not even an apology you smug bastard?” you scoffed.

“sorry.”

You bite back the worse of your frustrations. “That’s really it? Just a simple sorry and you think that’s it? Good lord no wonder you don’t have any human friends.”

He tried to level an unimpressed look in your direction but couldn’t meet your eyes for longer than two seconds without having to look away. “i have plenty of human friends.”

“Not enough, by the sounds of it. Aside from the obvious, who is in high school and busy as a bee, who else are you close with that isn’t a monster?”

Its something to think about but he doesn’t dwell on it. “is that what we’re going to do up here then, just talk about me and my life choices or is there actually a point to this?”

“No, you’re right, lets go back to your attempts to dust me in a media room last night. I’m still  somewhat sore about that, after all.”

As if to emphasize your point you pushed up the oversized sleeve of your sweater far enough for him to see the purple and blue bruises blooming up and down your forearm; all the evidence from when he had reversed gravity during the fight.

You didn’t expect to hear his chuckle.

“Not funny,” you snapped.

“it was a pun and you didn’t even notice it. good one.”

“No, that was a fact and what you’re doing is deflecting. You were seriously trying to kill me there at one point.” You drop your sleeve.

“and you’re going to blame me for that even though I told you why I was doing it?”

“You thought I was some secret sleeper agent that was going to dust you and your brother in your sleep, but you checked me, I know you did. You saw my soul and everything.”

“and I let up, didn’t I? are we done now? that’s all there is to it.”

“Look, I’m not going to fixate on the whole tying to kill me bit because, honestly, that’s secondary to the goading.”

“that’s just battle banter, monsters say that sort of stuff all the time during an encounter, it’s traditional.”

a monster to attack and go all out against…. come on, be a hero.

The memory of his words made your gut roll again. It was too personal to let go of, and even with the shallow sleeps stolen in between waking hours, the words from that fight still echoed in your heart. They had come from Sans but they felt like something you innermost demons would taunt you with. 

It hadn’t been an easy thing to get over. You had been in and out of therapy for years thanks to a lot of the trauma you tried to pack up and forget. Chief among those issues was your struggle with identity in the wake of the peace….a peace you hadn’t helped with. A peace that your very existence jeopardized.

There were others who took it worse, a lot worse.

Out of the twenty eight of you who made the cut, over nine of them had-

!

You inhaled sharply and fumble with the pockets of your pants for something. There’s no rock candy but you had a bag of sour patch kid gummies to tear into and start munching. As the sour sugar flavor spread through your mouth you’re equipped with an artificial clarity, the kind that the presence of magic was suppose to bring. There was no magic apart from Sans’ and he wasn’t exactly letting it roll in light of last night’s activities. You know better, but your body doesn’t and it’s been broken and remade too many times to fix without a bit of cheating.

The dark thoughts cleared.

For the moment.

“…you good?”

“Of course,” you scoffed, recovering like the panic attack wasn’t weird. “I was hungry.”

“…sure.” He didn’t sound like he believed you but he wasn’t going to press the issue.

You swallowed and threw a couple more candies into your mouth to suck clean. “You said something about being a hero. Do you remember that? You wanted me to hit you and you were giving me a reason for it.”

“like i said, it’s just battle banter.”

“Yeah, but your battle banter was real specific. You knew what would have the best shot of triggering me or tricking me into going apeshit on your sorry ass.”

“skeletons don’t have an ass.”

“No, you just are an ass,” you scoffed, stuffing the empty candy packaging back into your pockets. “Don’t be purposefully obtuse. You wanted me to hurt you.”

“nah, just wanted you to try.”

“Look buddy, I’ve been around enough depressed assholes to recognize a death wish when I see one.” Sans opened his mouth to refute you, maybe even with a joke, but you rushed to cover his words with yours. “You’re not that stupid, so don’t go off on me with anymore of your lies, bonehead. You knew what I was, even if I wasn’t an active agent. If a ten year old was able to do all that on their own in the underground, what do you think someone twice that old with a lifetime of experience and magic could do?”

The question hung out in the open between the two of you. The wind was still whipping your hair up and around, even as the bus started to turn off the highway, taking an exit towards the burger joint you had selected earlier.

Sans watched you and, to his credit, he didn’t shortcut out soon as it got hard. He didn’t look away either. You got the impression that maybe he had never considered the fact that what he had done really was  suicidal…and not because he wasn’t a smart guy. It was something you had seen more than once.

When the barrier went down what happened to the monsters who built their whole life’s purpose around an ideal or job that was now….useless?

It would have been easier to hate him and see him as a villain, but just like Sans had looked into your soul and checked you out, you had done the same. And as much as you wanted to paint him the villain, you knew better.

Poor guy was more of a mess than even he knew. 

Finally Sans said something.

“heh, you wouldn’t have dusted me, and if on the off chance you actually had, then the others would have discovered it and known what to do.”

“And you were willing to risk your life on that, weren’t you?”

He watched you, eye lights steady and unwavering. He wasn’t going to agree with you but he also wasn’t about to lie to you and refute it. His shoulders dropped and he leaned back on his hands even more, staring up at the open sky as the bus drove on.

“so, what about it, what ‘cha gonna do about it?” he asked.

Good question.

What did you want to do about it? You were still upset about the whole encounter, but…like the way a mother was upset about a child’s temper tantrum. Sans wasn’t a child. Whatever he was, he was still an adult and his actions had consequences that impacted you and others like you.

You weren’t ready to just…forgive and forget, but you didn’t feel like holding a self righteous grudge for the heck of it. You were never going to be the person  that set herself on fire just to keep someone else warm again, but you couldn’t ignore someone hurting if there was something you could do to help.

“Well, are you going to attack me in my sleep or pick a fight with me when you feel like it?” you asked after enough time had passed.

His shoulders hiked and then dropped in a stilted sort of shrug. “hah, too much trouble. you don’t have to worry about me like this, i know where we stand.”

“I guess that’s a good place to start,” you sighed.

Glancing over the side of the bus you could see the colored roof tiles of the grease trap you were heading towards. The bus was slowing down and moving into the turning lane to the parking lot already.

“…a good place to start for what?” Sans asked.

Even with the turning, the bus was going slow enough for you to stand up on your own and not fall over. You leaned forward and offered Sans your hand to help him stand but he just stared at it, even as the bus went still and parked.

“Come one, it’s just a hand. I’m not saying we have to be best friends or bosom buddies, but at least for as long as we’re on this trip, wouldn’t you want to try making a new friend?”

“…you want to be my friend.”

You pulled your hand back a bit. “I want to try. I’m not gonna promise you anything, ‘cause like with any decent friendship, it should be something built mutually. If you want a friendship, then sure, I’m willing to try. But I’m not going to get butt-hurt if you say no.”

“Oh, well I only assumed you couldn’t get butt-hurt when working with a bone-afide ass, or was it the other way around?”

Sans reached for your hand the same moment you let out a frustrated groan. “I swear, if you’re going to be like this I’m ordering you a salad, stars help me.”

“Didn’t Stretch already warn you?” Sans asked, standing and lumbering around you to the edge of the bus and staring down. When he glanced back he wiggle his shoulders. “I’m just tryin ta rattle ya bones a bit, don’t get so cracked up over it.”

The he was gone with a shortcut. You jogged to the side of the bus and glared down over the side to see Sans smiling innocently up and waving.

“Stretch already used that joke!” you shouted down at him.

“It was my joke first.  If you don’t wanna ketchup, you better scramble.”

Then he winked out of existence with another shortcut, likely taking him all the way into the burger joint, leaving you to scramble down the stairs the long way.

“Stupid numbskull throwing in an egg joke at a burger joint. Stupid, stupid…”

Downstairs the rest of the skeletons had elected to wait for you, (or they were either too lazy or too kind to leave without you). It sounded like they were eager to get out and stretch their legs almost more than eat. When you asked about ordering take out to get moving faster Stretch answered you.

“lets just enjoy the change of scenery.”

So that’s how you ended up at a table with four different skeletons and eight orders of burger or hotdog combo meals and just as many sides. The skeletons could eat almost as much as you and that wasn’t news, considering what you knew about some monsters, but it was still impressive to witness.

At least with food in their mouths they didn’t pun as much.

“Hey, stretch, what do you call a cow with no legs?”

“SANS!”

“Ground beef.”

While Papyrus whiled in the background Stretched just picked up his hotdog and tisked loudly. “Really, I don’t relish having to do this with you.”

“PAPPY, NO,” Blueberry whined.

“but it’s no big dill, is it?” sans asked. As if to drive his point home he grabbed at the dill pickle with his teeth and swallowed it whole.

soda you think you won?” Stretch scoffed before taking a drink while still holding up his hotdog.

“You’re the wurst,” you sigh, only to send both Blueberry and Papyrus off while Sans and Stretched just laughed at you accidental punning. Or maybe it was the look of horror on your face that made them both so elated.

Stupid puns!

Stupid!

 

 

As you were the one with the company card you stayed behind to pay the bill while the others went on ahead. Surprisingly, it was Stretch who insisted on hanging back and sticking close while you squared away the bill with a heavy tip that would come out of the Embassy’s pocket. It made you feel a little vindictive to know you were using their money after years of ‘frugal’ living.

“all good?” Stretch asked when you finished at the counter.

“Probably,” you answered easily, watching as he pulled the wrapper off a sucker that looked like the ones they offered to children at the hostess counter. “You got the short stick or something?”

“what?” he looked dup, eye sockets wide with curiosity.

“You’re hanging back, I just thought that meant you got the short stick or something.”

He chuckled like what you had said was something funny. “nah, nothing like that, just figured you wouldn’t mind the company.”

“Suuuuur.” Your voice came out in a lazy drawl. “And what was it you wanted out of the company?”

“why ya gotta think i want something?”

“Cause you’re not denying it.”

Stretch shrugged. “Not a fan of lying.”

He held the large, glass door open for you and you ducked under his arm to make it outside. Across the parking lot at the far end where all the spaces were empty, the bus sat parked and you could see the last of the boys climbing aboard. It seemed like Blue was the last one to make it on, and he glanced back once your way before hopping on.

“You could of fooled me. You seemed too easy going to be bad at lying.”

“i said i didn’t like it, never mentioned being bad at it honey.”

You whistled low and teasing, stuffing your hands into the back pockets of your pants as you walked side by side with the slower skeleton. Stretch seemed to be taking him time in crossing the parking lot.

“I’ll have to watch myself around you in the future.”

“doubtful.”

You’re not sure what he means by that so you just show Stretch a look that causes him to chuckle.

“don’t sweat it, sweets, its just…i ain’t planning on putting you through your paces or anything. i’ve got more sense than that.”

You almost missed a step but caught yourself before Stretch could notice. Did he know about Sans? Did he suspect? Were you reading too much into it? Stretch was the alternate universe’s version of Sans, with the same lazy disposition and easy going outward appearance. You hadn’t see it for yourself, but you were willing to bet that Stretch’s powers looked a lot more like Sans’ too.

With your luck they shared the same tight paranoia, too.

“Please don’t put me through any of my paces. I’m all paced out.”

“well if you ask so nicely, i guess i got no choice.”

Stretch slowed down just outside the door to the bus. Inside you could hear Blue and Papyrus cheering about something together. The two of them got along like a house on fire at least.   

You reached for the door handle and tugged but paused before heading inside. Stretch stood watching you with the lights from his eye sockets burning dimly in the evening gloom of a rapidly dimming twilight. For a heartbeat in time you thought he might attack you like Sans had, but then the fear spills out of you, replaced with something else. Stretch’s stare means something, you just can’t figure out what.

“You look like you’re thinking about something,” you said, hoping it was a vague enough comment to spark a conversation. You didn’t want to be wary of him. If that-

“-you don’t have ta be scared of me and my bro no more.” His words cut off your thoughts.

“Why would I be scared?” wondering if he could read minds as one of his powers.

“cause anyone should of been. we can be scary pals, but not to our friends.” Stretch’s smile curved and the stick of his sucker bobbed in between this teeth. “i mean, you’re pretty scary too, but not anymore and not ‘ta me.”

Stretch moved past you, opening the door and climbing up the stairs first. He paused at the top and glanced back over his shoulder. “ya coming?”

You hesitated for only a split second before grabbing the railing and pulling yourself up the stairs. “Sure thing.”


You woke with a twing in your back. When you shifted in the bed the shoot of pain jumped from one bruise to the next and you had to bite back the grunt of discomfort. The day after getting hit by a car was when it really started to bother a person, and Sans’ gravity attack was just as bad. 

Outside the sky was dark and still, as regional laws prohibited AI drivers to operate after dark without someone behind the wheel you were grounded until dawn. You had found a nice place to pull off and park before claiming bunks and turning in for the night.

You shuffled out your phone and checked the time from behind the curtain that was supposed to be giving you privacy. It was nearly 5 in the morning, still too early for the others to be awake. Most of them would be too dead asleep to hear you if you decided to get up.

You were grateful for the ground level bunk that made it easy to roll out without too much noise. Now all you needed to do was find that medicine you had forgotten to take last night. Where had you put it again? It had been stored away along with your duffle in the closet…. 

You were able to find the paper bag with only a bit of muted searching. The bus is still and utterly silent, enough so that when you twist the cap off the medicine each crank of the lid sounded like the pop of a gunshot. 

You manage to procure two salmon pink pills for yourself and swallowed them dry. 

Stupid move.

You nearly choked and cursed yourself out in your head for being such an idiot. Taking meds dry sucked and you would probably never learn you lesson no matter how many times you suffered from your mistake. At some point you were supposed to learn, but that day wasn’t today.

You took a bottle of water off the counter and tip toed out past the beds and down the steps that led outside. The door rolled open without much of a sound, making it easier to slip away.

You had expected to be alone. You hadn’t counted the drawn curtains, and hadn’t noticed any empty bunks with rumpled sheets, but sure enough, Papyrus was standing outside by himself. By his feet was a taller water bottle and a towel draped over the cap. His phone was shut off and in the dirt next to his things.

“Oh,” you breathed, freezing like a deer in the headlights when he turned back to see you. In the dark of the early morning you could only barely make out the glow of his eye lights. “Shoot, Papyrus, I didn’t know you were out here already. I thought I was being sneaky. What are you doing out here anyway?”

“I ALSO THOUGHT I WAS BEING SNEAKY, BUT EVEN THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS MATCHED WITH A WORTHY RIVAL IN THINGS. YOU SEE, I WAS OUT HERE EARLY TO GET IN MY DAILY WORKOUT BEFORE BEING TRAPPED ON THE BUS AGAIN.”

“That sounds like a smart idea. A few days are fine on that thing, but I don’t know how I’m going to feel a week from now. We still have another half day of travel before we’re in the town where Red and Edge were last spotted. The traffic yesterday morning really set us back.”

“OH, DO YOU ALSO ENJOY A ROBUST MORNING ROUTINE?” he asked, addressing you with a gleam in his eye. 

“I’ve slacked off a ton from how I used to be, but I still try and keep limber,” you chuckle. “I’m sure I’m nowhere near as impressive as you. A monster’s stamina is no joke.”

“YES, BUT WE MONSTERS ALSO HAVE OUR LIMITS AND WE SHOULD ALL STRIVE TO PUSH BEYOND THOSE LIMITS AND INCREASE OUR POTENTIAL TO ITS MAXIMUM. THAT IS WHY I RUN EVERY MORNING BEFORE THE SUNRISE AND PRACTICE LIKE I WOULD WHEN I STILL WANTED TO BE PART OF THE ROYAL GUARD.”

Papyrus then went on to explain exactly what his typical morning routine consisted of and how long it lasted for. He worked out for at least an hour, while some days he devoted three or four such hours to perfect his skull, er skill , with a spear or improve his aim with different projectiles. As an example he manifest a bone to throw before summoning one more to hurl at the first, striking it out of mid air. In response you clapped and listened to him describe the rest. 

“Sounds intense, Papyrus. I don’t think I could keep up.”

“NYAH HA HA, NEVER FEAR MY HUMAN FRIEND. I PLAN ON INVITING YOU OUT ON A MUCH MILDER ROUTINE THAT YOU ARE SURE TO BENEFIT FROM. PLEASE TELL ME YOU ARE UP FOR A SIMPLE JOG WITH STRETCHES.”

His sincerity spilled forth and it was enough to make you smile. Papyrus wasn’t the ambassador to human kind on behalf of all the monsters for nothing. Most of the monsters you met were friendly (Sans not included) but Papyrus was something else. It was almost ... overwhelming how nice he seemed. You could tell without even having to check that he was a good guy. 

But old habits die hard, and you did end up checking him real fast. It’s not the same way monsters check others, but you can use your magic to give you a read on others. Most of them never noticed and the vibes you got weren’t anywhere near as clear as theirs, but it was the best you had. 

There is an echo of kind and comforting words lined with truth, ‘you didn’t deserve that,’ and then the feeling of food in your belly. Papyrus oozed integrity more than anything, but it was an integrity driven by honor, duty, and kindness. 

You pulled back before he could notice.

“Only if I get to stretch first, so I don’t accidentally pull a muscle or something while running,” you called out. 

“OF COURSE, SAFETY IS A NUMBER ONE PRIORITY, FOLLOWED BY THE NUMBER TWO PRIORITY, WHICH IS TO HAVE FUN.” 

You bend down and do a couple of toe touches before stretching back and pulling at a few more places to help you loosen up before a run.

“What about priority number three?” you asked.

“OBVIOUSLY TO IMPROVE YOURSELF. AFTER THAT THERE ARE NO MORE PRIORITIES, ONLY GUIDELINES.”

“So, you don’t mind if I join you?” you asked over your shoulder, arm extended as far as it would go. 

“OF COURSE NOT, WHY WOULD I WHEN EVERYONE KNOWS THAT A JOG IS SO MUCH MORE ENJOYABLE WITH A FRIEND. LET US STRENGTHEN OUR BONDS AS WELL AS IMPROVE OUR BODIES. NYAH, HUH!”

 And then Papyrus launched, taking off with an energy that made you tired just by watching. Man, years ago you would have been able to keep up no problem, but you really had let yourself go. Shoot. Maybe he won’t notice? 

You scrambled to catch up and then match his pace, following the natural dip of a trail running along the side of the road. Right away you miss the absence of your music. Without the distraction you’re all too aware of every strain and burn in your body, as well as the pain from your healing injuries. 

You realized very early on that Papyrus’ definition of a light work out was not what you would consider light…like….at all. There was no pacing himself. He would start off running and just….keep running. He didn’t slow down to jog, ( though with his leg length that would still have meant you needed to run just to keep up,) he just…. kept…..going. 

Monsters had limits just like humans.  He would need to rest or take a break eventually. And he did….when the van was a near non existent blip in the distance over your shoulder. Nearly twenty minutes of straight running. That was fine. Just…fine. 

“WHAT AN EXCELLENT WARM UP FOR THE MORNING!” Papyrus exclaimed, hands resting on his hips as he turned to face the direction you both had run up.  “I WILL BE BETTER ABLE TO ENDURE THE REST OF THE TRIP TRAPPED INSIDE. HOW ABOUT YOURSELF?”

“Just…..fine….ah, ha, hahhh ,” you gasp, hands on your knees. 

So much for being able to hide it. 

It’s more the sound of your voice that seizes Papyrus’ attention and he falters, hands falling away as he shifts from one foot to the next, looking panicked. You heard him call out your name in alarm and looked up. “YOU ARE CHOKING ON YOUR OWN AIR.”

“I’m…. fine, Paps….” You forced a deep breath out and then in, standing straighter. “See, just a bit... out of shape. I’ve not run that far that long in a while. Sorry for startling you.”

“YOU…YOU WERE NOT USING MAGIC, WERE YOU?”

That was an odd sort of question. Yeah, Papyrus knew you were able to use magic, he had asked you so many questions about it during your ’SKELETON RANGERS STAR MEETING’ yesterday. You searched your brain for something that would help you understand what he was getting at with his question.

 “What? No. What did you think I was supposed to use magic for?”    

“TO TRAVERSE AT ACCELERATED SPEEDS OF COURSE. NOT ALL MONSTERS KNOW HOW TO DO IT, BUT THAT IS A PART OF TRAINING. WERE YOU…WERE YOU REALLY ONLY USING YOUR FLESH BODY TO RUN WITH?”

You almost snort at his use of ‘flesh body’ to describe yourself. Of course a skeleton would come up with that sort of nickname for it. “Yeah, Paps, I mean that’s what I normally use, unless someone lends me their scooter,” you joked.

You didn’t expect Papyrus’ whole expression to fall or for him to grab at his head in panic. “NO WONDER YOU LOOKED TO BE IN SUCH PAIN! THAT WAS TERRIBLY UNFAIR OF ME. I SHOULD HAVE…SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER. I ONLY THOUGHT…I-I THOUGHT THAT EARLIER YOU…” His face started to flush with color, darker than Stretch’s orange yellow blush, Papyrus colored a soft pink hue. “YOU BRUSHED ME WITH YOUR MAGIC AS MEANING…AH….”

Now it was your turn to flush. 

Ugh, of course someone like Papyrus would notice that. He was a lot more in touch with his senses than the lizard man who ran a from-home appliance repair shop. Shoot, did Papyrus think you were rude? Would he be offended if you told him the truth? What if you admitted what you felt when you brushed up against him? You hadn’t meant anything bad by it, but that still wasn’t an excuse.

“Sorry,” you rushed to exclaim, feeling the heat on your face grow. “That was my fault. I hadn’t meant for you to-to feel that as something to interpret. I was being rude.”

“IT IS NOT RUDE TO RADIAT MAGICAL ENERGIES, UNLESS YOU DO IT LIKE MY BROTHER DOES AND ACT UNFRIENDLY ABOUT IT.”

“M-maybe for monsters I get how that would be a thing, but when I do it I…I use it to sort of feel the souls of people around me, not…not unlike when you monsters check someone during an encounter.”

You watch as Papyrus’ dark eye lights begin to wobble in his sockets. “YOU CAN DO THAT? YOU CAN SEE A PERSON’S SOUL OUTSIDE OF AN ENCOUNTER?” 

“Not exactly. I haven’t been able to see a soul since I was a child, and none of the others at the Embassy could after they grew into teenagers, but I can feel the soul, like with a different sense.”

“HOW DOES THAT WORK?”   

So you tell him. 

You explain how each major heart or soul color feels to you, mentioning how it was different for the other kids who you grew up alongside. Red felt like a brick house in a thunderstorm, Orange was a roaring lion, Yellow was lighthouse, Green was a grass field filled with flowers and Cyan was a bed of soft pillows on a cold day, or a dog with long fur that curled up next to your side in love while Perseverance is the sting after a long run and the sight from the top of a mountain at sunrise you managed to climb in time.

“And blue is the hardest one for me to make sense out of, but, it feels like food that fills your stomach and someone telling me something true that I need to hear. But different blue colored souls all have slight differences in their feelings, like with yours.”

“MINE?”

Papyrus’ expression is dumbstruck but at least he wasn’t angry.

“Yeah, when I brushed my magic up against you earlier, when you thought I was indicating my intent to use it, I was…just…feeling your soul and it…felt like that.” 

The dumbstruck look persists and it’s a moment more before Papyrus can force the words out. “BUT, MONSTERS DO NOT HAVE SOULS WITH COLOR.”

You try to ignore the heat on your face or how it makes the back of your neck itch. Papyrus isn’t angry at you, and that made you feel confident enough to try and explain away his confusion. 

“Well, I couldn’t see a color to it, but it felt like a blue soul to me. I’ve heard that people claim monsters don’t have colors to their souls, but it’s just a little harder to feel them under all that magic. All humans have their magic stored up, locked inside their souls while monsters use it throughout their entire bodies. But, I don’t know anything for sure…. it’s just my perspective.”  

When Papyrus speaks again he sounds near breathless. “BUT…YOU COULD… FEEL MY SOUL, A…SOUL WITH A COLOR?”

“Yeah, it felt nice.”

The color spreads all across Papyrus’ face but whatever feeling that causes it isn’t something that flusters him. Instead there’s a soft sort of content happiness that makes your heart hurt in your chest. His eyes don’t fill with tears, but you almost suspect they’re close to it by the way his voice sounds when he speaks to you next. 

“NICE? COULD YOU... TELL ME…WHAT IT FELT LIKE, IF THAT’S NOT TOO MUCH FOR YOU?”

It’s the softest you’ve ever heard him and it makes your heart pinch painfully in your chest.

“It’s a blue soul, it means integrity, right? Um, when I brushed up against you I felt like someone was telling me something I needed to hear and then I felt full, like the way you feel after going whole days without eating only to have the best meal in the world. It…I know it doesn’t make much sense because my sense is all messed up. More than anything I think I’m worst when it comes to blue souls cause that doesn’t really sound like integrity, does it?” 

“IT SOUNDS…GOOD.”

His voice is still soft and it still makes your heart hurt. 

“Yeah, it’s one of my favorites. It makes me feel like I’ll be okay . A long time ago the person who helped me shape my sense of ‘integrity’ was someone who…fed me when I was starving and comforted me by saying things that were true, things I needed to hear.” To keep from crying you laughed and it came out sounding like a warble. “Another kid felt like he was surrounded by superheroes when he brushed up against a blue soul. It was different for each of us.” 

“IT’S A GOOD FEELING ISN’T IT, THEN?” Papyrus laughs. He straightened and then fisted his hands over his hips and you almost miss the moisture on his face. “AND IT IS A GOOD COLOR TO HAVE. I AM PROUD TO BE SOMEONE WHO COULD MAKE YOU HAPPY MERELY WITH THE PRESENCE OF MY SOUL.”

It made you laugh and that only encourages Papyrus’ smile all the more. You didn’t know how, but it stretches across his face and makes his eye lights dance. 

“FEEL FREE TO COME TO ME IF EVER YOU WANT TO BE COMFORTED BY A BLUE SOUL. I WILL ALWAYS BE WILLING TO PROVIDE MY SERVICES FREE OF CHARGE ON BEHALF OF ALL MONSTER KIND AS ITS AMBASSADOR.”

“How about just on behalf of Papyrus being my friend?” you joked, nearly missing the way his blush nearly doubles. 

Maybe it was a bit too forward of you. Papyrus really seemed proud of his position, but he was more than just his job. You remember just the number of hours he put in as a media spokesperson during the first year. It hardly seemed like he had a free minute to himself. How often had he been able to get out and go on a run?

“THAT IS ALSO AN EXCELLENT SUGGESTION. YES, I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WOULD BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO PROVIDE YOU ANY BLUE COLORED COMFORT AS YOUR FRIEND. NYAH HA HA.”

“Yeah, right back at you buddy. If you need anything just give me a ring or a shout. What are friends for?” 

Papyrus opened his mouth to respond but then the blush won out and he just dissolved into a jumble of ‘nyah’ type giggles you thought were utterly adorable. If you could do something to make him laugh like that again you wouldn’t mind putting in the extra effort. Even if that meant another twenty minute straight run, ( please, stars no .)  

“Should we get back soon? Dawn is just a few minutes away and I’m sure the others would appreciate it if we didn’t delay them from reaching our destination any longer than the traffic from yesterday already has.”

“YES, THAT SOUNDS LIKE THE BEST CHOICE TO MAKE, HOWEVER, MAYBE NOT AT THE PACE SET TO GET HERE. IF YOU LIKE WE COULD JUST…WALK BACK.” Papyrus rubbed the back of his skull. “YOU’RE NOT INJURED, ARE YOU?”

“Nah,” you answered without thinking of the bruises his brother left you with. “I’m good. I can even use my magic to run back with you if that’s what you want. I mean, honestly, I don’t know what I’m worse with, working out or using magic? I could stand to grow in both categories.” 

There was a reason your rank was only seven out of eight, but hey, you liked naps. It was easy to let yourself go once you could. No one in their right mind would continue to put themselves through what the Embassy put you and the other kids through on a daily basis. 

“THAT WOULD NOT STRAIN YOUR BODY?” Papyrus asked, worry evident in his tone and expression. 

“I mean, it’s only a short distance. It should be fine, and I don’t…hate running real fast. It’s the afterburn I have trouble with.” You rubbed at the back of your neck and chanced a glance up into Papyrus’ eye lights before saying anything more. “But speaking of magic, I had one more question before we head back, um, since I already got a read on you, um….”

Why was it so hard to just make words in your mouth. When Papyrus turned the fullness of his attention towards you, shifting his body to point towards you, it just felt so much harder to make sentences out of words and words out of sounds. 

“Did you want to check me, to-to make it fair?!” you rushed. 

“YOU MEAN AS IN A FRIENDLY ENCOUNTER?” Papyrus lights up at the suggestion. “YOU WOULD BE COMFORTABLE WITH IT?”

“Yeah, we’re friends like that and, um it would only be fair. I’d like you to if that doesn’t make you feel uncomfortable. So-so don’t feel like you need to. If not that’s cool to!”

Papyrus practically beams. “I WOULD LOVE TO. I HAVEN’T ENTERED AN ENCOUNTER WITH A HUMAN SINCE MY FRIEND FRISK, SO OF COURSE THIS WOULD NOT MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE! THANK YOU FOR SHARING YOUR VULNERABILITY WITH ME.”

“Since Frisk?” you echoed dully. “I’m the only other one?”

“MOST HUMANS ARE MORE RESERVED AND EVEN IF THEY ARE COMFORTABLE WITH IT. AS AMBASSADOR OF MONSTER KIND I NEED TO SET AN EXAMPLE AND PUT THE COMFORT AND CARE OF ALL HUMANKIND ABOVE MY OWN NEEDS. ONLY, A GREAT MONSTER SUCH AS MYSELF CAN HANDLE SUCH HIGH EXPECTATIONS, DON’T YOU AGREE?”

“Isn’t that sort of lonely?”

Papyrus almost faltered.

Almost.

 “NO, NOT AT ALL. I STILL HAVE MY BROTHER AND FRISK AND MY FRIENDS FROM SNOWDEN AND MANY OTHER HUMAN FRIENDS. AN ENCOUNTER ISN’T NECESSARY TO BUILDING A FRIENDSHIP, THOUGH IT IS NICE.”

For as kind as Papyrus was, you could easily see him being the sort of person that never mentioned wanting anything if he so much as suspected it might be rude or intrusive. He was too much of a sweetheart for that.

“Well, I can’t initiate an encounter, but I’d be more than happy to participate in a friendly one. I don’t mind them at all.”

Papyrus beams openly at you, wringing his hands in nervous excitement before shifting the weight of his body from one foot to the other.

"ALRIGHT, IF YOU ARE READY, I WILL BEGIN THE ENCOUNTER. ARE YOU PREPARED FOR IT, MY HUMAN FRIEND.”

With a smile and a snort you flashed him a pair of thumbs up in the air and nod. That’s all Papyrus needs before the world shifts and shimmers around you, a product of Papyrus expanding his magic in a way that locks you into something more intimate. You recognize it right away and the sour taste of magic in your mouth isn’t a bad taste this time around. Papyrus’ encounter was so much thinner than Sans and there was nothing angry about it. 

“FIRST MOVE TO YOU,” Papyrus calls out.

And you know it’s probably not what he expected, but you have a compliment option for a reason, so you take advantage of it. You almost make it sound flirty, but that might be too much for his first encounter with you.

“I think you’re a fantastic monster friend, Papyrus!” you cheer in encouragement. 

It made him laugh but then the shift in magic reminds you the turn is over. Papyrus uses his magic to wash over you and you wonder what it exposed to him. It’s something that makes him smile wide with pink color flushing across his skull.  

When the turn comes back to you it’s a simple thing to dismiss the whole thing, as Papyrus is more than willing to let it drop. When the magic falls away there’s a shimmer in the world around you before the first rays of dawn’s sunlight break over the horizon and color his face in shades of hot orange glow. 

It’s a beautiful sunrise but you can’t look at it directly, so you settle for what you can see of it on his face. With the warm dawn light and the soft smiles Papyrus looked like a monster made for the movies. 

“See something you liked?” you asked, hoping your voice didn’t sound as nervous as you felt. 

Papyrus’ familiar laughter made your insides all warm and fuzzy. 

You don’t say anything more, but take up his suggestion to use magic and race him back. He’s too fast for you even with your magic, but you give him a challenge that leaves you both a bit winded as soon as you skid to a halt in front of the bus and sneak back on. 

While Papyrus returned to his bed you gathered a number of your things and slid into the bathroom to shower and change. Once refreshed, you climbed back into bed with a book and turned on the overhead light to see by until you heard the others start to rouse. 

It was only an hour after dawn, but once you rolled out of bed and saw Papyrus across the hallway, it felt like years since the first day you met; like he was a friend you had been close with for longer than just a couple of days. And maybe, judging by the smile he spared for you, maybe he felt like that too. 

The heat in your heart didn’t abate even after he looked away. 

 

 

Notes:

Papyrus is best boi, honestly.

More information about souls and my own twist on world building for this story. It was one of my favorite scenes to write the reader's encounter with Papyrus and have that part where she can feel his soul and tells him all about it. I've got opinions about all the bois and what color their souls are, but you'll have to wait for those chapters/scenes to find out exactly.
Feel free to guess.

This was an extra long chapter that used to be two chapters before I mashed them together so I'm not the most pleased with how disjointed and sectional it feels, but trust me this was an improvement from the scrap of a chapter it used to be. The length isn't too overwhelming, right?
Next chapter should be out late on Friday/Saturday

Chapter 5: Sunshine Riptide 5

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

With a closer proximity to the target, the GPS began to blink.

“it looks like it is asking for an update from the navigator,” Stretch explained, sparing you a pointed look.

You can hear Papyrus and Blueberry in the backroom on the bed, watching old anime reruns together. From what you can hear it’s another one with super heroes or ninjas, or maybe pirates. Someone on the screen is screaming and using their power in an overly dramatic fight sequence. You had stuck around for the first few episodes but when you started to doze off you knew you needed to get some carbs.

Even if it was considered gross for breakfast you wanted a burger…a big, juicy burger with extra meat and a tray full of fries that refilled as soon as you emptied it. But no. You were stuck with…energy bars that tasted like sawdust. The one in your hand was half finished.

No more magic use for a while. It tired you out too much and it’s not worth the food bill. When you had been a kid and using your powers regularly on top of your intense work out routines you ate like an olympic swimmer.

“you’re eating again?” Stretch asked with a sly grin.

“Hungry,” was all you said before punching in new coordinates.

Since you last checked your map the two rouge Sans and Papyrus dots hadn’t moved much since last night. It was likely they were staying put, wherever they were.

“Are those buildings? What are they for?”

Stretch pointed to the area on the GPS where you had uploaded a new destination pin. Before you can answer him he has his phone up, checking his own internet for the map with more details.  When he finds something he turns it towards you and holds it up.

At Whiskey Stops we provide a unique country rich atmosphere that blends dining, drinking, dancing, and other fun nightclub vibes into one undeniably memorable experience for any patron!’

“Whiskey Stops sounds…exactly like the sort of place I’d like to not find these two yahoos. Ugh, just great, they have line dances.”

Stretch made a sound that was similar to a snort. “whats so bad about dancing in a line?”

“More than I’m willing to admit to.”

You don’t mean to but you wince when you pass the phone back over to Stretch. His eye lights flicker to your arm and shoulder before looking up at you. There’s a question in his expression but you don’t stick around to answer it.

“We’ll be there in seventy minutes that’s just a little over an hour. Maybe we can stop for food while discussing strategy. We’ll need one if we want to keep it neat in a civilian area.”

“you sure you just don’t want to stop to eat because you want it?”

“It’s called hitting two birds with one stone. I want to do both.”

“why would you want to kill birds with stones? i don’t get you humans sometimes. so cold hearted, or you could say that’s just-”

“I swear if you finish that sentence-”

“-stone cold.

Like last time, Stretch’s smile grew at the sight of you exasperation. And you wish you could help it, but he got exactly what he wanted out of you when you turned sharply on your heel and left on an exasperated huff. You could hear his chuckles over your shoulder as you exited.

You must not have done a good enough job of masking your displeasure since both Blueberry and Papyrus noticed it when you walked in on them. There was a bag of nearly empty popcorn between them but only Blueberry had butter stains around his mouth.

“SOMETHING WRONG?” Blueberry asked at once, scrambling over to the side of the bed. There were a number of pillows in the way he batted aside.

“No, nothing’s wrong, why ya asking?”

Behind you the episode kept playing but you kept your back to it in favor of reaching for what was left of the popcorn and grabbing a handful. Even after the energy bar you were still hungry.

“YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE TIRED-LIKE MORE TIRED THAN YOU WERE WHEN YOU WENT UP TO FIX THE GPS, BUT NOT LIKE SUPER TIRED. STILL GOOD EVEN IF YOU’RE TIRED BUT-” Blueberry’s words tumbled into each other as a new blush rose up across his skull, a soft and honest blue color.

The sight is enough to ease out the hard lines of your face. “I’m just hungry. Sorry, I sometimes get cranky when I’m hungry. It’s been a while since I’ve used magic and it burns energy just like my body does. Unlike monsters, I can only get energy from the food I eat. I really envy you guys who can refuel all on your own to make magic.”

“WE STILL NEED FOOD TO LIVE, AND LIFE IS BAD IF WE’RE FORCED TO STARVE, BUT OUR MAGIC IS A PART OF US SO IT’S A LITTLE DIFFERENT. DO YOU NEED MORE FOOD? WE HAVE PLENTY OF MORE SNACKS.”

Papyrus pushed the popcorn bag into your hands with a concerned expression, watching for you to eat what was left.

“AND TO THINK THAT YOU WERE STRAINING YOURSELF ON BOTH FRONTS THIS MORNING. A ROBUST WORKOUT AND THEN USING YOUR MAGIC FOR ALL THOSE THINGS... WILL YOU NEED MORE FOOD?” Papyrus asked. He only seemed to relax after you flipped him a pair of thumbs up.

“WH-WHAT DO YOU MEAN ALL THAT MAGIC? WHAT DID YOU NEED TO USE MAGIC FOR?” Blueberry asked.

You dragged your thumb over your teeth, sucking off the extra butter while Papyrus moved to answer.

“IN ADDITION TO CONSTANTLY UPDATING THE MAPS WE WENT RUNNING THIS MORNING, SO SHE USED MAGIC TO TRAVERSE AT ACCELERATED SPEEDS, AND THEN THERE WAS OUR FRIENDLY ENCOUNTER-”

“ENCOUNTER?!”

Blueberry’s high pitch exclamation made both you and Papyrus pause and look up with mirrored expressions of confusion. Blueberry’s blush was back and he was flustering. Maybe he thought it was dangerous. He was still getting used to the surface world and back underground when a human would fall through, every once in a blue moon, encounters would be used to fight with the visiting humans. Everyone knew the story of the six souls that the monster king collected before Frisk came through to shatter the barrier on their own. Maybe in Blueberry’s world the encounters were all the dangerous kind, when a human was involved.

Though, even if it had been a dangerous encounter, Papyrus wouldn’t have done enough damage to warrant such concern. He was too sweet to be as cutthroat as his brother and while his attack and defense were greater, his control of magic wasn’t as extensive as Sans’ by a long shot. 

“It’s fine,” you say before Papyrus can speak. “It wasn’t a dangerous one, we weren’t fighting.”

Papyrus nodded along. “YES, ENCOUNTERS ON THE SURFACE ARE RARELY, IF EVER, VIOLENT. THE FEW INSTANCES OF ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN MONSTERS AND HUMANS ARE ALMOST ALWAYS FRIENDLY. WE USE THESE ENCOUNTERS TO….LEARN MORE ABOUT ONE ANOTHER AND STRENGTHEN OUR… BONDS.” Papyrus’ cheeks were back to being dusted with color. He smiled wide and then chuckled, averting his eyes by ducking his head. “THEY WAS ALSO ABLE TO USE THEIR MAGIC TO SEE-ER FEEL, SORRY, TO FEEL MY SOUL AND EVEN TOLD ME WHAT IT FELT LIKE!”

“FE-FELT LIKE?” Blueberry’s voice was little more than a squeak. He glanced back and forth between Papyrus and you, seemingly unable to focus on a single point. It was starting to make your heart hurt, to see him spazz out so bad. “YOU AL-ALREADY HAD AN…ENCOUNTER? B-BUT YOU JUST MET PAPYRUS TWO DAYS AGO! ISN’T THAT A BIT FAST?”

His reaction made you wonder if encounters meant something different in his world, if they were more of a formal function, something intimate or private maybe? The distress in his expression was evident.

“It wasn’t too fast. I mean, it’s true I’ve only been in a couple other friendly encounters with monsters in my life, but I never felt like I was in any danger around Papyrus, and to me that’s the number one thing I need before agreeing to an encounter. For other humans they might have different priorities or reservations regarding encounters. Is it different for you from where you come from?” 

“NO, NOT THAT DIFFERENT, JUST…I…THOUGHT YOU WOULDN’T H-HAVE AN ENCOUNTER SO SOON INTO THE TRIP. IT WAS FAST, WASN’T IT?” Blueberry asked in a strained voice.

“NYEH HEH HEH, MAYBE SO, BUT THE GREAT PAPYRUS IS AN EXPERT AT MAKING FRIENDSHIPS AND I WAS ESPECIALLY EAGER TO BECOME THEIR FRIEND. THERE IS NO HESITATING WHEN IT COMES TO THE MANUEL ON ALL THINGS REGARDING HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS.”

Why did it look like Blueberry was about to cry?

“AH, ALSO," Papyrus began, turning his attention to you and addressing you by name, "IF YOU ARE FEELING DOWN YOU MAY USE YOUR MAGIC TO FEEL MY SOUL SINCE YOU SAID IT WAS SO COMFORTING,” Papyrus said.

You opened your mouth to say something, but stopped. Blueberry looked up, smiling again. You saw the blush on his face fading. The smile didn’t reach his eye lights and did little to convince you he was feeling genuine.

“THAT SOUNDS SO COOL. I GUESS I HADN’T REALIZED THE BOTH OF YOU WERE SO CLOSE. I WAS JUST GONNA, UM I’M GOING TO GO GET SOME MORE AIR. YOU GUYS CAN KEEP WATCHING WITHOUT ME.”

Blueberry waved the pair of you off and then hopped from the edge of the bed to scurry out into the hallway. You turned to watch him leave and then glanced back at Papyrus. The taller Skeleton had been able to tell something was off with Blueberry, but Papyrus looked confused as to what it could possibly be.

“COULD BLUEBERRY BE FEELING UNWELL? I THOUGHT HE WANTED TO WATCH MORE OF THIS HERO ANIME WITH ME. I DON’T WANT TO SEE THE REST WITHOUT HIM.”

Out in the hall you could hear the hatch to the roof squeak open and then closed again, clueing you in on where Blueberry probably went. Sans was asleep in his bed (again) and Stretch was up at the front. On the bus there weren’t a lot of places one could run away to if they were feeling antisocial.

You also needed to have a ‘team’ meeting with the others before arriving at the historic district of the upcoming town and the clock was ticking down. It felt wrong to leave Blue feeling like a plastic bag.

“You think he was upset?”

Papyrus fiddled with his gloves. “DID I MAYBE SAY SOMETHING TO UPSET HIM. MAYBE HE… MAYBE HE DIDN’T LIKE THE FACT THAT I AND YOU, THAT WE SHARED AN ENCOUNTER.” Papyrus’ eye sockets went wide. “BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN I REGRET IT! IT WAS MY FAVORITE ENCOUNTER EVER, EV-EVEN AFTER FLIRTING WITH FRISK. I WOULDN’T HAVE TRADED IT FOR ANYTHING. I DON’T THINK IT WAS GROSS.”

“Is that what some other monsters think about encounters with humans?”

Papyrus shrugged. “THERE’S ALWAYS A MONSTER OR TWO OUT THERE WHO THINKS ODD THOUGHTS. I JUST WISH I KNEW WHAT BLUEBERRY WAS THINKING. I HOPE HE DOESN’T THINK POORLY OF ME.”

Something about sad skeletons made your brain instantly associate the image with those of kicked animals or puppies specifically. You reached out to catch Papyrus’ jaw in your palm and tilted it up. You could feel the heat from when his skull colored but you ignored it.

“He doesn’t think poorly of you, how could he? I’m glad to hear you’re not ashamed of me. I also enjoyed our encounter and was glad I got to meet such an amazing monster and make him my friend.”

Papyrus’ eye lights went fuzzy at the edges. He tilted his skull, the way he would sometimes when listening intently, and it turns his face further into your palm. Absently you brushed your thumb across his jaw. He was taller and bigger and louder than you, but when you held him in your hand, Papyrus felt like he could fit inside your heart if you tried to fold him up and put him there. He was soft and gentle with you, in a way that made you melt.

Such a sweetheart.

When he spoke his voice was little more than a whisper. “I WOULD NEVER BE ASHAMED OF YOU. NEVER. NOT IN A MILION AND ONE YEARS.”

His face was warm and you felt content just being in contact with him, but there was something left undone that you needed to see to. Blueberry was also your friend and right now there was something you could do to help… at least you hoped there was something you could do to help.

Slowly, you tugged your hand back to your side. Papyrus let you go, but you hadn’t missed the way his face followed the pull of your palm, like he had wanted to stay like that until the very end. You grabbed the empty pop corn bag and tossed it into the garbage before leaving the bed.

“I’m going to go see if there is something I can do to help him feel better.” 

There was still a soft blush on his face and when he spoke his words sounded wobbled, but he didn’t stutter when he called out after you.“A KIND AND NOBLE GESTURE FROM A KIND AND NOBLE FRIEND,”

“Hey Paps,” You smiled back over you shoulder at Papyrus, emboldened by his enthusiasm. “… for what you said, thanks Papyrus.”

“NYEH HE HEH, OF COURSE.”

The hunger pains weren’t terrible, but you knew they would only get worse if you tried using you magic any more, so you grabbed a handful of energy bars to stuff into your pockets.

You moved towards the ladder leading up to the bus roof and climbed. The hatch didn’t squeak as bad when you slipped out, but it was loud enough for Blueberry to hear and flinch from. He was sitting with his back to you, knees pulled up to his chest and face tucked into his knees.

The wind wasn’t as bad as it had been yesterday when you confronted Sans in almost the same spot, but you still felt your hair tugged out of it’s pinned back curl. It was a nice clean breeze that helped you breath easy.

On hands and knees you crawled over to where Blueberry was sitting and then moved around him so that your were sitting directly in front of him, legs crossed over each other like a pretzel. Blueberry peeked up from between his knees, you could see the light from his eye, but didn’t lift his head.

That was fine.

You reached into your pocket and pulled out the first energy bar, ripping down the packaging and taking a bite to chew and swallow. You bit off another larger chunk and finished the bar off before the minute was over. Tucking the trash wrapper into your opposite pocket you pulled out another bar and repeated the process, and then a third.

“Stars, these things tase disgusting when you go one right after the other. Yuck. I don’t miss this part of the training one bit. I mean, yeah the running was terrible but the food was the worst.”

You chewed off another chunk of the lemon flavored energy meal bar. Blueberry’s eyesight was on you, watching from the shadows between his knees. He didn’t lift his head when he finally chose to speak.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he asked.

“I’m eating so using magic doesn’t exhaust me. I mean a little bit of magic ain’t that bad but I’m so out of shape and I’ll admit I was use to eating like two meals a day when I bothered to remember. I’m the worst, but at least I know what I need to do to stay standing. I should be good after this.”

“GOOD FOR WHAT?” His voice was still soft, but curious.

“An encounter.”

“AN ENCOUNTER?!” Blueberry’s head shot up and his knees fell to the side as he only gaped at you, blue eyes blown wide. “WH-WHA-WHAT ARE, WHAT DO YOU MEAN FOR AN ENCOUNTER? WITH WHO ARE YOU PLANNING TO-AH, IS IT PAPYRUS?”

“Come on Blue, you’re smarter than that,” you laughed, using his nickname with fondness. “Isn’t that why you were upset and left? I shared an encounter with Papyrus and hearing that made you feel weird.”

Blue pouted and looked away. “WHY WOULD I SAY THAT? THERE’S NO REASON TO FEEL WEIRD.”

“It’s actually not that uncommon in friendships, to feel weird or upset when something happens without you. I’m sorry for being insensitive to it and I’m really sorry if I’m wrong about all this, but you had wanted to share an encounter with me, didn’t you?”

Blue didn’t respond, but he looked up and held you gaze and you felt like that was as close to a confirmation as you were going to get out of Blueberry while he still felt weird off his jealousy. It wasn’t the easiest thing to admit to, but you knew plenty of friendships and groups where something similar happened.

You got the feeling that Blueberry felt left out, and that was the reason he left. Maybe you were wrong, maybe there was something more to it that you just weren’t aware of, but you didn’t think you missed the mark completely.

“I… AM HAPPY THAT YOU AND PAPYRUS ARE SUCH GOOD FRIENDS. YOU WERE ABLE TO HAVE A HEALTHY AND FUN ENCOUNTER THAT BROUGHT YOU CLOSER TOGETHER….CLOSER THAN FRIENDSHIPS TAOCS.”

Oh, you felt that last comment in your heart. Blueberry looked more like a kicked bunny than ever before.

“Oh, no, sweetie that’s not it. Oh, I’m sorry, please don’t be mad at me.”

“I’M NOT MAD,” Blueberry hiccuped, sounding like he was close to crying. “I DON’T… I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY I FEEL WEIRD. I DON’T KNOW WHY I JUST…DON’T FEEL LIKE I SHOLD BE DOWN THERE.”

You

Felt

Terrible

Forgetting about wanting to give Blue his space you reached forward and grabbed him up into a hung, wrapping your arms as far around his back as you could before squeezing him against your chest. You buried your head into his shoulder and squeezed him again once you felt the hesitant touch of his arms slowly reaching behind you back to complete the hug. Blueberry ducked his head into you opposite shoulder and hid his face.

“Blue, Blue, Blue don’t feel weird. I’m sorry you don’t know what to feel right now. It’s a new experience for you and it’s probably unsettling to feel something you don’t understand. Don’t let it upset you though. I care about you and that hasn’t changed.”

You felt his hands around you shiver and you try to pull him closer to you. He didn’t respond but made a sound that let you know he heard you. Without thinking you brush your lips up against the side of his skull and then let your magic spill.

You can tell when Blue notices the presence of your magic as he tenses up right away, but then eases a bit once he realized.

“THAT’S YOU?”

“That’s my magic yeah, do you mind?”

Blueberry shook his head, brushing up against your shoulder. “NOT IF IT IS YOU. YOU CAN TOUCH ME WITH IT.”

“Blue, lemme be clear real quick, my magic is a bit different. I can’t force or trigger an encounter, but I can use my magic outside of an encounter to learn about a person. I can’t see souls or their colors or anything like that, but I learn things through feelings. I’d be learning about you if you let me….”

Blue pulled back enough to look you in the face and nod, expression set with determination. “GO AHEAD. I WANT YOU TO IF THAT’S WHAT YOU REALLY WANT.”

You closed your eyes instead of replying. It was easier to concentrate and feel with your eyes shut. Like a slow rolling wave, you pulled your magic over Blue and let it settled, seeping past his soul and feeling the echoes of it.

His soul isn’t as direct as Papyrus’ and you get the feeling that he might have been a bit of more than one color. There’s warmth and light there, a kindness that’s strong and surging, but then there is comfort. The feeling of Blueberry’s souls is like getting wrapped up in an extra soft blanket that lasts forever. As young and energetic as he can be, his soul is one that puts others ahead of him, almost like a cyan soul, but not….not exactly patience…

You felt sunlight. There was nothing you could see but the sensation painted a picture in your mind.

The world is open and wide. The sky looks so close you could reach out and touch it if only your fingers could just trench a little further. The clouds were fuller and thicker with white over the grass fields.There are wild flowers scattered and growing in every color.

You're safe.

You pulled your magic back and looked up, seeing Blueberry’s eye lights fixated on your face with an open expression.

“WHAT DID YOU FEEL?” he asked.

“I felt your soul,” you answered. “It was warm like sunshine and soft like felt. You… you really love your brother, don’t you?”

“AND ALL OF MY FRIENDS TOO, BUT YES, I ESPECIALLY LOVE MY BROTHER. I TAKE CARE OF HIM.”

You don’t bother to hold back the smile. “It’s a wonderful soul, Blue, you should be proud.”

The blush was powdery blue and fast spreading. Blueberry turned his face away, but not by much. "MWEH HEH HEH, I NEVER THOUGHT I’D HEAR SOMEONE TALK TO ME ABOUT MY SOUL, OR THAT I’D EVEN HAVE A SOUL THEY COULD DESCRIBE. I’M GLAD YOU LIKED IT.”

“I loved it.”   

Blueberry’s blush spread dark and fast across even more of his face as he dissolved into even more chuckles, laughs, and giggles. He rolled away from you onto his side a bit and you let him leave your arms.

“Hey, Blue, you good?” you laughed once his own chuckles seemed to fade out.

“I AM THE MOST GOOD. NEVER FEAR!”

“That’s great, so you want to return the favor?” At his confused expression you scooted back and then gestured to the space between you. “Didn’t you want to have an encounter so you could see my soul?”

And you half expected him to jump at the offer, so when he didn’t move you assume he was just still processing. You opened your mouth to repeat your earlier words but he recovered first.

“NO THANK YOU, I’M GOOD.”

“What?” You blinked, feeling thrown. “Why?”

“YOU’RE ASKING MORE FROM OBLIGATION THAN DESIRE, AREN’T YOU? IF I HADN’T LEFT UPSET LIKE THAT YOU WOULDN’T HAVE OFFERED. I-DONT’ GET ME WRONG, I WOULD LOVE TO SHARE AN ENCOUNTER WITH YOU AND I HOPE THAT ONE DAY I CAN, BUT I WANT YOU TO WANT IT FOR YOUR SAKE, NOT JUST MINE. I DON’T WANT TO BE AN OBLIGATION.”

And his words left you feeling a little off kilter. You had misjudged Blue after all. You had assumed he would be cheerful and loud and energetic when you asked to share an encounter. You hadn’t thought he would say anything but yes.

“That’s, a real selfless thing to say,” you admit in a tone that, you hope, helps Blueberry see how much you respect him for it. It was easy to write him off just as another friend/kid-type monster, but he was more than that.

Blueberry’s blush was back. “I WAS GUESSING YOU HADN’T HAD MORE THAN A HANDFUL OF ENCOUNTERS YOURSELF BEFORE YOU SAID SOMETHING, SO SORRY IF IT SOUNDS RUDE OF ME TO REFUSE, BUT I REALLY WANT TO CHERISH IT WHEN IT DOES HAPPEN.”

“Oh,” you say, not knowing what else to say. You’re a bit off balance and don’t know what else to feel. Your face was a little warm too. 

“I-I’VE NEVER HAD AN ENCOUNTER WITH A HUMAN BEFORE. NONE WERE AROUND BACK IN OUR WORLD IN THE UNDERGROUND AND ONCE WE GOT TOPSIDE THE HUMANS AROUND US WERE NICE BUT NOT…NOT LIKE YOU. YOU’RE MY FRIEND AND I WANNA DO IT RIGHT BY YOU.”

“Thank you for explaining it to me,” you say, still impressed with his maturity. “I look forward to getting to know you even better. My offer still stands. When you’re ready and when…I guess when the time is right, we’ll do this sometime, someday.”

The lights in his eye sockets danced a little, shining bright, almost like stars that spun. “OF COURSE! I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.”

A knocking from the hatch almost made you jump. You leaned out around Blueberry while he turned to see Stretch halfway through the hatch, waving for attention.

“hey you two, we’re going to get together and talk about our abc plans now. sans is up and papyrus has the table set up for our…i’m not sure what he called it, but something about rangers and stars.” Stretch stared to defend again but paused to glance back once more. “ah, also the gps needs to get updated again since we’re only a half hour out now.”

“COMING BROTHER,” Blueberry exclaimed, popping up and taking a handful of steps before stopping to turn back in your direction and sheepishly reach out, extending his hand for you to take. “WANNA GO DOWN TOGETHER?”

You grabbed for his hand and moved out of your sitting position onto your knees. The speed wasn’t enough for you to need to worry about but you still decided it was safest to hobble after Blueberry on your knees while you were on the roof of a moving bus.

“I’m right behind you, Blue,” you called.

He waited by the hatch for you to swing your legs over first but his hand on your shoulder stopped you from going further.

“Yeah?”

“EARLIER WHEN WE WERE TALKING ABOUT ENCOUNTERS YOU MENTIONED, AND MAYBE I MISHEARD THIS, BUT YOU SAID THAT MOST OF THEM WERE FRIENDLY. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN AN UNFRIENDLY ENCOUNTER?”

The reminder of Sans’ encounter made you want to smirk, but you kept that look off your face. “It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle, don’t worry about it. I trust you not to hurt me, but even so I’m pretty good at taking care of myself.”

“YOU SHOULDN’T NEED TO BE.”

His concern makes you feel almost-guilty so you just laugh and wink his way, knowing he’ll flush. “Don’t worry about me, Blue. You’re too sweet for your own good.”

Before he can say anything more you slipped down the hatch and caught the ladder’s sides with the insides of your shoes, sliding it down to the end. 

At the base, closest to you, Sans doesn’t flinch when you drop alongside him and you meet his eye lights with a your own unwavering gaze, unwilling to be the first to look away.

“Ready to get this meeting started, boss?” you teased.    

 

Notes:

You know that tag about encounters being a metaphor. I meant it. Blue is the fastest burn of all the Skeletons. Some take longer than others, but not Blue! I love writing about him. He's so sweet and pure and good. Makes me happy.

Who do you think knows about her unfriendly encounter or who do you think will learn about it first? I'm curious to hear what you might say. I've been over the moon and loving all your comments so far. I'm so glad I decided to share this.

Getting this update out a little early due to the site being down tomorrow during prime posting time :0 I'll see you again for the next chapter coming out Monday! We're almost half done with the first arch and I'm super excited.

Chapter 6: Sunshine Riptide 6

Summary:

You finally meet one of the 'Fell brothers. But the encounter isn't what you expected.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

SKELETON RANGER STARS.”

“but we’re not all skeletons,” Stretch lamely corrected before both he and Blue looked over the table to where you were by the GPS, resetting the coordinates.

“so, like a mascot then?” Sans asked.

“i don’t know, she seems more like the leader than you,” Stretch muttered under his breath.

He was chewing on something plastic between his teeth. It was another honey stick he had asked you for after learning about your candy stash. You had been hoping he would lay off the bad puns when you were around after being nice to him, but if anything the gifts only seemed to embolden him. 

He even made it a point to watch you while he ate your candy, as if that was his way of taunting you. ‘Look how not even your snacks can get me to behave.’ What did he think he was, a child?

“Names aside, the two subjects haven’t converged yet,” you called out. “The one we’re calling Edge is further out, moving along the boarder while the one we’re calling Red is stationary. They’re not together so we should talk about how we’re going to roll out our welcome mat.”

“WE HAVE A WELCOME MAT?” Papyrus exclaimed in surprise. Blueberry snickered beside the taller skeleton and then a look from his brother made him look away and go quiet.

“a figure of speech, bro,” Sans explained.

“Yeah, sorry about that. No literal welcome mat on this bus so we’re going to have to do our best with what we have left, namely ourselves. First up, should we split the party and confront each brother simultaneously or stick together and meet them one at a time?”

“THEY’RE NOT MORE POWERFUL THAN US ACCORDING TO WHAT WE KNOW SO IT SHOULD BE FINE IF ITS ONLY TWO OF US AGAINST ONE OF THEM,” Blue pointed out.

Sans and Stretch nodded while Papyrus nervously wrung his hands before nodding in agreement.

“That just leaves us with deciding how to split the party. We have an odd number of people here. I’d be third wheeling someone’s team.”

“or you could have three skellies in a team and not be a third wheel, just a suggestion,” Stretch offered.

“LOTS FOR A RANDOM DRAWING THEN?” Papyrus suggested.

“We don’t want to think about this a little more critically?” you asked, watching as Blue was already up and running to get a paper to write their names on and tear up for the drawing.

“we can figure that out once we have teams set up. one is stationary and the other moves around a lot, so…someone who can use shortcuts should be on the mover,” Stretch said.

“That’s you or Sans,” you guessed.

At one point you had been shown their files or whatever information the Embassy had on their powers and abilities. You hadn’t read through all of it, but you had skimmed the important bits. Stretch and Sans had nearly identical skill stats while Blue and Papyrus’ states were also mirrored. It would make sense to switch up those sets to help balance the teams.

“DONE!” Blue exclaimed, pouring the papers with all their names on it into a brown paper baggy he had found instead of a hat. “LETS PULL OUT TWO NAMES FOR THE FIRST TEAM AND THEN THE THREE WHO ARE LEFT WILL BE ON THE OTHER TEAM TOGETHER. STRETCH, WHY DON’T YOU PULL THEM OUT, YOU’RE THE LAZIEST ONE HERE.”

Instead of sounding offended Stretch chuckled and move to do as his brother requested. There was a fondness in his eye lights as he pulled out a pair of papers and then turned to set them down without flipping them over. Blue tipped the bag upside down and let the last three pieces fell out on the opposite side of the table.

Being closer to Stretch you turned over the first two names: Sans and Blueberry

Blue’s excitement died down a notch as he turned the last three names over and held onto the piece of paper with your name on it. You were on a team with Stretch and Papyrus.

“Now we should figure out who goes after who,” you said.

“WE WILL GO AFTER THE WANDERER!” Blue volunteered before Sans could say anything. “SANS HAS SHORTCUT MAGIC BUT I’M VERY ENERGETIC AND I’LL BE ABLE TO COVER JUST AS MUCH GROUND.”

“You sure? It would make sense if the bigger team went out looking for this Edge guy.”

“I HAVE FAITH IN MY TRACKING ABILITIES.”

“IT SOUNDS LIKE A SOLID PLAN,” Papyrus exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “AND THIS WILL BE GOOD FOR MY LAZY BROTHER. HE DOESN’T MOVE NEARLY AS MUCH AS HE SHOULD.”

“bro, you throwing me under the bus now?” Sans joked.

You felt like it would have been better for you to go with the group tracking Edge, since him moving around wouldn’t be a problem to you as long as you had your map, but if you spoke up and said something you’d get stuck on a team with Sans, and you weren’t ready for that even if Blue was the sweetest of sweethearts.

“You all have your cellphones? If anything happens one of you on the team can call someone on the other team. Well be split up but the Heritage District isn’t so massive that we wouldn’t be able to reach each other in time if we needed a fast extraction.”

“THAT JUST LEAVES THE MATTER OF HOW WE SHOULD ADDRESS THESE TWO,” said Papyrus. “I DOUBT THEY WILL BE AS WILLING AS YOU AND YOUR BROTHER WERE TO JOIN US, BLUEBERRY. THEIR WORLD WAS A BIT HARSHER THAN EITHER YOURS OR MINE.”

“what exactly are you guys offering them that’s so different from what Blue and I took?” asked Stretch.

“First off, offer them your names and make a peaceful introduction, then we can offer some explanations about how they got here and why they won’t be able to go back anytime soon. There’s a rogue human on the run who has space and time bending magic that can now rip through the fabric of reality they might wanna be warned about,” you explained.

“and then step three, we make them leave with us.They can come willingly or in shackles. I’m sure there are some hiding around here somewhere just collecting dust,” Sans hummed sounding too lazy to be serious.

“Let’s not sound that careless when it’s the real deal. I’d like them to come willingly if that’s possible. We have the beds ready for them and everything.”

“then we should hurry and make first contact,” Stretch said before pulling out the honey stick and yawning wide. Once he was done he replaced the treat between his teeth and bumped your shoulder on his way out from around the table. Blue was up and heading towards the exit while Papyrus took his time unfolding from the bench seat behind the table.

Stretch paused at the doors leading outside before looking back. “…or do we want to sit around here for something else?”

“We’re coming,” you called out. You reached for Papyrus’ hand and he grabbed for it without looking to help you out.

The three of you met up outside and waited to see Sans and Blue off with a last word of advice regarding Edge’s movements. Sans listened but didn’t look at you while Blueberry’s star colored eyes stayed fixed on your face as you relayed all you knew. When you were done speaking Sans nodded and moved away while Blue thanked you and jogged to catch up with the other monster.

From behind, there really wasn’t a lot of difference between the two.

“now that we’re on our own, wanna scope at that whiskey place and see if it’s open at two in the afternoon?” Stretch asked.

“Maybe it’s not that sort of…bar,” you said.

You recalled a pitiful handful of bars that opened before four in the afternoon back in the city. They stayed open till three and four in the morning, but wouldn’t open until the afternoon shift of workplaces started to churn out their tired.

The Historic District looked nice and comfy with plenty of retired folks taking their time on strolls along the shopfronts while younger folks moved in and out, doing business and enjoying the pleasant weather. The town’s layout wasn’t complicated at all and easy to navigate.

It took you five minutes on foot to find the bar and not nearly that long to find out it really was locked and closed until four in the afternoon.

“welp, we tried.” Stretched turned around and began walking off.

“Hey!” you reached for him and grabbed him by the hood of his orange hoodie. “Where do you think you’re going? We just got here.“

“is he still inside?” 

You nodded.

“is the door still locked?”

You and Papyrus both nodded together.

“has that guy left that spot on the map since you began checking him this morning?”

Papyrus looked to you but you shook your head slowly. “No, he’s always been there. What are you getting at, Stretch?”

Stretch shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with your hold on his jacket. “its a nice place, there’s plenty of shops and stands to grab food…why not just hang out and wait until the right time to head on in and talk with the guy all casual like?”

“You could just blink yourself in there. You can see through the windows enough of the interior to use a shortcut.”

Stretch shrugged again. “you really think that’s gonna make the guy willing to talk to us with an open mind? i mean, if that’s your call we can play it that way, but if you want to keep this peaceful just let it slide, i say. we won’t go far.”

“WHAT IF HE EMERGES WHILE WE ARE AWAY?” Papyrus asked.

“if you want we could leave someone behind to watch over the place for just that happening, but it won’t matter much to a person who can see people on a map made out of magic.” Stretched fixed his lazy stare on you. “why not enjoy the time you have? you’re still hungry, aren’t ya?”

You were always hungry. 

“I’ll be fine.”

“…for two hours?”

You could smell the fast food and meat from a nearby burger joint. One of the storefronts was selling oversized soft pretzels and another one was selling hot dogs on a stick. Inhaling meant you had to smell all the good things they were making.

And Stretch was right…you were hungry. Even after all those energy bars and not even being sucked into an encounter, the smell of an actual lunch was making her salivate.

“Fi-fine, but we shouldn’t go far, and only until this places opens,” you relent.

Stretch tugs out of your limp hold and flashes Papyrus a thumbs up.

“THEN THAT BEGS THE QUESTION WHERE SHOULD WE GET FOOD FOR OURSELVES?” Papyrus asked. “I DON’T MIND EATING HUMAN FOODS, BUT IT WOULD BE INTERESTING TO SEE HOW THEY PREPARED SOMETHING FOR MONSTERS ALL THE WAY OUT HERE.”

You spared another glance around but apart from Papyrus and Stretch, you could only see humans out and about. And while there were plenty of towns and small cities where the monsters didn’t make a significant population, the people in such towns usually gawked a lot more when a monster did eventually breeze through. No one in the Historic District seemed to mind either Stretch or Papyrus any more than you.

“we can look around at least and think about that while we walk.”

“Not too far.”

Stretch laughed and waved a hand up but didn’t stop or speak again.

As a unit the three of you chose a side of the street and went down, staring into the window displays and making comments about the interiors you saw. While there were plenty of places selling food there were just as many shops selling nicknacks and merchandise specific to a hobby or field.

Papyrus stopped in a small bookshop to chat with the lady behind the counter that had waved to him. While he talked Stretch browsed the shelves on one side while you wandered down the other. Through the gaps left by absent books, you could feel Stretch’s attention on your face.

The front door opened and a couple of teenagers ran in to stop next to Papyrus. You heard one of them mention ‘mascot’ and ‘fan’ before showing off the camera on her phone. Papyrus looked delighted to crouch between the boy and girl and say a few short words for one of their friends watching the live streamed video.

“he looks like he’s enjoying himself.” Stretch nodded at Papyrus. “mr. popularity over there.”

“He’s had a few years to make a name for himself. He enjoys it so don’t get sour about it.”

“sour?”

You stopped when Stretch rounded the book stack and stopped directly in your path. It was a secluded part of the bookshop, out of Papyrus’ visual range.  Stretch had a look on his face that could only be called mischievous.

“Whaaaaaat?”

His eye lights were fixated on your mouth, watching as you worked the edge of you lower lip with you teeth, a nasty habit that came with agitation. His gaze reminded you of what he told you the previous day, about how his terrible jokes were only there to make you feel bad and spark a reaction. There was nothing you could see that would give him the reaction he wanted, but you kept quiet and waited for him to speak first.

Stretch looked like he was going to say something but stopped at the sound of his name. “STRETCH, FRIEND, COME LOOK AT THIS AND TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK.”

With a pointed look at Stretch, you gave him another second to explain himself before you turned back to where Papyrus was. He had the teenager girl’s phone in his hand and was showing off the video that had a stream of multi colored hearts popping next to his face. He was pointing to the hearts and when the red ones popped he laughed.

“THEY ARE THE SAME COLOR AS YOUR SOUL.”

So freaking cute.

Stretch snickered behind you and it made the color on your face spread. Papyrus looked so proud and the teenagers looked over the moon to have been a part of whatever made Papyrus so happy, so there really wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about.

Just....

Stretch’s snickering made you think there was.

Was there?

The teenager retrieved their phone with Papyrus’ thanks and scampered off, chatting among themselves about how their friends were ‘gonna flip their lids’ when they showed off their video. Papyrus waved to them as they walked and the bookseller checked Stretch out while you went with Papyrus to wait at the door.

Stretch joined you a moment later with his book under his arm, tucked in such a way that the title was obscured.

“I didn’t know you were actually looking for something. What did you get?”

“lets fine a place to eat first, i can show it off better at a table and you’re still starving. we can all hear your human belly rolling even if we’re too polite to react to it.”

“I’m not starving, I’m just hungry, there’s a difference.”

“LOOK, THERE ARE HUMANS WHO ARE EATING THERE, YOU LIKE THAT SORT OF GREASY FOOD, DON’T YOU?” Papyrus asked.

He was pointing to another fast food burger joint that wasn’t so different from the restaurant you stopped at previously. It was the sort of place he would normally try to talk his brother out of eating at, if their conversation about his eating habits were anything to go off of. You wondered why he was okay going to such a place if he told Sans he hated them?

“You okay with a place like that, Paps? We can look for something else that’s not fast food.”

“BUT YOU LIKE FAST FOOD.” He said it like that was supposed to be the end of it, like that was all the explanation needed. He started jogging over that way and Stretch tugged on your long sleeve to drag you along.

Too sweet!

Inside there were mostly empty table and booths, as the lunch hour was two hours past, but a number of young people loitered at their table, keeping their trash neatly on their trays and their conversations quiet.

Much to your delight there is a monster menu that, admittedly isn’t as varied as the human menu, has enough items on it to make Papyrus happy. You all order, putting the items on the company card, then stand off to the side to wait while they put together your food.

The radio overhead was quiet just like the conversations and it was nice to just… pretend for a moment everything about you and this moment was normal. It was normal to be with a pair of monsters tracking down another pair of monsters that came from another dimension to an out of the way country type town.

Nothing unusual about that.

You startled when you felt something touch your lip. Stretch was there with one of the french fries taken from your basket. He grinned and pushed the fry into your mouth when he saw the opportunity. Never one to waste good food you bit down and yanked it free from his fingers.

"our order came,” he explained, gesturing to the two trays Papyrus was carrying off to a set of tables.

You followed him easily and sat down across from the skeletons, noting once again how similar they appeared when next to one another. Stretch was a tad shorter but hunched too much for how own good and dressed like he didn’t care who saw him. Papyrus took a bit more pride in looking like his best version of himself with the bright colors he loved.

The three of you chatted absently about the food and each other's orders. Papyrus had ordered purely from the monster menu while Stretch was a bit more adventurous about trying a mixture of both human and monster dishes. He seemed to like the french fries best of all.

Unexpectedly, both boys seemed to take a secret sort of delight in how much food you had ordered. A double cheeseburger with the ‘secret’ sauce and two orders of fries plus a extra large drink and min salad.

“What’s so funny about it?” you grumbled. The pair shared a look that made you feel uneasy. Since when had they gotten along so well?

“THERE IS NOTHING FUNNY ABOUT YOUR BURGER, IT’S NOT EVEN TELLING JOKES. IT’S JUST….”

“you."

“Me?” You look to Papyrus, feeling betrayed. He was still grinning in a way that made the corners of his sockets crinkle. “What’s wrong with me?”

“NOTHING IS WRONG WITH YOU!” Papyrus rushed to explain.

“you’re just so tiny,” Stretch interjected before Papyrus could blubber anything else.

“I-tiny? I’m taller than Sans! You don’t laugh at him or Blueberry, do you?”

“they’re older brothers so we wouldn’t, but are you really taller or is that the reason you’re always wearing those shoes with the lifts-” 

“They’re called heels and it’s fashion.”

“well then who am I to tell you, ya can’t per-shoe your own tastes, but you don’t have to step up just cause you’re a tatter-tot.” Stretch grinned and pulled out the book he had propped up against his side, showing off the title, ‘101 Modern Jokes and Puns for the Family Dad.’

No.”

“gotta update with the times, honey.” He reached out and casually picked out one of your fries and made of show of chewing it down.”jokes are important, you could say they’re my whole platform.”

You really didn’t want to laugh. You pushed down the temptation and mustered up an annoyed expression that cracked only a little when he wiggled his brow bones at you.

“They’re so bad though!” you exclaimed. “It’s just low hanging fruit for a laugh and you know they’re bad and you do it anyway, stop smirking at me. Papyrus, back me up.”

Papyrus nodded along. “THEY ARE PRETTY BAD, BUT NOT AS TERRIBLE AS SANS'.”

“Considering your footwear I thought your psyche would have be heeled by now, sorry if it bothered you,” he answered easily, not at all sorry if his expression was anything to go by.

It was almost enough to laugh, but not because it was a funny joke, more so because it was just…so bad and he still kept going. It was all for the reaction.

You balled up the wrapper left behind from your burger and kept your comments to yourself as you compiled the trays, loading them up with the trash leftover from your finished meals. You almost stood to take it but Papyrus beat you to it, taking the plastic red trays from your hands and smiling in a way communicated without words he should be the one to do this.

That he would be happy to do it.

That he wanted to do it.

“Thanks Paps,” you sighed, relinquishing your hold on the trays.

“OF COURSE, IT’S A BO-GENTLEMAN’S PRIVILEGE.” He laughed a little louder and hurried off with the trash before the blush on his face could spread.

You sat back down in your seat across from Stretch, watching him play with the pages of his new book. His eye lights followed Papyrus over to the trash bins and then narrowed when a number of the young adults exclaimed in surprise, calling out to Papyrus by name. They had a phone with his video from earlier and were waving for him to join them. One of them was showing off an enamel pin with his face on it that they wore on the strap of their backpack.

“so, what you think that’s gonna be, five, ten minutes?” Stretch pushed his book to the side and rested his elbow on the table’s edge in its place. Jaw in his hand, he turned his eye lights to you. “my money is on it being double whatever that last group was.”

“You have money?”

Stretch grinned in a way that let you know he didn’t.

“either way, it’s fine like this. I was hoping to talk to you about something without prince charming overhearing. If he’s anything like my bro, he cares enough about his brother to not see things clearly.”

Sans?

“What is it?” you asked, feeling a small pit of dread in your stomach begin to mount.

“…eh, it’s, my bro’s real fond of you and I can’t say I don’t know why, so I may have been listening. You had an unfriendly encounter?” When you nodded he went on. “ya still taking those medicines for your bruises?”

“How did you know about that?”

“my bro was there when you got the stuff, it’s not a secret and i’m not stupid.”

“So you gonna make a point out of all this or you wanna just dance around the issue?” you grumbled.

“heh, if you got the dancing shoes for it, sure.” He only smirked at your withering look but then you feel it, the way he leaks his magic just enough for you to feel it and not enough for Papyrus to notice. “but I’ll get to the point if that’s what you want, what’s your beef with the mini prime lord? Ya didn’t roast him when you could.”

By mini prime lord you guessed you was talking about Sans.

“That’s tasteless,” you scoff, meeting his magic with your own, unwilling to let his subtle manipulations of the environment persist. You remember how Stretch is a swapped version of Sans and hope that doesn’t mean Stretch is angling for an unfriendly encounter of his own. “What went down was between two people and it’s not my business to air the dirty laundry for everyone to see. If I wanted you to know about it I would have brought it up.”

Then Stretch blinked, pulling back his magic and straightening. There was surprise in his eye lights. “you won?”

You almost slipped out of your seat from the shock in his voice. “What the hell is that look for?” you hissed, pulling yourself up. “What did you think, that he beat me up and then threatened me to keep quiet about it or something?” At the blank look on Stretch’s face you realize that’s exactly what Stretch was suspecting. “Seriously, Stretch? I look like that much of a pushover to you?”

“…you’re so tiny though, and you were hurt while he wasn’t.”

The magic has faded but the sour taste in your mouth still rolled, so you absently patted down your pockets looking for something to suck on. You found another cotton candy pink stick of rock candy and pulled it free from it’s wrapper. With the candy on your tongue you find it easier to hide your pout.

“I’m not small.”

“…tiny.”

“Shut up. I’m full sized for a human, you’re all just taller than average. And my height doesn’t have anything to do with my ability to hold my own. The guy just didn’t believe me when I said I wasn’t out to hurt him or his brother.”

“so the encounter…?”

“A few bruises are far from the worst thing I’ve ever had to endure in my life, and they’re a small price to pay if it gets us all on the same page. Don’t worry about it, I can hold my own when it comes to a fight. You remember what they said the Embassy was used for before the monsters came topside?”

Stretch huffed. “still, if Sans is anything like me, he’s not a pushover. he’s what we’d call boss level.”

With a laugh you popped the rock candy free and tapped it against your bottom lip. “I’m pretty sure I could also hold my own against you. It’s what they designed us for and I may be a bit rusty, but I’m far from the hopeless case you seem to see me as.”

Stretched just laughed, eye lights dropping to the rock candy on your lips, watching as you bounced it absently before sucking on it again. He tilted his head into his hand, leaning further across the table.

“i doubt that last bit, but I’ll let you keep your delusions, honey.”

“You think I’m hopeless?”

“utterly.”

With your back molars you broke off a chunk of candy, tasting the sugar as Stretch let his magic roll free once more. You didn’t miss how he had shifted in his seat and was leaning further across the table, shoulders set in a challenging angle.

“Don’t push it, buddy, you can’t intimidate me that easily.”

“who said I was trying to intimidate you?” he teased, leaning closer.

You push your magic against his, buffering his advance. Absently you twirled the candy in your mouth, playing with the wooden end before dragging it free so that when you enunciate your words they’re clear with no possibility of mistaking them.

“You can’t fool me, I can see right through you, Skeleton.”

And there’s a moment when you feel the swell of victory, you know you’ve won, because his magic pulls back and his face tints with a honey orange color to match his eye lights. He’s watching you, eyes on your teeth as you show them off in a smile that knows better.

But Stretch doesn’t pull back, he’s still too close and staring at you with his magic subdued but still present, and the victory is short lived as something hardens in his eye lights and he pulls his magic back, only for Papyrus to step in.

“PLAYING A NEW GAME? WHAT ARE YOU BOTH DOING?”

Papyrus is directly behind you and before you could look up or turn around he dropped his arms around your shoulder to lean over you, not so much that it’s uncomfortable, but enough that it distracts you from Stretch.

“Hey, I can’t see,” you laughed as his scarf fell down in front of your face.

You thought Papyrus would move right away but he lingered over you a moment more before pulling his arms back and stepping to the side, dragging his scarf with him. When you were able to look up at long last you expected to see his usual smile but this time around, the grin was a bit tighter and his eye lights were dimmer, narrowed…at Stretch.

But maybe you imagined it because then he blink over at you and the grin was blinding. “I MADE SOME MORE NEW FRIENDS, SAID I WAS TRENDING. I WASN’T GONE TOO LONG WAS I?”

“Nah, course not, I’m glad you had a good time. You really brightened up their day.”

“speaking of day…” Stretch pointed absent like up at a wall clock. You double checked your phone and groaned.

“Still more than fifteen minutes to go.”

“WE CAN START HEADING OVER THAT WAY. DO YOU NEED TO DO ANYTHING ELSE BEFORE WE START HEADING OUT?” 

You pocketed your phone and stood, shaking your legs out a bit before nodding. “I’ll use the bathroom and meet you back out here in like three minutes. Don’t leave without me.”

“WOULD NEVER DREAM OF IT!”

After using the bathroom you stepped outside, noticing Stretch and Papyrus standing on opposite sides of the door, and in Stretch’s mouth there was an unlit cigarette. He grinned when he caught you looking and shrugged.

“they wouldn’t let me have a lighter.”

“Good, those things are gross.”

“no lungs, honey.”

“I meant for everyone else who has to breath in the smoke. It’s bad for the rest of us.”

“alright then, you got it, boss.”

With a half hearted eye roll you turned down the street with a skeleton on either side and made your way down to the bar. The sign said it was open even though it was still a couple of minutes before four. When you tried the door, it came open, unlocked.

Papyrus held it open for you while you pulled up your map, zooming in until all you could see was the layout of the building you were stepping into. The red Sans dot was close, so close….

“Hey there folks, just about ready to get serving if ya can give us a few spare minutes.”

You looked up, feeling something off about the voice and how it range low and thin in your mind. But then you saw him and realized why.

The Sans dubbed ‘Red’ was behind the bar, putting bottles away like it was a familiar chore. He straightened and you saw the thick cigar pinched between his teeth, the fur collar of his hooded jacket, and the red glow from his dancing eye lights.

And you didn’t know what to expect when he saw you, but you were still surprised. 

His grin stretched wider at the sight of you all.

“Well, it took you guys long enough.”

 

Notes:

Stretch deserves to have his moments too. Someone might have picked up on his interest and not...appreciated it as much, but nothing they can say to that! Papyrus is a good egg, after all.

You thought I was excited about getting Blue and Papyrus to flirt then honey are you in for a storm with what's going to happen next. I'm giddy. Red is going to be a riot. I love writing him so much. He's too much fun.

Sorry this came out later than I had planned for it, getting sick and sleeping all morning away in bed will do that to you.

Chapter 7: Sunshine Riptide 7

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

The Sans behind the counter grinned and it made the cigar in his mouth jump up, smoking slightly. In the light of his one gold tooth, a canine, flashed.

“You look a little lost there, sweetheart. It a little overwhelming to come face to face with a superior skeleton or what?” He winked and braced against the counter, leaning slightly.

“You look a lot less shocked than we were anticipating,” you answered first.

“Oh trust me, babe, this is my shocked face. I’m just not surprised . I knew someone would be sending out a suit of some sort to round us up, but I didn’t think I’d get this lucky.” He whistled low and made a show of dragging his eye lights up your form from toe to top. “What a looker! You got a name babe or can I call you mine?”

Ever the gentleman, Papyrus stiffened from beside you and Stretch bit hard down on the edge of his unlit cigarette. You felt their irritation for what it was and scrambled for something to say before the situation got worse.

You hastily blurted out your name. “Also, this is Stretch and-”

“Yeah I know who the two dudes are. This one over here ain’t the most subtle thing is he? If you were trying to be sneaky maybe don’t stop for a photoshoot every half hour. It’s a trending topic Mr. Monster Mascot.” Red laughed but it was a cheerful sort of sound. Then he looked over at Stretch. “You missing a light or something there, pal?”

“Sorry, but you’re not surprised about the whole topside situation? The brand new world situation?” you cut in before Stretch could answer. Each one of Red’s words was barbed and hooked, testing for a bite.

“That’s some crazy stuff to be sure, but not nearly as crazy as you. I mean wow! Aside from being drop dead gorgeous what do you do for a living ? No lemme guess, you look…yeah, I’d say you’re a boxer… cause you’re a knockout .” 

“CHARMING,” Papyrus huffed. “THIS LOUT ISN’T ANYTHING LIKE WHAT HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN OUR PLANS. WHERE IS THE CONFUSION, THE AGGRESSION, THE SLOBBER? OH WAIT, FOUND THE SLOBBER.”

“Harsh words from a hero among monsters. What, no kind words unless I’m one of your loyal fans? Don’t get too out of shape, funny bones, I ‘aint the type to be confused for long. Yeah, situation is crazy. Do I care? Not really.” He shrugged.

“You don’t have any questions for us?” you asked.

“Oh, for you, sweetheart, I’ve got tons. First off, what’s your number?”

“Red?” a new voice interjected. The wider skeleton stiffened and a flush started to creep along the bridge of his skull. “Red, you better not be scaring off my customers. What are you yammering so much about?” And then from behind the counter in the kitchen an older woman with salt colored hair and deep wrinkles around her eyes walked out, squinting at the scene until her glasses were in place. When she saw the guests her smile widened and Red’s face turned a darker shade.

“Aw, quit it Ma, I was chatting up a babe.”

“Ma?”

“Shut up, Red, you were embarrassing yourself. Welcome, sweet things, it’s so good to see more monsters in town. And what a darling you have here with you. You need help finding a table or menu?”

“They ain’t here for the food or music, old lady, we were talking .”

“I’d actually love to go for a drink but I won’t lie, we were chatting with your…son here.”

Red blustered and made a pained sound as the old woman cackled and held her stomach to keep herself from pitching too far forward in laughter.

“It ain’t funny Ma, j-no, she ain’t my real ma, that’s just what we all call her around here, especially the staff. You think she really would be my mother knowing what ya do?”

“A family is just made out of love, plus, I’ve seen worse,” you answered, watching the woman named Ma and Red to see who would speak next. Beside you, Stretch was chuckling darkly while Papyrus watched on without speaking. 

“Red, do your job and get them a seat. You know we won’t be busy for another half hour. Take it to settle them in. And-” she grabbed Red by the shoulder and even though he was taller, wider, and likely stronger than the frail old woman, he seemed to sweat from her touch. “Go easy on the free drinks. You’re close to your limit.”

“That won’t be a problem, I’m paying for it all. Three house specials if you would,” you interrupted, tossing the company card onto the counter. Ma eyed it and then picked up the plastic to stick into a shot glass on the side with a hum of approval. “But I’d appreciate the company, even if it’s forced.”

Red chuckled, recovering some of his bravado. “You don’t have to hold anything against me, unless you want to, babe, ow! Ma? I’m working .”

“You’re embarrassing yourself. Get them their drinks.”

It was almost endearing to watch Red interact with his boss. He was an intimidating looking monster with his red eye lights, gold tooth, and impressive girth, but it seemed like there wasn’t as much bark behind his bite if the way he acted with the old woman was anything to go by. He said she wasn’t his mom, and yeah that was obvious, but based off the way they acted around each other, it was clear they were close.

“…here.”

You turned at the sound of Stretch’s voice and saw that he had a table towards the back corner already picked out. Papyrus got there first and pulled out a chair for you before he and Stretch followed you by sliding into the booth. Red came around with three different drinks, two in his hands, the third levitating with magic. He set all three down on the table and then pushed a different one each of your ways.

“We got a nice Zombie over here for sweetheart, a John Collins for the Orange eyesore and buddy here gets a nice Ice Pick. Cheers, ya’ll.”

Papyrus’ drink was a bright tangerine color and you could smell the sweet tea from where you sat, but Papyrus hesitated to touch it. Underneath the table you reached for his hand to get his attention and mouthed, ‘you don’t have to drink it’ before facing Red. Underneath the table Papyrus held onto your hand. 

“i’m not willing to believe you just woke up one day in this place and didn’t have any questions so,” Stretch took his John Collins and tipped it back, downing the entire drink in one go, “wanna cut the act and answer the questions we got for ya?”

“Yeah, but only if you answer mine,” Red said, turning to you. “Like how are you not exhausted? You’ve been running through my head all day.”

Stretch scoffed and Papyrus groaned.

“THAT’S REALLY UNSEEMLY BEHAVIOR AND NOT THE WAY TO TALK TO A LADY.”

“According to you mr. purity ring, but don’t tell me that’s the only reason you came all the way out here was to correct a little bad language. You had an agenda or what?”

“We had an agenda, yeah,” you interrupt before either Stretch or Papyrus could say something snappy. “You and your brother are both unregistered and, frankly, unknown monsters from a different world. Part of the job is to feel you out and make a call based on that.”

“Oh, ya came all the way out here to feel me up and out? So tell me, like what you see?”

“Well I don’t think you’re crazy unhinged or hell bent on killing humans, so that’s a plus. You came from a rougher timeline, some were suspecting that would make you harder to work with.”

“He’s plenty hard to work with as he is!” Ma’s voice rang out from somewhere unseen, dissolving into cackles. Red sank a bit in his seat. 

“But,” you interjected quickly, “I know appearances can be deceiving. Who’s to say this isn’t some elaborate sham, an attempt to play at our pity? I don’t know you, not really. What assurance can you offer me that you’re not as dangerous as a wild card?”

“Oh, sweetheart I’m hella dangerous, but that don’t mean I’m mean . What about these two boneheads, you don’t think they’re dangerous? Sure they are, but they wouldn’t hurt a sweet thing like you would they? What’s it take to believe them?”

“well for one thing, we complied with the local and regional authorities when they came, we didn’t tease or mock them,” Stretch said.

“Your loss,” Red snorted. “Don’t tell me you’re offended, string bean.”

Stretch scowled but then reached across the table to Papyrus’ untouched drink and grabbed it. Like his first one, he knocked it back in one go. Somehow the cigarette still dangled from his teeth, surviving two different drinks. 

You noticed a flush beginning across the front of Stretch’s skull and felt a familiar fear roll through you when you realized he was probably a lightweight. 

“Are you curious about the event that brought you and your brother to this world at least?” you asked.

“If you’re willing to shed some light on that, it’d be appreciated.”

At least he seemed willing to listen, so you took a sip from your drink before beginning. “Okay, then to begin with, in this world the monsters have magic and the humans, like Ma, are just human, no magic of their own right?” When Red nodded you went on. “But it’s a sort of secret that there were a number of kids out there with the ability to use magic like so.”

You snapped and the end of Stretch’s cigarette lit up with a burst of red flame. Red’s eye lights shrunk, growing bright as he watched Stretch pull the cigarette out and breath out.

“i thought you said smoking was bad for the people around me?”  Stretch said.

You breathed deep and blew out the smoke that had filled your mouth. “It’s not pleasant but I’ll survive it. Don’t make it a habit and put it out of the other customers show up.” You fixed your eyes back on Red and managed a smile. “There’s not a lot of us, but one of those kids was someone who could apparently open tears in space and time. He was pulling other boss type monsters to our world from other dimensions.”

“Why?” Red asked, eyes stuck on you.

“Don’t know that part exactly. We’re in the process of tracking him down and bringing him back before he can make too much more of a mess. Maybe you and your brother aren’t terrible, but who’s to say the next set are any better?” 

Red didn’t say anything in response right away, leaving you enough time to pick at your drink. It was a nice mix, and the base was an honest whiskey but like anything else made with alcohol, you’d be two barrels in before you even started to feel a buzz. When you set the glass down Red was still staring.

“So, you got a little magic in you, babe, is that right?”

“Technically, all human souls are made out of concentrated magic, I’m just able to tap into it. But yeah, I’m able to set things on fire with magic and move things with my mind and all that fun stuff.”

Red’s smile stretched from something playful and friendly to sharp and cunning. “Well hot damn, if that don’t beat all. I’m a little warm under the collar myself. Is that your doing?”

“and that’s the gist of it,” Stretch sighed. “hon, is this enough or does papyrus have to beat him up in a fight?”

Papyrus scoffed. “I WOULD NEVER ENGAGE IN UNFAIR COMBAT WITH THE PROVIDER OF OUR FOOD AND DRINK. THERE’S NO SPORT IN THAT. A PUZZLE ON THE OTHER HAND WOULD BE MORE THAN-”

“That’s not necessary,” Red interrupted with a laugh, “and trust me, I was really tempted with the offer, but it won’t work. I’m staying put here with Ma and the town. We got business here.”

“so you’re above the law?”Stretch scoffed. He leaned back in his seat, working the end of his cigarette with his teeth before pulling it free to breath out the smoke, noticeably away from your direction, before tapping the ash into his empty class. “figures.”

Red laughed, but it wasn’t a funny sound. “See it that way if you want to, buddy, but I got my own set of rules to live by. Me and my bro are doing right by the law in this town and we ain’t making trouble for nobody that don’t make trouble for us, Ma will vouch for that, so no reason to lose sleep over me.” He glanced your way at that last line and winked.

“YOU STILL NEED TO BE REGISTERED. EVEN IF YOU’RE NOT MOVING AROUND OR BREAKING THE LAW, YOU STILL NEED TO REGISTER AS A CITIZEN AND SWEAR TO THE MONSTER’S LAWS. ITS IMPORTANT YOU LEARN THOSE IF YOU PLAN ON LIVING AMONG HUMANS. THEY’RE NOT JUST SMALLER MONSTERS, THEY’RE MORE COMPLEX WITH THEIR OWN LAWS AND RULES YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT.”

“Fine, I can do something like that on my next day off-”

“You don’t get days off!” Ma shouted from the kitchen.

“On my next free morning or whenever the internet opens. You don’t gotta slap me in irons for that.” Red shifted in his seat, leaning closer to you, skeleton hand inching towards yours. “But if ya like playing with handcuffs we could make it work.”

Across the table Papyrus reached and shoved Red back into his seat, leaving his arm in the air to separate you from Red.

“THAT’S ENOUGH OF THAT. I’M STARTING TO THINK IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR EVERYONE IF WE LEFT YOU HERE AND MOVED ON WITH OUR SEARCH. SOMEONE ELSE CAN MAKE SURE YOU’RE KEPT IN CHECK.”

“i’m with string bean on this one, we’re better off as we are now,”

“Wait, wait, with you?”  Red pointed to you and then himself. “Like, with you. You’re the ringleader of this operation?”

“Barely. I don’t call any shots, I’m just good at finding people and have the ability to follow orders even if my track record would have you believe otherwise. I’m the field agent checking to make sure the new arrivals aren’t an issue.”

“we live on a bus, you wouldn’t like it,” Stretch said.

“Ooh, close quarters, you’re saying?”

Red didn’t have eyebrows but the bone structure above his brows lifted and wiggled the way someone would wiggle their eyebrows. It was almost funny enough to make you laugh, but you caught yourself on a grin and bit your lip to keep him from noticing.

The door to the outside opened and a couple of humans entered, greeting Ma behind the counter and then calling out to Red who returned the greeting, addressing each human by name. Behind them trailed a group of four that waved nonchalantly but didn’t say anything.

No one seemed upset, surprised, or off put by Red’s presence and you felt like there was a reason for that. In spite of whatever terrible world he had come from, Red really wasn’t a bad guy. But you still weren’t sure what type of guy he was. Were all his comments a cheap smokescreen for something else? He was funny, but…what else was there?

You want to roll out your magic and wash it over him, feeling him out, learning about him the same way you did with the others. He would feel it, but he wouldn’t know what it meant. How would he react? Was it worth the risk?

“Hey, Red?”

“Yeah, sweetie?” His grin came easy.

“Why the name Red? Why not Sans, since that is your real name, isn’t it?”

He shrugged easily. “It was my bro’s idea to hide out identities when we didn’t know what had happened. We showed up topside not knowing anyone, not seeing any monsters, and then it’s right there, bam, the sky with a moon in it and a million damn perfect starts too far to reach. We both freaked hard, but bro won’t admit to that, and then we wound up stumbling into this town. This led to that, Ma took us both in and yelled at us to work for the room we’re borrowing, and we get by alright. Not a lot of monsters pass through, but all the human folk living here are real nice and that’s just fine.”

“You sound content.”

“I am. You walked in an’ made great turn into perfect, so who am I to complain?” 

“WHAT OF YOUR BROTHER WHO PATROLS THE PERIMETER OF THIS TOWN? WHAT DOES HE THINK OF THE HUMAN WORLD?” Papyrus asked.

“Boss thinks this place is the diggs but it’s too soft so he needs to do what he can to be its best so he going on this patrols, more out of habit than need.”

And there it is.

The lie.

It was something in the way he spoke, not in his tone or his voice or even his magic, but something mixed in underneath all those things. You feel it in your gut and you know that there is more to the story than what Red is telling you.

“What does he patrol for?” you asked, watching him closer. As you look for it, you spot the bead of magic on the back of his skull.

“Eh, that’s just the way my brother is sometimes.” A few more patrons came in and waved to Red and Ma, distracting him more than before. “He just likes to worry and do what he can. He’s not violent though, and he don’t have stuff to set up none of his favorite traps. Ma got mad when he asked so that’s out.”

“He’s not dangerous?” You watched him closer. “But what about that thing you said earlier? I thought you were all dangerous.”

It wasn’t anything to get worked up over, but you could see it. Something had unsettled Red and it was something to do with his brother. Edge.

“You done with your drinks or are you still working on them, sunshine?” Ma shouted from the bar. A few patrons laughed and Red chuckled along with them, wiping the sweat off his brow.

“I’m coming, Ma!” Red called back. He reached for all three empty glasses and picked them up. “You three need any refills or sides, feel free to holler. Live music starts in twenty if you wanna stay for that.” His eyes zeroed in on you and the nervousness was completely gone. “And then there’s line dancing if you’re up for that , sweetheart.” 

“Please no, it's my least favorite type of dancing,” you blurt out before you realize that’s too much information. It makes Red laugh though.

“We can have other dances too, don’t worry, babe.”

Then he was gone.

“WHAT DO WE DO NOW?” Papyrus asked. “DO WE TRY TO BRING THEM IN WITH US USING FORCE OR CAN WE REALLY LEAVE THEM BEHIND? DO YOU THINK THEY’RE TROUBLE?”

Stretch frowned, swallowing his cigarette and then shaking his head. “is this one trouble? yeah, not the sort of trouble you throw in jail. he's just a creep. i say we leave him, better off with less baggage to hold us down.”

“BUT WHAT ABOUT WHAT THE EMBASSY WANTS?”

Both Papyrus and Stretch turned to look at you, expecting an answer. It made something that felt like a headache start to throb towards the back of your skull. “I have a phone, I’ll step out and give them a call. You two stay here and don’t move until I get back. If you need to order something on my card, maybe something without booze in it,” you say the last part looking at Papyrus then Stretch-who was still flushed in the face.

And then you step out before either can say anything in regards to your plan. You have the number on speed dial and it rings before you even find the back exit that fillers out into the alleyway. The dumpsters are to your left so you turn right and absently walk while your call transfers.

Click

“SevenA, you have an update for me.” It wasn’t a question when it came from Hightower. You relayed what you knew and what had happened, listening for a reaction on the other end of the line. After you were finished it was quiet for a while.

Then

“It’s your call. Have them register at the least, but if you feel they’re stable in their setting you can move on. The situation may change. FourB has not been brought in yet and there is no guarantee he doesn’t pull another set of monsters out tomorrow that are worse than Red or Papyrus.”

“That’s all you got to say?”

“You have final call on this case.”

And it was hard to hear those words from Hightower, a man who existed as part boogyman part father throughout your developing years. He always told you what to do and later in life you always fought him on it.

“We’re staying the night here, we’ll check out their story to see if it holds and then we’ll move on. That’ll be all.”

You end the call before he can say anything more and it’s like a string you had been dangling on had snapped. You feel like free falling for a minute before you remember where you are.

It’s dim outside, as twilight paints the sky in impressive shades of purple red and blue, but the sky never goes ‘out’ on you. There are always stars, or the sun, or the moon to look up at. The sky isn’t nearly as empty or dark as some other things.

For a minute longer you lean against the wall and watch the sky turn color.

When the door finally opens on it’s own you’re almost as surprised to see Red there as he is to see you. He has a bag of trash in one hand and his magic is already lifting up the lid of the dumpster behind the pub.

“Well, look at that pretty alley cat,” he chuckled, throwing the trash over his shoulder and catching it with his magic without even looking at it. “You out here all alone doll face? No one else wanted to keep you company?”

“I had to make a call and get some air. You’re good to stay here if that’s what you want. We’ll help with getting you registered but I think me and my friends are moving on in the morning.”

Red stopped in front of you, frowning. “That’s a shame.”

You snickered at the note of displeasure in his tone. “Don’t get too broken up about it.”

“You’re a real treat and if things had been different I might have really liked to go with you on that trip to see more of the world. My and my bro have only been here a little while but we want to see more of this place, more than just what the internet has to offer.”

He sounded honest and you believed him.

“Red,” he perked up, like the minor act of saying his name out loud was a treat or something. “You mind if I use my magic on you?”

“Damn, not even a first date and already you’re getting kinky on me?” he teased.

You let yourself laugh, knowing it’s a silly thing to imply. “Nothing weird about it. I can’t check or initiate encounters like you monsters can, but I can get a feel for someone when my magic comes in contact with theirs. You…mind?”

“It ain’t gonna hurt none, is it?”

“I don’t think so, it hasn’t for anyone else and weaker monsters don’t even notice it.”

Red scratched at his chin, pretending to think it over before shrugging and throwing his hands up in mock surrender. “Ah, what can I say, you won me over babe. Magic me up.”

And as silly as he made it sound, hearing him consent was important to you. Closing your eyes you pulled out your magic and reached out to Red, easing your magic over his own and then him. 

You felt a warmth from him and then the hot breath of a roar, like a lion at the tip of his pride, shaking his mane and facing down the enemies at his door. His soul was warm and proud and brave. There were plenty of nasty things all around him, but his soul wasn’t made less because of it. He was scared but also…brave.

In the midst of your probing, his soul disengaged as if by accident and you felt yours follow suit in an accidental encounter that he didn’t even seem aware of it. His eyes went fuzzy from the light of your soul and you were sure he could see something you couldn’t before he moved to spare you in such close quarters.

You pulled away and he staggered first. You caught his arms and he was heavy enough to make you move back. You hit the wall and laughed as he sagged against you a bit.

“That was you?” he breathed, honestly a bit out of breath from something other than a joke or gag. “That felt a little more like a real monster encounter than you said it would. Damn.”

“Was it unpleasant?” you worried.

“Nah, shit, that was…that was something else. I felt a little exposed there but it was nice. I liked it. Any time you ever want a free pass at someone you see me. I’d be-”

“RED, THE TWO BABOONS ARE RIGHT BEHIND ME THIS TIME AND-SANS!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THAT HUMAN!?”

And before you can see who it is Red is yanked off of you and there’s a new monster keeping his back to you as he interjects himself between you and Red who stumbles on his feet.

“It wasn’t what it looked like, boss. I was keeping my hands to myself-”

“We’ve talked about this,” the taller skeleton in leather said. There was a shift to his voice as the magic left it. He wasn’t shouting or booming anymore, but he still sounded sinister. “You’re not a suave as you think you are. Back off the humans.”

“But she’s not like the other girls, and she-”

“No excuses!”

“Shit, sorry boss.”

“And the language!

“….Sorry, boss.”

Then Edge, who else could it be, turned around to face you.  Like his brother he was a bit taller and wider than your Papyruses, decked out in spiked leather, dark platform boots, and a scar over his left eye socket. His eye lights were red just like his brother’s.

“Human, are you unharmed? I apologize for the forwardness of my brother but he does not know his place. You are safe here.”

And you know you should say something better, you know who he is and what you’re supposed to say to him, but you’re a bit stunned and all you can manage are a handful of throw away words.

You pointed to his scar and then touch yours.

“Heh, we match.”

And then as soon as the words are out of your mouth your dumb brain starts to catch up with terrible, horrifying, thoughts of, ‘ oh no he’s a cute bad boy .’ 

Notes:

I think Red was the most fun to write and, my gosh is he a riot! I love him to bits. Edge will be a fun character in the next chapter too. He and Red have been on the surface as long as Stretch and Blue (maybe longer) so they've been living with the humans over a month an a half and had time to grow.

Fair warning: My underfell boys not going to be exactly like they are in the other stories you might have read with them. Yes, Red is going to be a shameless, fun, flirt no matter what, but Edge is still a Papyrus underneath it all and I really like him. This is wish fulfillment so he's going to be a little more...charming.

But yeah, this was one of my favorite chapters to write so far. I hope you enjoyed.

Chapter 8: Sunshine Riptide 8

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

And then as soon as the words are out of your mouth your dumb brain starts to catch up with terrible, horrifying, thoughts of, ‘ oh no he’s a cute bad boy .’ 

Your traitor brain putters back to life and you realize how stupid you must look. Absently you combed back your hair with your fingers and then extend the other hand to shake. You offer him your name and he hesitantly takes your hand in his. There’s a size difference, more so than Papyrus or Stretch, and you realize that the same was true for Red in comparison to Sans or Blue.

These brothers were a bit bigger than average. 

Esge is unflinchingly cordial as his hand wraps around your much smaller one. You noticed the distressed red leather gloves at first, then you saw how instead of hands like Stretch or Papyrus had, Edge's fingers taper off into claws he kept covered underneath the colored leather. 

‘Shit, he’s hot.’

His handshake was firm but not enough to be intimidated by. “You may call me Edge,” he said. “And while I am known to be great and terrible, you do not have to worry about your safety while you are here. My brother and I are adequate security for this quaint district.” 

“I'm sure. I-uh actually I was just talking to your brother and he lost his footing so you don't have to be so hard on him. Sorry for worrying you.” 

Edge turned his head and scoffed. For a split second you though he was upset with you but then his eye lights narrowed in on his brother. “A cad and an actor, they are one in the same. Don't dupe the poor girl into believing you charlatan’s act. It's beneath you.” Edge then turned back to you and the glare lessened. “Don't fall for his tricks. He's far too awful to waste them on you.” 

Your face was hot and growing hotter as the heart in your chest raced. You knew it could do that but it had been a while before it picked up so wickedly. And you couldn't help it even if you wanted to because this was too much to process and still believe. 

Edge was the literal paragon of a badass bad boy with a heart of gold. You could feel it as his magic crackled in response to his brother. It was a brilliant glittering gold, justice with a bit of courage. You were tempted, so tempted to let your magic run wild and feel his soul like you had with Red, but you held yourself back. 

To make matters worse, you remember a bit too well what sort of ‘type’ you had back when puberty was still a wild thing that chased you into the rooms of your girlfriends to gossip and giggle with stolen magazines and videos from beyond the firewalls. You remember all too well… 

“Thanks but I think I'll be fine. And really, Red and I had been talking about something concerning why I'm here. You missed it but I came with another group of skeletons to meet you and your brother and see how you were settling in.” 

Edge pulled back and his eye lights trailed, toe to top and then down again. “We were wondering when to expect… such visitors. My brother caught you up then?” 

It took a few minutes but you summarized your encounter with Red and your position. Edge seemed befuddled by your claim to be a human with magic until you flared you own in mock warning. He then exclaimed quite loudly that if humans had been the ones to erecting the magical barrier in the first place it would only make sense for there to be humans who still had magic. Red chimed in with an easy ‘you’re the smartest, boss’ and you weren’t sure if the shorter brother was being honest or mocking in his praise. 

You finally summarized your conversation with the decision to respect their wish to stay as long as they registered and legalized themselves, something you offered to help them do in the morning. You even showed him an app on your smartphone that could help them answer questions about resettlement for monsters. True, they weren’t real resettles, but considering they were still mostly new to the surface, they qualified.  

Then you talked about FourB and your job in all this, offering them a spot on the team if they wanted it.

“And honestly, it’d be neater to have you both tag along with what we’re trying to do, you were the last ones to have any contact with the boy who brought you both through.”

“You’re tracking him down?” Edge asked. Your phone was still in his hand and the blue glow of the app made the color of his red eyes seem almost purple. 

“It’s my responsibility, he’s one of my people. There aren’t a lot of humans who can use magic and he and I were raised the same way in the same place.”

“Do ‘ya think he ta be the type to get violent on ya?” Red asked. 

You shrugged. “It’s been a while and I can’t say I sympathize with his motivations for doing what he’s doing, but I understand why he’s doing it.” At their mirrored expressions you flushed. “It’s some dark twisted mix of logic. He’s not in his right mind, I’m sure of it.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Rd huffed. “But we wouldn’t be that much help in getting ya the information you need. We didn’t have any contact with the twerp, at least not directly. We had to piece it all together with Ma’s help. Her and Mini were the ones who took us in and heard about this kid. Some blond boy band lookalike was asking about wild monsters making trouble before we even knew where we were, like he was expecting us to get violent.” 

 One day humanity will need you to be its hero….  

…a monster to attack and go all out against

come on, be a hero.

“Hoping for it,” you softly corrected.   

It was what you were all made for, the crux of your identity. When that was taken away you  managed fine in comparison to some of the others. Anger and hate had been the food you all feasted on for years. Just because it became toxic didn’t mean you could quit it so easy. 

FourB…. Raven…he had been pulling Sans and Papyrus skeletons out of different timelines because they were some of the strongest boss class monsters. He was going through different worlds pulling the brothers out looking for something…a reason to be a hero. 

Edge and Red looked like they could be villains but their souls were good and their kindness was true. The relationships they had fostered with Ma and the people in this town was evidence enough. FourB…the boy who called himself Raven, must have realized his mistake after making his observations from the background. Once he realized Edge and Red were not a threat to humanity, nothing to prove himself a hero, he moved on. You wouldn’t be finding that boy anywhere close by. 

“You were…. close?” Red asked, eye lights too critical as they roved over your face. 

Behind him, Edge held your phone aloft but the light had long since faded. His expression was just as keen as his brother’s. He was watching and learning alongside his brother. 

“Yeah, we were pretty close as kids, but like lots of others we had a falling out and left on some pretty sour notes. He won’t be happy to see me.”

“And if he has the power to pull us from our own home dimension to this one he will be formidable,” Edge added, eye lights shrinking and growing brighter. 

You felt the static and crackle of his magic. All the hair on the back of your neck was standing up, and you were sure if your hair wasn’t so short and stylized, it’d be flaring and fluffing out as well in response to Edge’s magic. It was an impressive aura, one you didn’t want to get on the wrong side of to be sure. It was reflective of a…harsher forging. The way his magic felt made you think he was the produce of some world harsher than Sans or Stretch or Papyrus or Blue had ever endured.

Edge blinked and his eyes were like lasers on the ground. You realized a second later he was looking at the half step you had taken back, crunching gravel under your boot. Like a light switch the excess of his magic snapped back and the hair on your neck fell limp. The static was gone and Edge’s eyes were back to normal. 

“Excuse me, I need to see Mini about a matter.” Edge took a full step back and nodded to Red. “I trust you to behave.”

“Only Ma is inside. Mini ain’t in yet.” 

“That's fine. I'll update her and she can tell her partner the important information.” 

Red picked up on his brothers unease and you read it on his face, understanding everything secondhand. “Everything okay, boss?” Red asked. 

“We will talk later!”

Edge looked to you and then dropped his gaze, nodding once more before turning sharply and stomping off inside.

“Did-was it something I said?” you asked, unsure if Edge’s odd behavior was something you should have commented on or not. Was that sort of behavior odd for someone like Edge? You had only just met him but he seemed like a pretty swell sort of guy to have stalked off the way he had. 

Red didn’t look like he understood it any better than you did. “You’re fine, sweetheart.” He blinked and then the ease came back into his smile as his gaze turned soft. “Damn fine if I say so myself.” 

It’s enough to make you roll your eyes. “I’m not a parking ticket, thank you.” 

His eyes went a little wider and his grin stretched a fraction more. “You know what sorta print you’d be on a page? Damn fine print .”

“Wow.” It wasn’t worse than Sans’ awful puns, or the dry humor of Stretch that made you want to scream, but it was close. “I think that’s enough fresh air for me. I’m heading back inside.”

“You ain’t gonna leave your number in case we need to contact you?” Red asked while jogging to catch up and walk parallel with you to the door. 

“I’ll leave it with Ma and you can beg it off her once we’re gone.” 

“And that’s when?”

Your hand was on the door, ready to pull it open more than just a crack. “Don’t know. Depends on how sloshed we feel in the morning. Probably not more than another day at the most.” 

“I’m free in the morning. I can take you around, show you the sights.” 

“We’re here for work,” you laughed in exasperation. “It’s not a vacation.”

“Not with that sort of attitude it’s not.” 

Inside there were more monsters sitting around a table and a few more sitting with Stretch and Papyrus. All of them looked happy to be sitting, eating, and drinking. In the back behind the counter Edge was bent to Ma’s height, whispering something in her ear. 

A pair of headlights cut across the windows outside and then they land on the far wall. You heard the car door slam even as the engine still ran and then the front door is open with an older man, dark skinned and almost as wrinkled as Ma. 

“It’s the boys,” the old man rasped, already shifting to run back out. “Let 'em know he’s on his warpath tonight.” 

Whatever that meant it made Ma and Edge both react. A few of the customers closest to the doors heard and went still. Then the monsters were up and scattering towards the back room, leaving their drinks and plates of food unfinished. A few humans stood up to help them pass, waving them on and watching the front.  The monsters at Stretch and Papyrus’ table got up, waving for the boys to follow without offering an explanation.

“Shit,” you heard Red curse from behind. “Keep your boys quiet.”

You felt his hand on your back before he was pushing past you, to get behind the counter with Edge.

Ma slipped out and she looked mad but it wasn’t directed at any of them. When Red tried to say something she waved him back, ignoring him in favor of positioning herself to greet the guests who were to come next. 

The roar of half a dozen different rumbling motors came next, sending their headlights bouncing off the far wall as they parked in front. You were familiar enough with the sound of motorcycle motors to recognize them before they were even visible. 

It felt like a heartbeat and a hundred years at once, waiting to see what happened next, but then the front door opened and a middle aged man in uniform let himself in. 

Police?

No, something less official. Still, he swaggered like the town was his and he was its king. Ma stood her ground, arms crossed, face set. 

You found your way to Stretch and Papyrus but didn’t sit down. You stayed standing in front of their table, one hand stretched behind your back in case you needed it. When Papyrus reached for it you decided that was the most useful you could be in the moment and squeezed back. 

“Oi, where is Mini at?” the ‘security’ man asked. His hair had been blond through and through at one point but was speckled with gray and faded, though he didn’t look like he could be much older than his late thirties. His hazel eyes were angry when they fell on Ma. “Where is she, old bag?”

“She’s at home or out doing as she pleased, she’s my wife, not my slave,” Ma snapped. “What are you here for Steven?”

In response Steven let his lip curl. “You said you were through with the monster halfway house. We’ve taken in our quota of monsters and agreed-”

“You agreed,” Ma cut him off.

“We agreed to quit it. There ain’t no more compensation coming in through so we ain’t gonna ta waste our resources on the odd numbers. What’s this I hear about Mini taking in two extra monsters?” 

“I’ve heard no such thing,” Ma answered icily.

“My boys saw it, she took two of 'ems in.”

Ma didn’t flinch or back down as Steven took a heavy step forward. Behind him there were four other men and a fifth lingered outside, watching the bikes. When she didn’t flinch Steven made a displeased sound. One of the men moved forward to grab the nearest table and turn it over, sending glass and plates crashing. 

“YOU BULLY.” Edge was out from behind the counter, stalking forward only for Ma to hold him back. Edge looked near murderous and his magic was high pitched static in the air. “YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO DESTROY ANOTHER’S PROPERTY,” Edge shouted, lacing his words with magic again. It made your head ring. 

“We didn’t do a thing. Clumsy magic in the building.” Steven smirked and then reached for something on his belt and turned it around. It was blocky with a small screen that displayed readings. “Look at that, crazy magic making this place unsafe.”

“Edge,” Ma hissed. “I’ve got this. Go back with your brother.” 

“IT-” Edge growled and forced himself to take a step backwards. “It’s not right what he’s doing. That’s unlawful.”

“I’m the one with the badge here, freak,” Steven barked. “You have a problem, feel free to start something and see how fast we shut this shit show down and cart your asses off.”

There was an eagerness to Steven’s taunting and you recognized it too well. You remembered Sans and how he taunted you, wanting you to fight back. Steven knew that if Edge started anything it would be more than just him who suffered for it. Monster on human violence was almost unheard of for a reason.

It looked like it killed him but Edge backed away. His magic was still wild and angry, but he rolled it in the same way a dog owner subdued his wild mutts. Ma looked just as pained as Edge but she didn’t move or back down, keeping him behind her. 

So far Steven was too wrapped up with what was in front of him to notice Papyrus or Stretch, but that wouldn’t last forever with the goons behind him. Maybe you were just trying to justify yourself, but you had less to lose if you moved before he noticed you. 

So you did.

Ma flinched but the heels of your boots on the hardwood were louder then his angry breathing, drawing Steven’s face your way. Then he saw where you came from and who was behind you, twisting his face even more. 

“Even more freaks?” 

“We’re tourists here, but what’s your excuse, coming in here and smashing tables like you don’t think there are perfectly sane witnesses in the room?” You don’t bother to hide your sneer. “Small fish in a smaller pond; that doesn’t mean we’ll excuse your hateful rhetoric.”

You stepped out in front of Ma and ignored her hissing to get back. You had a lot less to lose and you doubted Steven could even touch what you were afraid of losing. The advance made Steven’s face contort. 

“I’m the law around here. You know who my brother is? The police chief! He’s not going to listen to you over me.”

“I don’t care.” You sniffed dramatically and popped your hip, resting your hand there. “I’m not someone you can touch so don’t think you can scare me with threats.”

He pulled a gun out of his belt and smiled. “This look like a threat to you, sweetie? I’m legal to carry in this town and protect my people from the invaders .”

Ma reached for your arm but you didn’t let her pull you back. You were stronger than her and you weren’t afraid of him or his gun. You were afraid of him winning.

“You’re a joke.”

Steven’s smile slipped and his lip twitched. You shook Ma off and took two more steps closer, close enough for him to reach out and hit you if he felt like it. He stepped back and brought the gun up in front of him. 

“You’re advancing on me. I’m defending myself here. Don’t come any closer. I’ve warned you.” He almost sounded excited and you knew why. He wanted a reason. How many others were there out there in the world with a fraction of power, wanting to be justified in their violence. 

You bent down and pressed your forehead up against the barrel of the gun and looked up through your lashes. If he twitched to pull the trigger you knew, you’d be faster, and his gun would never have the chance to go off. You weren’t in any real danger, but letting him go, letting his rhetoric persist…now that was dangerous. 

“Go for it or are you too scared to see what happens next when you blow someone’s brains out? Maybe you’re too scared to smell it, all that gore and gray matter splattered over your face and hand, at this rang you’d probably taste it too,” you said, licking your lips.

You pressed against his gun with your forehead and he backed up to keep his arm straight. Around him the other bikers have taken a step or two back on their own. Some looked more nervous than others. 

“You think this is a joke?” 

“Nah, the only joke here is you.”

You see him move but don’t bother to avoid it. He reeled and used the side of his gun to crash against your face in a pistol-whip. Faster than that, you pulled back just enough and his body followed the momentum of his arm, his shoulder passed in front of you, moving in slow motion. It was easy enough to reach out with your heel and hook it behind his ankle. You tugged and he went down. 

The gun clattered to the ground and you heard several of the men he came in with move outside, running or just getting out of the way you can’t be sure. You stepped over his body before he could stand up and kick his gun outside.

A different gun raised parallel with your face and you look straight down the barrel as the man’s hands get stuck behind your blue magic. He tried to pull the trigger but you wouldn’t let him. As Steven rolled to get his feet under him you felt the sweet tang in your mouth as your magic surged. The man’s gun turned red in the center, then orange, and finally white. He screamed and dropped his melting gun in time to save his fingers. 

You heard Steven run for the door along with several of the others. 

It was the perfect opportunity to let them go. To be better than the bullies. To be a badass hero. To be good. 

But.

You followed them out, ignoring Papyrus or Stretch calling your name. One of the men didn’t bother being subtle, he just broke into a dead run for his bike at the far end and crashed into it, eager to climb into the seat. 

“We’ll be back for the monsters! This is illegal intimidation and-”

You used your blue magic to smack the blocky electronic reader out of Steven’s hand. It landed face up, reading ‘zero monster magic’ in the area. Something he only just realized when he saw it in the dirt. 

“You may be stacking some impressive credentials but I bet mine are bigger,” you drawled, a bit too in love with the way he was watching you with eyes full of fear. “You wanna see who comes out on top between one of those secret magic using humans the government keeps hush hush or a no named gut punch from the armpit of this town?”

“Wha-” he couldn’t even finish making the words.

“We’ll be back,” one of the men behind him cried, already on his bike. 

“No you won’t.” Your magic washed over all of them and you knew their names, you knew their faces, and for as long as you cared, you’d know where they were on a map if you went looking. “You’re not going to try anything here ever again, not against Ma, not against the monsters, not against me either. Small fish in a smaller pond, welcome to the ocean.” 

And with your magic over them you could feel the ones who believed you and the ones who were too angry for logic. It wasn’t worth it, and maybe they knew it, but Steven and two of the other five guys were too far gone to understand that. It made you angry, but you couldn’t claim to be surprised. 

“Let’s go,” one of them shouted before ripping out of the parking lot. You let him. One by one the others left, Steven being the last to exit. 

And it was like coming down from a high as your magic rolled back and you had to swallow it down. There was no other outlet for it and that just…. sucked so bad. You were hungry for it. After years being bred for violence, to be teased with it and then denied left you feeling so irritated

You heard your name and turned to see Papyrus there. He was closer than he should have been with all your senses on high alert, or maybe that was a skill of his you didn’t know about. 

He reached for you and on reflex you flinched away from his touch. 

Irritated? 

Hungry? 

Angry?  

Too rotten to touch. You wanted to fight and be cruel and that wasn’t a lie. You wanted to unleash on another human who couldn’t even measure up to you! You hadn’t been good, you had been-

Papyrus reached for you again and this time you were too panicked to flinch. He tugged you to him and pet back your hair. It was free and wild and-oh, your magic had made it like that. With a deep breath you swallowed down what you could of your magic and your rage. Papyrus kept stroking back your hair, following the curve of your skull. It was like he was petting an angry cat until it calmed. 

“I’m sorry.”

His hand stopped and he pulled back. “WHY?” he asked, eyes wide and confused. “YOU WERE PROTECTING US. IF ANYONE SHOULD BE SORRY IT SHOULD BE US. WE-I COULDN’T DO ANYTHING AGAINST HIM. AS A MONSTER AND THE MASCOT I COULDN’T DO ANYTHING TO PROTECT YOU IN THAT SITUATION. YOU DID WHAT I COULDN’T.”

“I didn’t scare you?”

“I WAS TERRIBLY FRIGHTENED!” Papyrus shouted, sounding almost angry. “YOU COULD HAVE BEEN SERIOUSLY HURT AND I HAD TO WATCH THAT. YOU’RE STRONG AND BRAVER THAN THAT BULLY BUT YOU SHOULDN’T NEED TO BE.”

“I wasn’t being brave,” you admitted, dropping your eyes and your voice. 

“YOU WERE MY HERO.”

You felt your insides turned to mush at his words. Your knees wobbled and the heat on your face spread up to your ears. When you looked up, jaw slack and eyes wide, Papyrus had the biggest smile on his face and eyes filled with honesty. He meant it. 

It…why did you feel like crying? There was a knot in your throat that kept you from speaking. 

Oh…. oh!

You didn’t know what to say or even if you could make words he would be able to understand, so you just breathed deeply and rubbed at your face with the heels of your palms, hoping the tears weren’t really there to betray how shook you were from a few simple words. 

“…guys?!”

Papyrus turned and you looked up to see Stretch in the doorway, looking stricken. It made Papyrus stiffen while something rolled in your gut. The night’s fuckery wasn’t done with you yet.

“What?” you forced out. The word sound cracked and broken but it was sufficient. 

“…it’s sans and blue.”

The pit in your gut rolled.  

Notes:

I am so sorry this came out late!!! I didn't get home from work until late and then things happened. I had this ready, but I just suck when it comes to getting to the computer/internet. But here is the chapter and look at that-there's some plot. Plus a moment of reader being a badass because I wish I was a badass. More Edge and Red in the next chapter for sure. Hopefully Sans and Blue are okay~

After this there are three chapters left before the first of 6 arcs is finished: Sunshine Riptide.

Fav quotes from Jaylene : YISSSSSSSSSSSSSS & EDGE IS CURRENTLY MY FAVE, THANKS. YOU'RE THE WORST

Chapter 9: Sunshine Riptide 9

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sans and Blue?

A few things fell into place in your mind.

Like, the reason that, even after twilight, the pair of them hadn’t found the rest of the group to report in. Also, the fact that Edge hadn’t mentioned seeing either of them during your conversation earlier was another of those things. You didn’t doubt Sans' or Blue's abilities, but if they had encountered a group of racist humans…would they have held back and taken the punishment, escaped, or fight back? 

You knew the answer for Sans even though you wished you didn’t. You hadn’t even been aggressive and he was ready to throw down. 

Ma closed Whiskey Stops and sent everyone home with doggy bags and a promise to open early tomorrow. Too many of the patrons seemed to understand her situation and gave her an encouraging word, pat, or hug before paying and leaving. 

Edge and Red looked concerned but not worried, Ma looked frazzled, and Stretch….he looked like he needed another couple of cigarettes to take the edge off his anxiety. No one could move fast enough for him and what was worse was that he couldn’t shortcut to a place he had never been before, so he had to slow down and follow Ma and her boys to their house on the edge of town. 

The house had a long driveway, a stretching front yard, and a worried older woman in the doorway watching for the rest of her family to come home. 

“Mini,” Edge and Red called out, jogging up while Ma followed at a slower pace. You weren’t sure, but you worried that her age was making things difficult for her. 

Edge grabbed at Mini’s arms and looked her over, only sighing in relief once he had concluded she was fine. Red blinked out and short cut into the house, skipping the front door and the woman standing in it. 

“We got the rest of the tourists,” Ma called out loudly. “I’ll tell you about the Steven problem once we’re inside with something stronger than tea.”

Once Ma was close enough she kissed her wife on the side of her face and then headed in, pulling Mini along with her.  Stretch was the first of you in, followed closely by Papyrus, and ending with you. You paused on the threshold but then pushed yourself to move, finally stepping over it. 

The house wasn’t huge, but it was large enough. The hallway filtered into an open living room that spilled into an open kitchen. At the island counter on two stools a pair of skeletons sat, sipping tea and coffee. 

“blue!” Papyrus exclaimed, rushing forward ahead of the others. His brother turned at the sound and smiled brightly, making the bandage patch on his face stretch up. 

You froze in your tracks as you watched Papyrus greet Sans and everyone else make some sort of greeting. Ma and Mini were worried about Edge and Red, or rather how they felt after the hectic night, and each set of brothers fussed over one another. It took a moment more before you realized you had to make your legs move if you wanted to enter a circle of conversation. 

Stretch turned away from Blue and glared over at Sans who looked bored and untouched. Papyrus fretted at his brother’s shoulder. 

“you were fighting?” 

Sans looked away. “that’s not how he got hurt. i didn’t land a single hit.”

“not for lack of trying, i’m sure,” Stretch hissed.  

“BROTHER, WHAT WERE YOU AND BLUE HAVING A DISAGREEMENT OVER?” 

That’s when Blueberry noticed you in the kitchen, hovering at the edge. His eyes started to brighten, a sign of joy, before he noticed the way you held yourself. Something must have made him worry since he slipped off the stool and brushed past the others to reach you, ignoring Papyrus and Sans’ lack of conversation. 

You heard him call your name and looked up. “ARE YOU OKAY, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?”

The question was so out of place it made your brain flatline for a split second. Blueberry…was asking about you? He was worried about you? There wasn’t a scratch on you. He was the one with a bandage on his face but he was still concerned about your welfare first. 

It made your heart pinch. 

You didn’t deserve his kindness or his concern. You wished you were, but you knew better and weren’t in the habit of lying to yourself.

He stopped right in front of you, fingers twitching but hands still, unwilling to touch you without your explicit consent for some reason. There was a hesitation there along with his worry. Instead, you rested the flat of your hand just under his bandage. 

“Me? What are you doing worrying about a person who doesn’t have a scratch on her when you got something like this? What happened? Sans didn’t do it so who did?” 

You knew what wounds looked like when they came from Sans. 

Blueberry grumbled, skull flushing a light blue. “IT’S NOTHING. IT WAS JUST A LITTLE HIT AND I DIDN’T EVEN LOSE ANY HP FOR IT SO YOU DON’T NEED TO WORRY. NO MAGICAL DAMAGE AT ALL!”

“Does that mean it was a human who did this to you?”

Blueberry hesitated and then looked away before nodding. “WE DIDN’T FIGHT BACK THOUGH. AND THEY LEFT AFTER MINI SHOWED UP. SHE SAID SHE WOULDN’T GET IN TROUBLE FOR IT BUT-UM, I’M SORRY WE DIDN’T FIND YOU SOONER.” Blueberry turned back to look at his brother and dropped his head. “I EVEN FORGOT TO CALL, SORRY.” 

“…it’s fine, anyone can forget something like that in the heat of the moment…we were a little distracted too.” 

Stretch looked up over his brother’s head and met your gaze head on. His eye lights were tired and you thought you saw shadows under his sockets. The fear for his brother really did a number on him.

“same group?” Sans asked, turning in his chair to face both Ma and Mini. “You have a racist problem here in this town?”

“Doesn’t every small town?” Ma sighed, rubbing at the skin between her eyes. Behind her Edge and Red watched the two older women, concern clear in their expressions. “It’s gotten worse over the past four or five months, but it’s our problem, mostly.”

“IS IT STILL A PROBLEM? WE CAN HELP WITH IT. THE EMBASSY COULD SEND PEOPLE HERE TO MAKE IT SAFE AGAIN AFTER WE LEAVE. WHAT THEY WERE DOING WAS WRONG.” Papyrus looked almost as upset as he sounded. 

“It’s not something that can be fixed so easy. It’ll get patched up, sure, but then four months later, three or even two months after that it’ll all just start up again. It’s hate and it never goes away. We just deal with it when and how we can,” Ma huffed, arms crossed. Then she blinked and turned to her wife. “Oh, and speaking of doing what we can, this here is my wife, Mini, she helps many of the monsters in town get settled in and keeps a general eye out.”

“It’s how we found these two,” Mini chuckled, looking fondly up at Edge and over at Red. She was much shorter than the both of them. 

“you’ve helped other monsters then?” Stretch asked, catching Papyrus’ eye lights. 

“Some stay and settle, some even have families here, and others move on. Each one makes the decision themselves and we just support their efforts as best we can.” 

Mini’s smile turned soft as she reached over at Edge who bent at the waist so she could reach his face. She pat the side of his skull in fondness before reaching for Red who grumbled a bit more but didn’t pull away when she pat his face too.   

Blue frowned up at his brother. “WHAT HAPPENED WITH YOU WHILE SANS AND I WERE HERE? IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU RAN INTO SOMEONE TOO.”  

“Ah shit, I don’t have enough food in me to get into it. Mini, are there places set for all of them? You all, get into the dining room, we don’t have room for ya elsewhere.” Ma interrupted, waving a hand to get everyone’s attention. “Let’s sit down for dinner and then we can summarize our stories.”

So that’s what you did. 

Mini served a chili dinner for everyone including herself and it was made with enough mixed ingredients to be nutritional to both humans and monsters. It was a while before anyone spoke up, but the person to do so was first Papyrus, answering Blue’s question about what happened. You felt Sans’ eye lights on you the whole time as Papyrus explain in no lacking detail how you got into a fight with some Steven guy and chased him off.”

“Just like that?” Sans asked.

“IT WAS MUCH COOLER THAN WHAT I CAN RECOUNT BUT YES, JUST SO!”

“…is it possible some of the men he was with...were the same guys that got into it with you and vanilla bean over there, blue?” Stretch asked, looking to his brother. Sans frowned at the nickname but didn’t say anything about it. 

“MA-MAYBE THAT IS SO. THEY HAD REALLY NICE MOTORCYCLES AND I MADE THE MISTAKE OF COMPLEMENTING THEM ON ONE AND IT WAS ENOUGH TO MAKE THEM THINK I WANTED TO STEAL IT FROM THEM. THEY THREW SOME ROCKS AT ME AND IT’S JUST A SCRATCH! I’M SURE IT’LL BE GONE IN THE MORNING.” 

“Some of the oldest families can be deeply prejudiced,” Ma explained. “The families that have been around these parts since before Mini and I moved in still see this place as theirs. They don’t like the ‘divergent’ people. Before it was monsters it was couples like us, and before that it was people like Omar and Anazi. There’s always something for them to hate.”

“But it’s not been bad like it’s been with the monsters before. Now they have…legal grounds to come out on top after they provoke fights and incite incidents,” Mini added. “We do what we can but…they’re well connected, Steven especially. I doubt with however good you scared him that’ll be the end of it. Maybe for a while, but not more than that.”  

“is that what you said you were staying for?” Stretch asked, looking across the table at Red. 

Edge looked down at his brother while Red just scowled. “Maybe, what’s it to ya? We can leave and stay like we want, don’t mean we need a reason for it.”

“IT’S A NOBLE REASON, TO BE SURE. YOU CAN-”

“I’m sorry,” Edge cut in interrupting Papyrus, “but could you not do that with your voice? It’s getting on my nerves. There’s no reason you should be still using magic to distinguish your voice above ground.”

“DIS-WHAT?” Blueberry asked, glancing back and forth between Papyrus and Stretch, looking to either for a hopeful explanation. 

“How did you know that’s what it was?” you asked, looking to Edge. You had realized right away that there were monsters who spoke with an overlay of magic to their words, but you had never figured out why or how.

It wasn’t like you could do it, in spite of your efforts. 

When Edge spoke his words didn’t boom in your brain and when Red spoke his words weren’t jarring like Stretch or Sans’ could be at times. It wasn’t a big deal, and you doubted the people who didn’t have magic could even tell, but it was probably true for other monsters to pick up on. 

“why?” Sans asked. He didn’t pull his magic back and Edge’s eye lights narrowed in response.

Red chuckled and then leaned across the table, looking at you. “Hey, babe, you can tell, can’t you? Is it pleasant?” 

“It’s not something I would complain about, why?” you asked.

You didn’t miss the way Blue and Papyrus reacted, expressions mirrors of matching horror upon hearing that their voices were, on some small level, irritating you. Red just grinned, eyes sparkling scarlet. 

“What’s it like, listening to them and their voices? It’s probably different for you than it is for Ma and Mini, since most humans our age don’t even notice it.” 

“It’s not something we’d make a stink about with our guests,” Ma sighed. She reached over Edge and swatted at Red’s skull, muttering something that sounded like ‘dimwit’ under her breath. “You both were freeloaders when you showed up so of course we set you straight right off.” 

You felt Edge watching you but when you looked up he averted his gaze. You couldn’t tell if he was scowling or not, but he didn’t look happy with you. Maybe the fact that you flinched under his magic…maybe he thought you were turned off by the feel of it or something? Either way, you didn’t like the way he didn’t look you in the eye the way Red did. 

“Sweetheart?”

Red was watching you, expression expectant. He was waiting for your answer.

“It feels like, static in my brain. It’s barely there since getting used to it. Like I said earlier, it’s not something I would have ever complained about or even mentioned. I know other people my age don’t notice.”

“It’s something only us boss monsters get the privilege of, or at least I’ve only known boss monsters to be able to do it,” Red explained. “Adding a thin layer of magic to our words makes them echo and it’s a way for other monsters we run across to understand who and what we are. It’s different for each of us, but not by much.” 

Stretch broke the silence first. “Is that so?”

You noticed the difference right away. His magic wasn’t in his words anymore. 

“Is it still bothering you?” Blue asked, eye lights on you. 

You forced out an easy smile and shook your head. “It was never a bother, Blue. Don’t worry. But yeah, it sounds great just the way it is right now. Thank you.” 

“If you like my voice the way it is now that’s enough for me,” Blue exclaimed. “Papyrus, you should try now too.”

And Papyrus did, followed by Sans and then Stretch was talking to his brother while Papyrus asked their hosts more questions about the monsters they helped transition. Sans watched on while Red interjected facts and opinions to help Ma’s explanation made the most sense. You watched on, quiet, while Edge kept his eye lights downcast and at the rest of his dinner without comment. 

Eventually the nature of your visit came up again and Papyrus explained how you were, yes, making sure the ‘new arrivals’ weren’t harmful, but also tracking down the person originally responsible for all of it. 

“Another bully like Steven,” Red muttered, looking to his brother then you. “The world’s full of them.”

You shrugged and let the conversations wash over you. There were a few more comments and attempts to pull you in, but you stayed quiet, answered with as few words as possible when asked, and offering nothing up unprompted. 

Eventually the night grew too dark and the boys all assembled to head back to the trailer and sleep off the night with a promise to come back in the morning and visit. They’d also check to make sure the brothers were registered with their own IDs

The walk back lasted forever and was over in the blink of an eye. No one used any shortcuts even if they could. Everyone made the trek back through parts of dark and under lamp light until they were back inside the bus. 

It didn’t take the skeletons long to get ready and they were all in their beds before you were finished brushing your teeth. 

You stopped outside Blueberry’s bed, seeing how he slept on his side so that his bandaged half of his face was up. The bandage was peeling and you flinched, but forced your hand to move, pushing it back in place. You saw the crack and felt the magic leaking through and it was enough to rattle you.

No big deal?

Yeah his wound would heal after a night of good sleep, but still…. it was a crack in his face. It must have hurt. Someone did that to him. 

With the roll in your gut still fresh and angry you climbed into bed and dozed. You didn’t sleep. You kept your resting shallow. 

Midnight came after an eternity of waiting. 

You slipped out of bed, making no sound as you stalked to the front and ease yourself out through the smallest gap left with the door partially ajar. You slipped free and touched down on the gravel, freezing at the sound. 

Not you

You turned your head and saw the red halo of his cigarette and then his eyes, honey orange and small in the dark. Stretch leaned against the bus smoking. Two different buts littered the ground at his feet. 

“I thought I told you those things were nasty,” you hissed.

Stretch shrugged. “They take the edge off things.”

“Like what?” 

Stretch rolled his eyes from the sky down to you, pinning you with a look that betrayed his thoughts before his words could.  You weren’t that stupid. You knew why he was outside waiting for you. 

“Where are you going?” Stretch asked instead. 

“Out.”

Stretch grinned. “You know where those guys are on the map, don’t you?” He flicked out his spent cigarette and then walked over it, killing it in the dirt.   “So, let's go already.” 

“Stretch-”

“It was my brother . I’m not going to just go to bed with this and neither are you. Don’t expect me to do anything less than what you’re planning to do for us.”

“What makes you think I was planning on doing anything?” you asked, knowing it was a stupid question even before it was past your teeth. 

Stretch fell into step beside you and pointed down at your boots. “You never took those off.”

“You think you know me so well,” you sighed, digging your hands into the shared pocket of your sweatshirt over your stomach. The half moon turned parts of the landscape silver and left the rest of it dark but you never had an issue seeing things without full light. 

“Nah, not well enough yet, but I will, one day. So, where to?”

Wordless you let him through the town and out, following a light in your mind when you pulled up the map of the town. There were three names you paid attention to, three names of people who hadn’t changed in spite of all the logic and rhetoric, and at the top of that list was good old Steven.  You hadn’t scared him enough if he still thought he still had a snowball’s chance in hell of making shit once the opportunity presented itself. 

You’d get to the other two later.

 

The doors were locked but the windows let Stretch see inside and that was enough for him to shortcut you and him both inside. The house was large and winding, but you found your way up the stairs to the second floor and the back bedroom, left a mess in spite of its size. 

Steven slept on his stomach under a single cover, one leg slipping free off the back of the bed, head turned halfway into his pillow as he slept on, unaware. He looked stupid even in his sleep.

On the way over neither you nor Stretch had discussed your plans or intentions, but when you moved Stretch was content to let you take the lead. He pressed himself into the back corner of the room until he was nothing but two amber lights in the darkness.

Good, this part was for you to do alone. 

You grabbed Steven by the ankle and yanked him harshly. It wasn’t hard to tug him out of his bed onto the floor and then yanked him around so he was on his back. He woke when his head hit the floor and his expression turned livid once he saw you. 

Your magic swelled. 

He tried to get up and move but you swatted his efforts away and tripped him once more, sending him down onto his back. He flinched when you stepped over him but swatted at you, swearing loudly. You stepped on his wrist to keep his hand down. He reached with the other hand and you pinned that one too. 

“You bitch, you can’t get away with this! You call me a criminal but this is my home and you’re breaking and entering and-and assaulting me in my own home! I’ll have your asses. I know my rights-” 

“Shut up,” you groaned, holding down his other hand with your fingers around his wrist. It made your skin crawl to touch his bare skin, it made your gut roll to be so close, and it made your head scream to know you were

Not  

Being

Good 

Person

Tonight 

Steven started spouting nonsense again about his rights and his status as a human and his hate. He spit at you but missed. Stretch’s magic leaked out from behind you but you didn’t indicate for him to emerge. You wouldn’t need him and you didn’t want him to dirty his hands too.

‘YOU WERE MY HERO.’

“Shit.” You swallowed and then reached down deep for your own magic, pulling it up. You felt close to dizzy, but it wasn’t because you were ill. You just…needed to keep going.

“We're going to leave this town tomorrow and you plus your goons are never going to bother the people here ever again. If you try it, if you think you can, well...I'll know.” 

He scoffed, seemingly unbelieving. “So? You think you're going to arrest me? You’re just a thug. You can’t touch me. I’ve got-”

You crouched down on his chest and slid your knee up under his chin, pressing down on his throat. It stopped his words up and pinned him in place. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, I’m not going to arrest you, I’m going to teach you something. I’ll show you something and you’ll learn from it or you won’t and then I’ll really have to do something,” you said out loud.

“Wh-what?” he choked out.  

You pulled up the magic and the black smoke came with it too. It was enough and you turned down to face Steven, feeling the magic charge your one good eye with ghostly neon light.

 “Let me show you what happens when you step out of line.”

You breathed out smoke that snaked like something living into his open mouth and up his nostrils. He gagged but the smoke swirled down, down, down and then it was gone and he was still, eyes glazed over and black as your magic showed him a vision plucked from your deep memories. You hadn’t held back as much as you should have, but you weren’t trying to be a hero tonight. 

You were just another monster in the dark. 

 

You and Stretched visited the other two houses and before dawn it was all done and so much of your magic was gone. 

Stretch touched your back between your shoulders and the two of you were on the top of the bus next to the hatch thanks to his shortcut. The world was still dark and quiet around you but you were shivering. 

Stretch was behind you and you heard him say your name but you pulled away before he could say anything else and fell to your knees retching over the side of the bus into the bushes. You were so sick of yourself, you heaved and the rest of the dinner came up along with bile. You hated the feel of your skin, the sound of your blood in your ears, the sway of your nearly exhausted magic sloshing in your gut along with your guilt. 

 

Shit

Shit

Shitshitshitshit

You weren’t a hero, you weren’t anything good or decent. You had been made into something terrible and you ran from it, fought it, and denied it as much as you wanted until you couldn’t, because a good person didn’t do what you did. A hero didn’t force their traumas onto others. A hero didn’t attack the defenseless in their beds. There should have been some other way but you-you weren’t a good enough person to see it.

Shit

Shit

Oh shit

Shitshitshitshit

You had come so far but was it all a lie? What were you even? You couldn’t call yourself a monster. Monsters weren’t nearly as terrible as you. You just mentally scarred three different men with some of your own worst memories and for what? Because they hurt your friend? Maybe that could be excused, but what about the part of you that….enjoyed it? Enjoyed sharing your agony with another. Delighted in their pain and misery. You hated yourself for it. You were a hurt thing hurting others and you would never be any better.

 It was still night but Stretch didn’t seem to care as he called your name louder and pulled at you. Limp and empty you rolled away from the edge, off your ankles onto your butt. Stretch was in front of you and then you saw past him as he gathered you up into his arms, hugging you tight. “You’re fine,” he said. “You’re safe here.”

It was a joke, it had to be, so you chuckled darkly. “But you’re not…not from me. You saw me.”

“I saw you, I saw it all and I’m not leaving you. You did what you had to for your people, for these people. You protected them you-”

“Did something terrible to those men,” you hissed. “You don’t even know what it was but you saw it. The last one wet himself and the other two were messes all on their own.”

Stretch ran his hand up into your hair and wrapped you closer with the other arm tight around your waist. He was shaking, trembling. Was it because… was he scared of you too?

“They were dangerous. They were going to hurt others like my brother, like your friends, like the monsters in the restaurant that couldn’t stand up for themselves. You did what you did because they couldn’t. You protected them.” 

“I scarred those three for life.”

“They d e s e r v ed  it.”

‘You don’t deserve this.”

“No one deserved it, not like that. It’s easy to justify it all once we’re out of the woods, ain’t it?” You wondered if the reason Stretch held you so close was so that he wouldn’t have to look at your face or smell the vomit on your breath. “But you can’t pretend that what I did was a good thing.” 

Stretch pulled away only enough to look you in the eye. His eye lights were still a bright orange and narrowed to thin lights that pierced you through. “Don’t you dare do this to yourself,” he warned. “I don’t care what the others say, not even you.”

You pulled away but he wouldn’t let you. His eyes were neon orange and super charged with feeling, something that made both monster and human magic that much more powerful.

“You don’t even know what I put in their heads.”

“It doesn’t matter. You protected us. You protected them. It was hard and it hurt, but you did it. Bad people don’t do hard things because they have to, and they never feel remorse for it, so don’t think that’s what you are.”

And you weren’t sure how but your soul slipped free and hovered in the small space between you and Stretch, your magic washing out with it. You wanted to claw it back into your chest, unable to see it but still feeling it all the same.

“I can see you,” Stretch whispered, reaching out to hover his hand just short of touching your soul, like he needed your permission to do that, you could feel his magic like string pulling on your soul. “I see you and it’s nothing but good. You’re good. You’re doing a good job, honey.”

“You saw me do something terrible.”

“You think that makes you so bad, then color me worse. You’re just perfect the way you are, shadows and all.”

Stretch leaned in to nuzzle at the side of your head while pushing with his magic to force your soul back into your chest. You felt warm and soft like being wrapped up in a blanket when his magic touched your soul. There was a feeling similar to a click as your soul fit back into place and your magic fell away.

“I wouldn’t have you any other way,” he whispered darkly. You couldn't see his expression clearly with the way he held you, but there was a feeling you got while in his arms that made you almost shiver with warning. He pet at your hair and the shiver was gone and you were silly for almost imagining it. You were the only dark thing under the stars.

You still hated the skin you were in and wanted to claw yourself free. You still felt terrible and dirty and sick, but you didn’t want to retch anymore. The heat of your anger eased and you felt…. tired.

"It's still a terrible thing," you said, softly. 

When Stretch called your name again you looked up. His eye lights were still supercharged and bright with neon color. Both of his hands moved from your back and head to either side to your face. You didn’t move as he pulled your face under his chin. The rest of your body followed and went nearly limp in his lap. Stretch pulled up his legs to box you in, bent and braced on either side of you as his arms cross behind you back.

“You can feel terrible about it, that’s okay,” he said.

“I don’t feel anything,” you lied.

“That’s okay too.”

Your eyes itched and you choked on your own breath as the tears rolled free. They came silent and then softly and then they rolled faster and fatter from your eyes down your face. Stretch didn’t let you go as you sobbed, biting the fabric of his shirt to keep your cries muffled. He pulled you closer and you let him.

 

Notes:

I'm late again?! I really did think I was going to have this done before work but I was a little bit of a mess as I adjust to the early alarm and tighter schedule once more. But to give you all a heads up I'll not be able to update on Monday for this coming week like I wanted to. Chapter 10 will be out Thursday night to make up for it. *fingers crossed*

Stretch was fun to write because I feel like he is a character that has some darkness thats well hidden under a carefully crafted lazy boi persona, one that's more forgiving than Sans' more paranoid perspective. He'll justify a lot of sin if it is to help him or his family -especially- his family. Thankfully Blue only got scratched and those humans only get mentally *cough* banished to the shadow realm *cough* I mean traumatized. :)

Also, one of the things that was bugging me the most when I was writing was having to go back and fix all the dialogue for the skeletons so it looked right with either all CAPS or lowercase and it just killed the flow in my writing a few times-thus I've officially come up with a reason to not have to type like that anymore. Hopefully it doesn't come off as terrible. Whenever their control slips in future chapters you'll see a return to the lowercase or all CAPS writing.

Thank you, lovelies!

Chapter 10: Sunshine Riptide 10

Notes:

Update in tags reflect a reader that uses female pronouns.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

You were awake to see the dawn break far off in the distance, but you climbed into bed and pulled the curtain shut before it could color the sky. You fell asleep hungry and woke up for a handful of minutes, stirred by the emptiness in your stomach before exhaustion won out and you fell back asleep again. 

One of the times you woke up there was enough of a crack in the curtain to see how bright the cabin was. Across the way the other bunks were all open and empty, some with folded sheets fixed up and others left messy and careless. When you listened you heard little to nothing stir, or maybe your head was still too fuzzy from last night to hear properly.

The next time you opened your eyes it was because someone was close by and their conversations were loud enough to hear. Your curtain was moving, like someone had pulled it back and then let it go. Through the gap you could see Blue’s hand. 

“But it’s half past two . She should have been up by now.” That was Blue’s voice. You could tell even without his magic making the words echo around in your head. Then the person next to him…

“She didn’t sleep well. If she’s still asleep it means she needs the rest,” Stretch said. 

“What made her so exhausted?” 

“Papyrus told you she got into a fight with one of those bigots yesterday, didn’t he?” 

“But you said she wasn’t hurt!”

“You can get tired without getting hurt. She did great but she’s tired and I know you like to get on my case about it, but she’s not just being lazy.”

Blue huffed, sounding offended. “I never said she was. I wouldn’t call her lazy ever.”

“Even if she was lazy?” Stretch teased, sounding a little too amused by his question.

Blue blustered and you could picture the flush on his face clearly in your mind’s eye. “She’s not like you. She’s been doing so much and putting up with all of us so of course she’s going to need to rest up… ‘sides, even if she was being lazy I wouldn’t call her that.” 

“Then you’re going to leave her alone?”

“Of course!” Blue mumbled to himself and took a few steps away, out of sight from the gap, but then you heard him stop. “But if she wakes up I-I wanna be here. She shouldn’t have to wake up alone or...” 

“Someone will call you, but you’re meeting up with Mini aren’t you? She really helped you out yesterday so it’s good there’s some way you can pay her back.” 

And you were drifting so you didn’t hear what came next but when you opened your eyes again the world wasn’t nearly as bright. The shadows were longer and stretched across different parts of the bus. 

You stomach rolled and a moment later you realized why. You had been hungry the whole night through, but now there was the smell of something juicy and thick with meat that made your mouth ache. You rolled over and pawed at the curtain, rolling it back before sliding one leg and then the other out onto the floor. You pulled the rest of your body out, sitting on the edge of the bed while you adjusted to the new position.

“Awake?”

Sans was the last person you expected to be up and talking to you. You moved to face him and saw him standing in between the bed with a basket filled with fries and heavy with a triple patty burger that smelled too much like the ones you were used to. 

What you wouldn’t give to have a Grillby’s burger and french fry basket right now…

“What are you doing here Sans?” you croaked, tasting the tang of old vomit all the way down your throat. You had brushed your teeth, but had been too exhausted to do much more before collapsing into bed right before dawn. 

Sans looked like he actually winced at the sound of your voice and you wondered if he was disgusted by the sound or capable of feeling empathy for a human being that wasn’t his dear old Frisk. 

Sans moved closer and pushed the basket against your shoulder before answering. “You sounded hungry.” 

On cue your stomach rolled audible and you felt the pinching heat of hunger. You had to swallow down the urge to drool openly because as hungry as you were, you still weren’t stupid. It was a juicy looking burger, but it was Sans who was offering it to you.

“What’s this for?” you asked, taking the basket but not moving to eat anything in it.

“I could hear your stomach growling all the way topside. F-figured you didn’t have the energy to get up and make yourself something or find something if you were passed out this late.” 

It sounded like a good explanation but it was coming from the one skeleton you didn’t feel comfortable believing in. 

“Yeah, but why would you care?” You had enough energy to muster up a glare. “Why would you bother?” 

“You think I’m such a heartless guy?” 

“I still have your bruises.” 

As if to drive home your point you rolled up the sleeve of your sweatshirt, far enough to show off the white floral tattoos that were broken up with sunbursts of green and purple impact marks from his gravity attacks. You dropped your arm and your sleeve before he could see any of the other scars you kept behind long sleeves. 

“I’m sorry for those too,” San muttered, eye lights fixed on a point on the ground by your feet. “I-I told you I regretted it, didn’t I?” 

“Honestly, I don’t remember something like that.” 

You grabbed a fistful of fries and stuffed them into your mouth, too hungry to pretend you had the integrity that could deny food when you were so, so, so damn hungry. Your magic had burned up too much of you and left you empty.

Next time you used so much magic it would be easier, but it was just like an atrophied muscle; it needed time to build back up. Your body wasn't used to the strain of it like it once was. 

Sans shuffled from one foot to the other, seemingly almost nervous just by standing next to you and that didn’t make sense because with you in the state you were in, he could take you on and actually win. There wasn’t a reason for him to be nervous. 

“Sit down if you’re going to fidget,” you coughed before sinking your teeth into your burger. 

But Sans didn’t sit, instead he blurted out, “I heard what you did last night.”

You froze with your jaw wide around a new edge of the burger. It took a bit of extra force, but you return to your eating as Sans slid into a seat opposite you on the edge of the bed. If he had been anyone else you might have really worried about being found out, but you really didn’t care what Sans thought of you.

“So?”

His eye sockets widened. “So?” he echoed. 

You swallowed another mouthful of your burger. “So what’s it to you? What do you want me to say about it? If you wanted an explanation you’re wasting your time.”

“I’m not stupid, I don’t need an explanation. I went out this morning and heard about it from the locals as well. I can still put two and two together when I bother.” 

He glanced down and then up again like a person that came up for air before diving back underwater. Staring at you too long wasn’t something he felt comfortable doing. 

Good .

“Then why bother bringing it up? Why bother feeding me like this? Why bother going all the way back to New Ebott for my favorite burger and fries?”

There was a longer than normal silence before Sans answered you, and by then half of your meal was already gone. 

“I didn’t know it was your favorite, I just knew it would be good. Grillby’s never disappoints.”

And as loathed as you were to admit it, Sans was right. Grillby was the master of comfort food for a thousand and one different monsters, but he had soon amassed for himself a cultish following of local humans who were just as hooked on his famous menu. The fact that his main and only location was close to the transitional houses and Embassy meant it had been one of your favorite places to treat yourself to in the morning before the rush hour traffic flooded his little restaurant pub.

It had been a while since you last saw the fire spirit himself and you found yourself missing him almost as much as his food.

You bit into the last of your burger and felt a bitter twinge of loss when you realized you were almost through with your eating.  Soon it’d be gone and you’d be hungry again. 

“You need more?” 

Sans’ question surprised you enough to freeze you once more. He wasn’t looking at you, instead he was staring at the floor. 

“Okay, that’s it, you’re freaking me out. What is it you’re trying to do?”

He flushed, face still turned down. “I just asked you a simple question, it’s not like it was that big a deal. Ya need more or not?” 

You didn’t miss the color on his face. “You’d get some for me?”

Like your words were a magic spell the blush darkened. “It’s not a big deal.” 

The basket was nearly empty so you set it to the side and leaned out on the edge of your bed, stretching your legs and leaning your elbows on your knees so that you’re nearly close enough to touch Sans. He doesn’t move but you see the way his shoulders stiffen and lock up. 

“Sans, we’re not huge fans of each other are we?” He picked his head up and the blue lights in his sockets fixed onto your face like metals on a magnet. If he meant to say anything next you didn’t care, and instead rolled on with your comments. “Nah, you don’t need to answer me it wasn’t a real question. I’m not stupid and you’re not as subtle as you think. You don’t need to be my friend and hell, you don’t even need to trust me, but we need to work with one another. This…” you pointed to the basket. “It’s more than just working together. What’s your deal this time?”

“You think I have to have an angle?” 

“You don’t?”

Sans forced his eye lights off your face for a moment and then refocused them on a point just past your face. “I heard what you did last night and I heard what…it did to you. You did something that went against your principles, but you did it anyway.”

“Not very noble of me was it?” you sighed, drawing back. “But isn’t that what you suspected?”

“Not like that. I saw how sick it made you.” You flinched at his words but he didn’t stop. “It’d kill you to do something half as terrible to my bro or the others.”

Blue with his bandaged face flared through your mind and the anger it triggered was pure and the closest to justice you’d ever felt. He was one of your ‘people’ and someone you cared about so strongly you were violent to those who would call themselves his enemies.

“I’d never hurt them.” 

“I know that now,” Sans said.

“I never would have hurt them, even before knowing them.”

“I know.” 

“I…wouldn’t.” You breathed heavy and loud, reaching up to run a hand through your unkept hair. “I really wanted to be a good person, I want to be a person I’m proud of. Doubt me if you want but I’m not going to beat myself up over it if you don’t believe me.” 

 “Hey, do ya maybe think that, I get that? You think that I might be trying to…show you I get it?” Sans struggled. He looked pointedly at the basket on you bedsheets and then dropped his eye lights. “I get it, I screwed up. I was…I fucked it up. Sorry. I shouldn’t ever have hurt you like I did.”

You didn’t want his apology. You liked feeling upset at someone who hurt you. He was trying, he was honestly remorseful about what he did, and you could see if he went back to do it over it would be a different story.

Your bruises would fade but, inside your head his voice was still there, fucking you up with every echo. 

a monster to attack and go all out against…. come on, be a hero.’ 

“Remember when I offered you my hand up on the roof and told you I wanted to try?” 

Sans blinked at the shift in your tone. You saw sweat made out of magic bead across his skull. That was all you needed to see to know he remembered the exact conversation and exchange. You had wanted to try and put the past behind you and move on and be a friend to him, but not like this ! Not after he saw your moment of weakness. Not after he had seen you so low he felt he could…. could what? Win you over with a burger and fries? 

“i-I want to try, for real this time. I’m sorry. You haven’t heard a pun out of me since and dat’s for a reason, see. Honest, I wanna try again an-and be someone you can be helped by.”

You felt your magic roll.

Damn it, this isn’t-this wasn’t how you wanted things to go. Was he looking down on you now? Did he think you were soft? You weren’t ready for this sort of conversation. Not with the way you still felt after last night. The emotional wound was still sore and you wanted to wallow in the pain of it a bit longer. 

“What were you fighting with Blue about?” 

Sans’ hopeful expression fell apart. “What?” 

“The two of you were fighting before he got hurt by the humans. ‘not for lack of trying’ remember?” you asked, using your fingers to make air quotes while you mimicked the voice and phrase from last night’s dinner. “What was that about?”

“It-it wasn’t anything. He was being nosey and I told him I didn’t owe him an explanation about something.” The sweat beads rolled off his skull and multiplied. “It wasn’t something worth getting upset over and I didn’t even scratch him.” 

Fine .

You stood and took the empty basket with you, carrying it over to the counter to throw away and clean out while Sans hopped off the bed to follow. He called your name and you glanced up but didn’t pull the plastic basket out from the sink or sudds.   

“You okay?”  Sans asked, watching you with an open worry that you had never seen on his face while in front of the others. 

There wasn’t anyone else around you, just Sans and you inside the bus for company and it felt like this was your first time seeing Sans without all his walls. His sudden kindness and openness didn’t sit well with you, and maybe that was because you were being petty or you just didn’t feel ready to move forward after last night’s debacle. Either way, you weren’t ready to do anything with him about it. Maybe some other time or date when you didn’t feel like an invader in your own skin you could revisit this conversation with him, but not today. 

“…You need to return the plastic baskets.” You passed it back over to him and Sans took it, cradling it gently. “Grilby gets pissed with the people who don’t bring them back.” 

“Ye-yeah I remember, but what about us?” 

“What about us?” You left your hands in the sink for the stray bubbles and suds to fall off.   

“Are we…good?” Sans seemed so unsure of himself. “You and me?” 

“We’re fine. I need to shower and then I’m gonna head out.”

“I could go with you!” Sans hastily volunteered. “You’re still tired aren’t you?”

“Not enough to need a companion and honestly, I would appreciate the time alone.” You shook your hands in the sink and then wiped the excess off on the back of your pants.

When you passed him you could feel the discomfort radiating off him. He stiffly turned to watch you go and you didn’t look back or acknowledge him. Instead you breezed past to pick out some clean clothes from your duffle. 

When he called your name again you glanced up. He looked worried. 

“I’m…really sorry. You know that right? I’m sorry I hurt you.”

“I believe you.” You nodded at him and drew on your humble courage to get the rest of your words out. “And I can forgive you for it. But that’s all done.” 

“Wa-what-wait. What do you mean it’s all done?”

“I’m tired so let me just put it plain for you, I’ve forgiven you for hurting me and for the other things you did that are still hurting me. But I’m not ready to move on with you right now. You can go back to being pissy at me and everyone else if you’d prefer that, but I don’t need someone taking advantage- taking care of me when I’m weak.”

“That’s not what I’m doing. I’m serious. I-I-I mean it.” 

“Would you have said all this if you hadn’t seen me like that last night?” When Sans didn’t answer you sighed, too tired to hold onto any more emotion for the original skeleton. “Yeah, it’s like that then. I’m gonna go. If you want to talk to me again when I’m not barely put together we can try again.”

He called your name.

“Thanks for the meal. I owe you one.”

And then you disappeared behind the closed door. You didn’t bother to listen or feel for his presence on the bus as you busied yourself in getting ready. You showered, washing and drying your hair enough to pin it up in a style that might hold. Your undercut was getting longer so you used a man’s razor to trim it back until you were happy with it again. 

When you emerged, dressed and refreshed, the hatch to the roof was open and the rest of the bus was empty. 

You stepped into your boots and headed into town, picking out a few supplies and ordering some more food to take the edge off your returning hunger. And as much as you adored the rest of your roommates, you used Papyrus’ social media tags to avoid the parts of town he had been sighted in hours earlier. 

You had something else you needed to get done. 

You pulled up the map and took a minute to untangle the different Sans and Papyrus names for who they really were, Edge, Red, Stretch, Blue… It was easy to find your way after that. 

It took a little longer since you couldn’t just take a short cut, but eventually you stopped in front of his path and waited for him to turn the last corner and see you.

He noticed you right away and faltered only once before turning his eye lights down and continuing on with his route. 

“Edge.” 

He stopped at the sound of his name and turned towards you. You jogged up to meet him and he nodded as you approached. The set of his shoulders and rigid shape of his posture made you think he was nervous or something just as unpleasant when around you. 

“You are…awake. The others mentioned you were resting later and couldn’t come out for such reasons.” Hie eye lights flickered over you, like a general taking inventory on the condition of his men.  

“I just woke up not to long ago. I haven’t run into any of the others except Sans yet,” you admitted, wondering if there was disbelief in his voice.  Maybe sleeping until three thirty in the afternoon was a bit too much for him to believe or appreciate. Twilight wasn’t far off, after all. “I wasn’t feeling well.”

His eye lights snapped up to your face, brighter than before and his hands raised, hovering but not quite reaching for you. “Were you ill?” 

You thought about the vomit and the crawling itch that came with your dissociative episodes, the ones where you felt like you weren’t meant to be inside your own skin. They were almost as bad as the panic attacks and you were sure Stretch had seen more than he needed to. 

“I’m able to hold down some food now, but it’s no big deal. I wanted to ask you about the town or your patrols. You do them to help keep some sort of peace between those sorta guys and the locals, right?”

Edge drew himself up and lifted his chin. “The great and terrible me wouldn’t let such uncouth villains run amok as they saw fit. Indeed you are quite observant to have deduced such a fact!”

He looked like such a hard ass but he was secretly a total softy on the inside. His moms had done something amazing with the month and a half of raising time they had invested in Edge if he was this well adjusted to human life. 

“I wanted to ask you about that and if there was a difference today?”

“Today?” he sounded puzzled by the question. 

“Yeah, you notice anything missing or something different in the routines you’re used to?”

Edge nodded slowly, watching you with a new level of keenness. “Yes, but you wouldn’t have any idea as to why that would be, would you?” 

You rubbed at your face. “I might have had a couple of conversations with some of them. It’s my hope that some of the trouble you’ve been having dries up with just this.”

Edge regarded you with a tilt of his head and you wanted him to say something but there was too much silence between you. 

You opened your mouth to speak but a buzz in your pocket made you flinch. Edge looked at your pocket and it was a look of expectation so you pulled out your phone and saw a text from Stretch.

“Oh, we’re not…heading out tonight. First thing in the morning instead.” You scrolled to the bottom of the text and then clicked the screen off. “It sounds like they’re enjoying themselves elsewhere.”

“You’re not leaving for another day?”

“It’s just the morning.”

You rubbed awkwardly at the base of your neck, suspecting your exhaustion played a role in the group decision to delay departure. Stretch claimed it was so they could watch the town for any more incidents, but it sounded like a weak excuse.

“That means you’ll be here for the night festivities.”

“Night festivities?” you echoed. 

Edge’s eye lights glowed brighter for a split second before he tilted his face away and watched you from the corner of his eye sockets. You saw the blush on the high points of his cheekbones. “Ye-yes, the night festivities. It’s Friday night.”

“Oh…does that mean something around here?” 

“Many things are celebrated on this weekly date.”

“Like, what sort of things?” you asked.

Edge turned the fullness of his face away from you but extended a hand he couldn’t see. You stared at his gloved hand, waiting for an explanation. 

 

“You may discover that for yourself if you so wish. Would you,” he paused and forced his face to turn back toward you partially, addressing you by name. You see how much more of it is flushed with color.  “Would you like to accompany me if you are not too unwell?”

 

 

Notes:

Dating Start!

Enough angst, now fluff and filler and dates. Sans and reader had their moment now it is time to feel good things and Edge is just the skeleton to help with that. (Seriously, the next chapter is on of my favorites overall and easily my favorite from the Sunshine Riptide arc.)
Speaking of different arcs, each one should be about 10-12 chapters long with a total of 6 arcs.

Thank you for all the comments and attention. Greatly appreciate it!

Chapter 11: Sunshine Riptide 11

Notes:

Dating Start!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

You didn’t hesitate for more than a second to accept his outstretched hand. The red leather of his gloves was soft and his grip was looser than anticipated, so much so that the tips of his clawed fingers never curled enough to touch your hand’s underside. It felt like he was holding something made of glass. 

“So, night festivities?” you echoed, hoping he would clarify. “When do those actually start?” 

It was dark enough in the twilight sky for the last bit of sun’s light to just barely illuminate your surroundings. Some of the shops and storefronts already had their neon and custom shop lights turned on. 

“An astute inquiry, as it is not technically night one might not believe festivities to be in effect, but that is not true.” His eye lights were fixed on the point where your hand met his but when you squeezed  he looked up. “I-I will show you what the humans enjoy here.”

He started to lead you down the street and out to the main roadway where the sidewalks were wider and paved for heavier traffic. The Heritage District was more friendly to foot traffic and had plenty of walkways for someone to get lost down. 

“What about what you enjoy?” you ask, holding onto his hand when his hold grew lax.

“I enjoy all the good things!” he answered in a voice that pitched higher than what you were used to. He coughed and then added, “Both Ma and Mini were explicit in instructing both my brother and myself in how to show a…someone a good time if we ever were presented with the opportunity. I, in my wisdom, complied such teachings into an updated collection that I may refer back to from time to time.”

“That sounds like something real helpful. I noticed you sounded well adjusted compared to what we thought you’d be like after the culture shock. Was it very hard when you and your brother both surfaced?”   

Edge seemed to relax the further you walked and you hoped it was partially due to your comments. You didn’t want him to be uncomfortable around you even though you were both little more than strangers. You had just talked briefly the previous night in the alley with him being far more subdued at dinner. And yeah, that was his prerogative and sure it was probably a lot to process in a single night, but you really hoped he wasn’t uncomfortable around you. 

At your question his red eye lights glowed a little brighter and a new smile stretched across his skull. “Nyeheheheheh, indeed it was challenging to acclimate but not too difficult for the great and terrible myself. My brother and I were quick studies and the prodigies of several excellent teachers.” His voice pitched lower, adopting a softer tone. “And they were sacrificial in their kindness to two strangers who could pay them nothing in turn.”   

The main walkway was darkening rapidly but the lamp posts were strung with bulbs of smaller dot lights that lit the sidewalks in several different branching directions. Some ways back the road had ended and all that was left were the footpaths. 

You noticed there were a number of human couples and groups out with a smattering of monsters intermixed in more than one group. A fox looking monster was leading a shorter girl in tight red curls around and a couple of ladies were walking hand in hand just ahead of you. 

“Ma and Mini sound like some real stellar ladies. Were they the ones you ran into first?” 

“No, that was Paul, their husband.” 

You almost missed a step but recovered before he could notice.

“Paul? O-oh, I don’t think we met him last night.”

Edge shook his head, seemingly unbothered. “You wouldn’t have. He passed away several weeks ago but had been sick for a long while now so it was not as…unpleasant as a human’s passing might normally seem.” 

“I’m sorry to hear about your loss,” you managed to say, feeling a little unsteady on your own two feet. “I…that must have been a lot for you guys.” 

Edge noticed your subdued expression and glanced down. “It was unsettling, but also an honor to be a part of a human’s transition to whatever comes next. And he did not leave the world worse than he found it. Both Mini and Ma had each other and my brother and I learned his lessons well.” 

“Still, that’s a lot. You’ve been here only a month and a half or little more, right?” when Edge nodded you went on. “It sounds like you’ve seen a lot more than some of the monsters that have been top side for years.” 

“Yes, they were very helpful in curbing some of our… rougher habits and tendencies. How we communicate with humans here is very different from what we were used to. I shouldn’t shout so much and I’ve come a long way in developing ‘tact!’ That’s important because I am still a terrifying and magnificent monster and that’s not going to change anytime soon.”

You laughed out loud before you could think better of it and Edge stopped walking to watch you as the giggles shook your whole body. After a moment you swallowed what you could of your laughter and coughed in an attempt to get over the glee. 

“You shouldn’t ever change,” you managed to get out, still close to dissolving into giggles once more. “The magnificence and terror look is a good one for you.” 

It’s dark, but there are enough streetlights and shop signs turned on to see by and you catch the color, pink and dark, spreading across his skull. It’s an honest compliment he hadn’t been ready for by the looks of it. (The thought that maybe you were one of the first to compliment him in such a way stroked your ego a bit too much.)

“THAT-AH-ah, ah ha,” he stumbled over his words and swallowed before trying again. “That is…indeed an inspired observation, y-yes, n-nyeh eh. That you would recognize my-my magnificence shows courage.”

“Eh, it wasn’t easy to miss,” you replied casually.

“Th-then you were not, were you not intimidated previously? I had worried and asked Mini if it was possible I came on too magnificently. Some other humans are still apprehensive about approaching my brother or myself, but more so myself because I am the far superior specimen of terror incarnate.”

You remembered his actions during dinner and before that. He had only spoken up to request the others not speak so dramatically with magic infused in their voices…something that wasn’t even necessarily for his benefit since he was also a boss level monster. He had been so quiet otherwise and you wondered if that was because maybe he thought he was just…coming on too strong?

“Did you think I was scared of you?”

“I am frightening.” 

“You are,” you agreed with a laugh. “But not enough for me to get scared off. Trust me. I’m a bit tougher than I look.”

“You looked plenty tough last night,” Edge replied with the color still on his cheeks. “I didn’t expect…that.” 

For a split second you thought back to last night with the memories you forced into the minds of those three racists while Stretch watched. You almost panicked before realizing he meant the fight. When Steven and his goons came into the restaurant and you got in their face about it.

It... hadn’t been as memorable as San’s fight and easy to forget. 

“Ah, you…saw that.” 

“I envied you. A monster acting so freely would have ramifications for more than just my own self. My brother and the rest of the town’s monster population would suffer for it, but you did what I could not.”

“Then let me envy your restraint. I’ve never been good at listening to people tell me no. It might have been flashier to get angry and go off on some jerk, but it takes a lot more strength to stand up and resist the taunting. Plus, that’s something you’re not used to doing, is it?”

Edge glanced away, showing off more of how the blush stretched far across his skull while he nodded. “Ye-yes. It was most unusual but as I previously stated, we were tutored by some of the best.” 

He cleared his nonexistent throat as a means of segwaying the conversation and you let him because the poor boy had suffered enough ego stroking and you didn’t want his face to turn pink permanently or anything. But dang he was cute. Studded leather and spikes and blushing cheekbones? Yes please. 

“So the night life around here…?” you asked, letting your words hang in the air between you. 

“Ah, firstly, have you had dinner yet?” 

The question made your stomach roll with want. “I did eat a couple of hours ago but that was my lunch? I slept through breakfast so….”

“You haven’t had dinner yet?”  His voice pitched on the question.

“I mean, not technically but it wasn’t so long ago so maybe it’d be considered dinner…” You didn’t want to sound desperate but you were ready for some more carbs.

“That’s not-would you be well enough for some light snacks?” 

His concern made you grin and chuckle. “I’m good enough for light, medium, and heavy snacks.”

He grabbed for your hand again, no hesitation this time, and guided you down a side path towards a lot where food truck after food truck lined the edges of the square block. In the center there was a rolling greenway where several couples and groups had sat down to eat. At the very center was an Obelisk looking feature that served as the focal point for several different light strands to meet up at.

Each of the different trucks had a different type of food they were selling and several were desert exclusive trucks with cute designs and motifs to attract customers. You noticed quickly that there were even a couple of monster food trucks that were servicing both humans and monsters. 

You….should probably eat something monster based to help replenish your depleted magic stores. The downside to being a magic using human was the calorie intake stacked on top of the need for magic replenishing foods. You could naturally replenish your magic of course, but that was a slow process that either knocked you out or burned off the energy from your human meals.  

You basically ate like an olympic swimmer.

“There’s so many places to pick from,” you finally comment.

“Nyeheheheheh, and lucky for us, there is nothing to stop you from eating from as many as you want. No need to choose.”

“I mean,” you chuckled, eyeing him slyly. “There’s that whole bit about money, but sure.” 

“Not for me there isn’t!” he cried happily, striking a pose that might have been intimidating if you didn’t know him better. “Witness my greatness in action, human.” 

You really wanted to laugh but you didn’t because it was just too mismatched. Edge looked intimidating effortlessly but he sounded so glad and carefree even if his words might have sounded haughty coming from anyone else. 

It almost reminded you of Papyrus. 

Edge didn’t bound, per say, but he crossed in front of you and approached a soft pretzel seller, calling to the owner by their first name. “Akira, I require sustenance for my human!” He pulled back enough to stretch his arm out and gesture to you. “Your finest please.”

An older man with a baby strapped into a carrier laughed and approached the register. Behind him a younger teenage boy slipped on some gloves. 

“You got it Edgy, what you want?” the man named Akira laughed.

Edge looked at you expectantly, waiting for your answer.  

“Whatever you recommend? I’m not picky and I like everything you have on your menu,” you said. You didn’t mention how hungry you were becoming just by looking at the photos. 

Akira side eyed Edge with a subtle smirk and then waved back at the boy behind him, saying something in Japanese. The kid came up with a paper bag filled with bagel bits that he handed over to you.

“Thanks, what we owe you?” you asked, trying your best to keep from salivating. 

Akira just laughed loudly and bounced his baby while, past his shoulder, the teenage boy rolled his eyes. “No cost, no charge. Edge’s human means no charge,” he chuckled looking like he knew something you didn’t. 

Edge’s human?

“Next!” Edge exclaimed, hands on your shoulders, lightly turning you to a drink cart where a monster cat family repeated almost the exact same behavior, passing off fresh lemonade slush drinks to both of you with secret giggles. The same was for the third truck where you picked up chocolate dipped waffle cones filled with fruit and whipped cream. 

What an amazing invention! 

“And that’s not nearly enough nutrients,” Edge explained before taking you to a fourth truck  selling calzones. “It’s not my specialty lasagna but it is a sufficient substitute considering the location.” 

Edge ordered for the both of you and minutes later he had the baskets in hand and was leading you off towards a lit area near the Obelisk where a few park benches had been left open. Like a gentleman he offered you a seat first and then followed, crossing one leg over his knee and distributing the food. 

“Monster lemonade slushes are way too good to be legal,” you sighed, after another sip.

 “Nyeheheheheh, I’m glad you appreciate the monster food. I-er-well, I thought so but wasn’t sure.” Edge bit the end of his straw and slurped loudly. 

“It’s amazing. I was hankering for some monster treats, honestly. You really lucked out with the food carts. It always like that for you?” 

He eyed you sideways and chuckled. “You doubted my magnificence.”

You held up your half finished calzone. “Obviously not.” 

Nearby, a couple of adults with instruments started to play for ambiance music. It was something folksy and old but still modern enough to sing or hum along with.  

And it was so easy to eat and talk between mouthfuls of food the pair of you enjoyed. He and Red had gotten their identification cards earlier that morning and were now officially registered as monster citizens. You asked him about his experiences and he was more than happy to answer before turning the conversation around to ask you about your experiences with the other skeletons on the road thus far, as well as your intentions or plans for the future. 

Then things got easier. You talked about music and shows and all the other things that monsters claimed to be overwhelming once they were topside. He mentioned the wealth of different foods to try as well as his favorites. 

You asked about how he got so much free food and he explained it was a perk of the sentry duties he performed for the town. There had been a number of instances early on that he helped prevent and because he didn’t take money or donations of any type, ‘there’s no honor in it!’ the townspeople who knew him best offered him free eats instead. 

When you asked if that made Red jealous he laughed. Apparently Red liked staying with Whisky Straits’ menu day in and out and didn’t move much outside. 

“Speaking of that lazybones,” Edge grumbled. You watched as he pulled out his cellphone and clicked through his contacts before pulling one up. 

Seeing him use a touchscreen so easily made you wonder if he could give some tips to Blue, considering how heat sensitive screens were something the skeletons had to be mindful of and regulate their magic to effectively use. Blue was still using a flip phone with real buttons because he found the touch screens a pain. Still, it annoyed his brother when the memes wouldn’t send because his phone was too old to read the images. 

“There.”

You looked up when Edge replaced the phone in his jacket pocket and slurped loudly from your empty cup to get his attention. It was enough to make him grin. 

“What was that for?” you asked.

“I’ll show you next.” 

He stood up and turned around offering his hand again. You gathered the trash together into a single bag, crunched up into a ball, that he tossed across the way into a trashcan. A trio of teenagers saw him sink the shot with blue magic and cheered. 

“You’re not too full?” he asked, leading back out onto the walkway. 

 “I can move if that’s what you’re worried about,” you scoffed. 

His grin might have been devious, but you doubted that’s what made it different from all his other smiles. In a handful of minutes you were back in front of Whiskey Straits and you recognized who was waiting for you just inside. 

“Boss what’s the rush for-” Red’s words stopped short and his eyes went wide when he spotted you next to his brother, but faster than his reaction was his recovery. His surprise melted into what possibly passed as a saucy smile as he braced against the bar. “Damn, boss, what we win the lottery or something?” 

“Red,” Edge warned even as his brother’s smile grew.

“Somebody call the cops, because it’s got to be illegal to look that good!”

It’s enough to make you snicker behind your hand but Edge looks far from amused. 

“You’re making me regret this,” Edge hissed, towering over his brother. “Where did you leave your manners?” 

“Ey, boss, ain’t no harm in it. Is there, babe?” He wiggled his brow bones and the expression was enough to make you laugh. 

“You’re without class,” Edge complained, stepping closer to you. “Does that mean you’re not grown up enough to join us?”

“Join us? Huh, where were you thinking of heading?” you ask, looking back up at Edge and then to Red who was smiling nervously with a sweat bead (or two) of magic on the side of his skull.

“Manners, yeah. You got it boss,” Red laughed nervously.

Edge then turned to look down at you and tugged on your hand, taking it in his once more. “Last stop of the night.” 

You followed him out and Red hurried to catch up with you, shouting something to Ma at the counter before closing the door behind him. He hurried until he was at your other side and then reached for your other hand.

“Hey, that looks heavy, let me hold it fer ya.”

You chuckled but it was enough to make Red’s eye lights spark a shade brighter, like a fire soaked in the hearth. And even though the line was cheesy Edge didn’t complain as he guided you to the same place Red seemed to know about. 

You heard the music, a high energy mix of old country and older rock that filtered out into the night, louder whenever the door opened. Inside you saw the crowds, all moving together with the same mirrored steps. There was a mechanical bull in the far corner, a couple dozen small tables, and a bar in the center of it all. 

“This is…” you let your words trail off. 

Edge tugged you along. “It’s not as elaborate as a puzzle, but it’s close enough that people still enjoy it.” 

“Not my favorite type of dance, sweetheart, but it gets the boss’ rocks off on a slow night and it ain’t so bad if you got the right company,” Red elaborated as he followed you out onto the dance floor where the lines were already moving. 

“Oh Stars,” you sighed through a nervous chuckle. “It’s line dancing.” 

“You nervous, babe?” Red goaded with a daring glint. “You worried you won’t be able to keep up with a couple of masters?” 

“You see a couple of masters point them out and then I’ll get worried.”

The lines turned around for a new set and Edge found a spot wide enough for the three of you thanks to a couple of older folks moving around to accommodate you.

You were between the two of them, two different skeletons with different sizes and shapes, but once the music picked up they moved the same way and so did the rest of the room. Like everyone was an expert but you.  

 It reminded you of a game you used to play with the other kids, back when you all were still learning how to use your new powers.  You’d stand in the shadows of the person in front of you and do what they did fast enough to stay in their shadow. 

Red laughed at your messy start but you fell into the rhythm and caught onto the pattern before the set was halfway through. Over his shoulder you could catch Edge’s knowing grin and hear Red’s exclamations of joy whenever you were able to keep up with him and his brother. 

Someone shouted about the brothers ‘being out tonight’ and then there was a ripple of conversation just outside your range of hearing. 

The song ended and a new one started. Hearing the tune some of the dancers scattered for the tables and their drinks while a DJ warned about making the bodies sweat. It was something cheesy and cute but then the music picked up, more aggressive than before, and you realized with a jolt why so many people had scattered off the dance floor. 

‘Expert level’ apparently meant it. 

You cursed under your breath as you felt your stamina slacken, and keeping your elbows up started to burn, but neither of the brothers seemed winded. A second later you realized why and rolled your eyes. Like Papyrus and his morning jogs, the boys were using their natural magical skills to their advantage. 

Well, they weren’t the only ones. 

Your mouth tingled with sour tang. 

Half of the original humans on the dance floor were staggering off, some laughing some gasping for air. People were cheering for Edge and Red by name and you didn’t miss the competitive glint the boys shared between each other. 

You could tell the song was near finished as it climaxed in tempo and speed, running the last set of moves through faster than before. Your legs and arms burned worse than your core as you stepped in time to the animations on the screen overhead, copying the moves as seamlessly as possible only to freeze on a high note of suspension, the song finished. 

A roof lifting cheer went up and Red and Edge were congratulated by name. A couple of monsters who had lasted the whole set, though not done as well with their copying came over to congratulate the brothers while a few of the townspeople took photos from their seats, happy to just be there for the show. 

Red laughed loudly and grabbed for your shoulders, tugging you his way only to spin you round to face him. His eye lights were the brightest you’ve ever seen them and they were shaking in their sockets to match his smile.  “Damn, sweetheart! Was that an earthquake or did you just rock my world? Where did ja learn ta move like that?”

“Red there was literally a jumbo-tron with what we were supposed to do,” you laughed, gesturing back to one of the many screens set up to show the animations for the more complicated dances.

“I can’t believe that was yer first time,” he laughed.

“First time on this sort of dance floor.” You rubbed at your shoulder and rolled your neck, laughing to yourself. “But damn if keeping up with you all wasn’t a challenge. Do you even have limits to your stamina?” 

“If we’re not fighting we just use our magic for it, but yeah, we can get tired. Why, wanted to see how long I can go?” Red leered.

“Cad,” Edge interrupted, smacking Red upside the head. “Use your manners or you’re out.”

“Boss!” Red whined, holding his head but a look from Edge made him swallow back the rest of his complaints behind a nervous chuckle. “S-sure, sure.” 

Edge’s hand hovering over your shoulder made you turn back to face him and he was grinning. “As I suspected, you executed the puzzle step masterfully! Next time we will have to find something more stimulating to challenge you appropriately.”

More stimulating?” you laughed, sounding exasperated in spite of your efforts to hide it. “Stars, I’m barely on my feet as it is. I don’t know how I’d survive anything worse.”

“Then it shall be a challenge for the both of us,  nyeheheh!” 

“You’re the coolest, boss.”

The vibration in your pocket made you reach for your phone. You had a number of unread messages and a couple missed calls from a handful of minutes ago, back when you had been busy on the dance floor.

You scrolled through the messages first, noticing most were from Blue or Papyrus with one from Stretch you had read earlier, detailing plans to leave in the morning. There was even one from the housing lease place. The rest of the messages were for ‘when you wake up’ and had timestamps ranging from early morning to mid afternoon. 

Blue and Papyrus were out, Blue with Mini, Papyrus with a couple of monster friends he had made in the morning. No info on Sans (not that you wanted to hear about it) while Stretch lamely excused his absence as being ‘out 4 stuff’ and nothing more.

You listened to the first voicemail while Edge and Red talked not too far from where you were standing. Blue’s voice came up first, sounding a little breathless as he explained an encounter he had with the person who threw that rock at him yesterday-one of the men you traumatized. Your heart clenched before the details came, but much to your relief the story had a happy ending.

“He apologized and everything and now-yeah, so now I have a new bike! Stretch says we need to get a bike mount for it so we can take it with us so I’m going with him to do that, but I’m going to park it next to the bus, behind it, and then Mini is gonna show us where we can go. I hope you wake up soon. We won’t be long.” 

That had been from back when you and Sans had your conversation. 

The last voicemail was from three-no four minutes ago. 

“You’re awake! Sans was supposed to tell m-us when you woke up but he was too lazy to remember and that was who knows how long ago, he’s off and not answering anyone’s questions. Um, but I don’t know where you are and I-I wanted to check in and see how you were. How are you? Are you okay? Are you still tired? You’re not sick are you? Where are you? Um, you don’t have to tell me I guess if that’s too much, but I can-we can meet you somewhere, wherever and-and I’ll text you in a minute if your phone’s not taking calls. Okay? Um, so, bye then!”

You glanced up from your phone and saw Red at the bar ordering something while Edge hung close, watching you for when your call ended. 

“Where are we exactly? I forgot to look at the name for this place when we walked in.”

“Ken’s Country Corner,” Edge said, leaning in to answer while a new swell of music picked up behind you. He guided you over to the bar where Red was paying for a trio of drinks. 

You sent off the text to Blue and then turned your phone face down to climb into a bar stool between the brothers with your drink. 

“So you tuckered out or ready for another round.” Red’s smile spread and he hurried to add, “On the dance floor! A round on the dance floor.” 

You felt like Edge was making another face past your shoulder to keep Red in line.

“I probably shouldn’t stay out much later than this. I’ve not even seen any of the others since waking up so I should really touch base with them and talk about what we’re doing next.”

“What are you doing next?” Red asked. 

“Heading North. It’s where FourB was last seen and he’s been popping in and out of that area pretty frequently. The next part of this whole adventure is tracking him down before he can do anymore damage.” 

“And he’s dangerous?” Edge asked with a frown.

You shrugged. “No more or less than me.”

“You can create rips in time and space with magic?” Edge asked with a teasing tone and a raised brow bone. Red snickered just past your opposite shoulder. 

“His skills are different from mine, not less impressive. I’ll be fine. Plus, there’s the four of my teammates that are in on this. They'll  be helping. Even if he was stronger than me I’d be showing up with backup,” you answered. 

And speaking of backup…

Blue shouted your name from the front of the room, calling out before he was even all the way inside. 

You didn’t expect the sound of his voice to make you smile like it did, but you slipped down from your seat and waved, catching his eye from across the room. He saw you right away and raced around the obstacles in his path to reach you and he didn’t slow enough to keep from barreling into you with a major bear hug. It made you laugh out loud and you didn’t care how silly you sounded. Blueberry’s arms were squeezing you.

“Hey, Blue,” you wheezed through the squeezing hug. “How ya doing?”

“Me, what about you!? You were asleep all morning and you didn’t wake up once even when we were loud, like you were sick or something. You-you’re okay, aren’t you?” he asked, pulling away enough to look you over. His eyes were wide and worried just like his voice and his arms around you were shaking. 

“I’m sorry I made you worried like that. I was just out late last night and I tired myself out. I didn’t sleep well so I was making up for it by napping throughout the day. “ You made a show of turning your head in either direction to show off how ‘healthy’ you were. “Look, not sick, just needing a bit more rest. You good?”

“Your magic was almost all gone.” 

Your smile almost fell off your face and Blue went still when he realized what he said and how it made your react. 

“No-nonon-it’s fine, I’m sorry for saying something! A-an-and I’m sorry I checked but I was worried ‘cause even if we’re out of magic we don’t pass out like that. I thought something else was wrong. I’m sorry, don’t be mad.”

“I-I’m not mad, honey,” you chuckled, still feeling a bit sick in your stomach with something close to guilt. The idea, the very thought of Blue knowing what you had done last night made you want to crawl into a hole. “I just don’t want you to worry about me. It’s nothing. I’m fine now.”  

Blue ducked his head again and leaned against you, hugging tighter before letting go enough to step back and give you your space. 

“I shouldn’t have gone off if only Sans was going to be left behind. Was he even there when you woke up? Were you alone?” 

Unfortunately so.

“Yeah, he was there. We talked briefly but I was really hungry and I needed to leave. He probably forgot to mention it to you or text anyone.” With your luck he was going to give you and the rest of the group a royal cold shoulder once you went back.

Blue cursed under his breath, a dark look on his face that surprised you. “I should have known,” he muttered. He glanced off to the side and noticed Edge and Red, both staring at the pair of you with a casual posture. It was enough to make Blue stutter and pull out of his dark mood. “Oh, you were with…company. Did you eat yet or just get drinks?”  

You laughed and pulled Blue along with you. “I had plenty to eat with Edge earlier. Come here.” 

And much to your pleasant surprise, Edge and Red got along well with Blue who was able to move past his bitter feelings towards Sans and connect with the two, rougher, skeleton brothers. Red thought it was cool that Blue knew how to ride a motorcycle and Edge even made a nice comment about Blue’s trailing scarf before gesturing to his own. Blue thought it was neat how they had something in common. 

Before you knew it the night was late and you were heading back with Blue to climb into bed with only a few minutes to catch up with Papyrus and Stretch who you haven't seen all day. Sans was out but Papyrus said he trusted his brother and wasn’t worried about waiting up for Sans before going to sleep, so that’s what you all did. 


 

In the morning you were one of the first ones awake with Papyrus to go on another run and workout. When you are finished you headed off into the shower first and came out to the smell of fast food breakfast. You had an egg muffin in your mouth when there was a knock at the front door.  

Who?

No one knocked. 

Stretch answered the door and moved back in time for Edge and Red to climb up the steps and drop their duffles. 

“So, when do we leave?” Red asked with a wide grin.

 

Notes:

What a perfect place to end the chapter. Yup, wanna pick up these two babies for the long haul. No way we're leaving them behind.

So, Edge and Red got the Poly talk from their caretakers and saw a healthy three person relationship modeled in front of them so they are ready to go in wooing reader compared to some of the other skellies. I am here for all the healthy ships and that includes healthy brother friendships. This is a abuse free fic-Edge just smacks his older brother to get him to tone down the lewd behavior
Also from now on if the bois are startled they might slip back into their all caps or all lowercase way of speaking, just so you know that's not a typo.

I loved this chapter even if I hate and SUCK at line dancing in real life. You remember what I said about this being wish fulfillment?

Starting this week I'll switch back to weekly updates and I'll get to those on Saturday instead of Friday (work is a bit more overwhelming than anticipated, haha.)

Chapter 12: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 1

Summary:

Part 2 - life on the bus with six skeletons is bound to be an adventure.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Seems like the whole damn world went and lost its mind
And all my childhood heroes have fallen off or died

Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea
FallOutBoy


There were a total number of six bunk beds, a fold out bed from the couch, and the master bed in the backroom plus the driver and passenger chairs up front that could be stretched out if the need for them was great enough.

With Edge and Red all the bunks would be filled with skeletons leaving you to shack up somewhere else. The obvious choice was the huge queen sized bed in the back but you felt like that wouldn’t be fair for the one small human to take the largest bed on the bus, yet Papyrus and Blue protested (too much) when you mentioned this. 

And that’s how you ended up with lots.  

“So, does this mean you want to be the black dot or do you want to be a normal dot?” Red asked before picking out a stick from the cup. It emerged blank and he flipped it over a few more times to make sure before nodding in acknowledgment. 

“That depends on you, if you want a bunk or if you would rather have the big fancy bed all to yourself,” you answered, gesturing for Edge to draw next. 

Red chuckled just past your shoulder. “I’d rather not keep something so nice just to myself if you don’t mind. Any rules on that?” 

“You can figure that out for yourself while hitchhiking your way back to Ma’s if you think that’s appropriate language,” Edge grumbled, ever the mediator when he thought Red’s flirting/teasing/joking got too out of hand.  

Red laughed nervously and you recognized the familiar magic sweat beads that came whenever Red was in danger of disappointing his little brother. You had wondered if Edge was more of a bully brother and that was why Red faltered so easily at the first sign of a warning, but it turned out to be a bit more simple. 

Red was the older brother, and though most of his stats were lower, he had an impressive magical reserve that reminded you of Sans’ own stores. (Stretch also had more than his brother, but the difference wasn’t so clear cut.) Red didn’t have much to fear from his brother in terms of stats, but even you could see he cared what Edge thought.  

The two brothers were close and had a number of inside jokes that were starting to show up the longer you spent with them and you suspected the whole ‘boss’ title was just one more of them. 

You pulled a stick from the cup and sighed in relief when you found it blank. You would be keeping your bunk bed with the draw curtain after all. Behind you Blue made an excited noise when he realized he had a chance at the bed. But Stretch and Blue both drew blanks. Papyrus pulled the second to the last stick and it came out with a dark black dot before Sans could even draw.

“Nyeh eh eh! Naturally I the great Papyrus will get all the things I utterly deserve!”

“It was random,” Stretch chuckled, tossing his stick back into the cup and winking your way when his gaze met yours.  

“Congratulations Papyrus,” you laugh. “I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. You’re tall enough to appreciate such a large bed.”  

“Ah-ah well yes, I suppose so, though it is not my race car bed and lacks the style and flare I’ve come to appreciate, I think I will enjoy it,” he said as if he was making up his mind through the conversation before turning to look over at Blue. “But that doesn't mean others can not also enjoy it before sleeping hours because that’s where the TV is located.”

“We still have another season to finish!” Blue cheered, remembering the anime he had convinced Papyrus to enjoy with him. 

Originally the pair of them had been opposed to watching anything that was an ‘anime’ because all of what they had seen had been nothing but the sappy cliche romance types. After exposure to a bit of the typical fighter animes that were so popular with the kids, both boys were hooked. 

And that was good because it looked like you would be on the road longer than you wanted to be. 

There were a few sections of the road between you and your target destination that diverted your bus because it was driven by an AI (and programed by a monster?!) for safety reasons. So a one hour cruise through a town ended up being three hours going around it. It looked like you would be in close quarters with the boys a bit longer. 

You stood to put the sticks and cup away in a cabinet but had to slam it shut before the supplies inside spilled out. You found somewhere that wasn’t a mess and Edge told you he’d remember where the cup was even if you forgot where you put it. Meanwhile Red had helped himself to exploring all the different cabinets and drawers he could find. 

“You don’t have a lot of food in this place do you?” Red asked, holding up a box of oatmeal with the dinosaur eggs Papyrus was so partial to. “I mean you got a ton but it’s six skeletons and one hungry, hungry human so you’re good for a couple days no more.” 

“Forward thinking,” Edge agreed, examining the interior of your, admittedly bare pantry. 

“I mean, we stop to have dinner each night. If we didn’t we’d go crazy with cabin fever,” you answered.

“And what about food that isn’t high carb energy bars?” Red went on. “There’s not a lot else in here. Nothing that ain’t a dry or fast food.”

“You getting picky on me?” you teased, bumping his hip with yours. 

Behind you, you felt something like a predator’s attention on your back, but when you turned around Papyrus and Blue were in the back watching anime, Stretch was up at the front in the passenger’s seat reading on his flip phone, and Sans was…in his bunk? On the roof? Somewhere else? You weren’t sure and you weren’t eager to keep track of his movements. 

Looking at ‘Prime Directive’ was like looking at a kicked cat and you didn’t like the unintentional emotional manipulation. You hadn’t meant to make him feel like shit, but dang if he didn’t take rejection worse than an eight year old. Why did he act like it was a bigger deal than it was? It was just you. 

“Not complaining sweet cheeks,” Red chuckled. “But we know how to make some decent dishes so what about a cooking night? There’s bound to be a supermarket on the way we can break at for stretches and shopping.”

“You think we’re going to be on the road long enough to need to go shopping?” you asked with a tired huff. All the skeletons in a grocery store… the very idea of it made you dizzy.

Red gave you a pointed look before breaking it to eye his brother. Edge grumbled but pushed off the counter to lumber over and stand next to his brother. 

“You’re tracking this FourB person from the Embassy for how long?” Edge asked in a softer tone.

“A few days, over a week.”

“And how long has he been out and about making trouble?”

You glanced past Edge to where Stretch sat at the front. “A couple of months at least.” 

“Yeah,” Red interjected. “We don’t doubt you’re like a stellar bad ass babe, but catching this kid might take a bit longer than you planned and it’s a good idea to have like, a full fridge and pantry when you’re carting this many hungry skeletons around.”

“Yeah, that’s not a terrible idea,” you relented. “But I really don’t plan on being on the road forever.”

“No, of course not,” Red chuckled. “But like, we wanna be able to make some food.”

“…You want to show off.”

Edge and Red both turned around to look at Stretch who still lounged haphazardly in the passenger’s seat, playing on his phone, never once looking up.

“Excuse me?” Edge pulled himself up to his full height and the easy slope of his shoulders was gone. He was all angels and harsh lines.

 Stretch looked up from his phone as if just noticing them and smiled. It was a tired, easy sort of smile that paired well with his chuckle. “Nah, it’s cute I think. Yeah, let’s stop for some food and go shopping once we’re in the next town. It’ll be nice to use that stove after all, yeah?” 

Edge’s eye lights flickered and then he blinked and the stiff set of his shoulders went soft. He glanced back at you and then back to Stretch, who had gone back to looking at his phone. Finally Edge smiled. 

“We-well yes,  with a respectful interpretation of the language I could see how one would assume our desire to cook and eat good food as a positive, and I even agree with it. Yes. Red, you shall clean out the cabinets until they are neatly organized while I tackle the fridge with permission.”

“Knock yourselves out, but don’t feel like you need to.”

“We are not guests and therefore not entitled to the exclusion of proper living maintenance. We have every intention of pulling our own weight and contributing to your success on this mission.”

“That’s sweet of you, Edge. And you too, Red, thanks for thinking of us. Just don’t tire yourselves out.” 

“Impossible!”

“But thanks for the concern, sweetheart,” Red added with a sly wink in your direction. 

With Edge and Red occupied you left them to climb up into the driver’s seat and turn it so that you were facing Stretch. Kicking the curtain part way, you were both separated from the rest of the bus. It wasn’t much but it was enough to get your point across. Stretch looked up from his phone and turned it off once he caught your eye.

“…Hey.”

“Hey.”

He looked away and turned his phone over in his hand, doing a fantastic job of looking distracted when you knew he was hyper aware of you. 

“You wanna tell me about it?” you asked. 

“…About what?” 

You crossed one leg over the other and rested your head on your fist after situating your elbow on the soft arm rest. You looked ready to wait forever for him and it did take a while longer before he said anything in response to your stare. 

“You think I was being rude?”

“You don’t?” you countered.

Stretch shrugged. “Edgelord seemed fine with it.” 

“You’re being rude now , Stretch. That’s not his name and you know it. Maybe it’s a bit unusual but he likes it and Mini picked it out for him so we can respect that. What’s going on?”

“We’re on the road.”

“What’s going on with you ?”

“I’m reading a novel?”

You sighed and waited a moment more before asking again. “Stretch, you’re upset about something and you’re either taking it out on our new arrivals or the new arrivals are what you’re upset about. I don’t want us to have issues because we can’t communicate. Tell me what’s going on, please.”

“It’s nothing.”

Of course Stretch wouldn’t make it that easy for you. From what you heard out of Papyrus, OG Sans was just as horrible about his communication skills. It would be like pulling teeth to have such an honest conversation but you were worried about what would happen if you didn’t. 

You wanted Red and Edge to have a place among the group. Blue seemed to like them well enough last night at Ken’s Country Corner. The trio had got on like a house on fire and it had been fun to watch. 

They had promised to trade practical fashion advice for riding a motorbike after hearing about Blueberry’s gift. Red had asked about the make and model and when Blue couldn’t remember Red spouted off a few tidbits of information that helped them all guess what type it really had been. Earlier, before leaving, Red had offered to look over the bike for Blue and make sure it was all up to specs seeing as how he was an engineer with an eye for cars mostly. Apparently bikes weren’t all that hard to understand. 

You felt something close to an idea begin to take shape in your mind. 

“Do you not like the Underfell brothers?” you asked, referring to them by the codename the Embassy had used to identify their alternative reality.  “Blue seemed to like them okay.”

Stretch’s nonchalant expression twitched and you saw the waver in his eye lights as he watched the road. It had been so subtle and small, if you hadn’t been watching for it or expecting it you would have missed it. 

“Yeah…. I heard all about them last night. Bro told me enough.” 

“Enough to get jealous over?” 

Stretch stared at you without turning his face and you saw his eye lights narrow, orange and dark enough that you could miss them if you didn’t know they were there.

“I’m not jealous of them,” he denied with a light flush that made your grin grow.

“You’re so jealous of them because your bro is paying more attention to them than he is you. It’s all over your face, hun.”

His blush only darkened. “D-don’t call me that. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Blue’s my older brother, he can do what he wants. I don’t control him.”

“Yeah, but that’s not how jealous feelings work. We all know they’re irrational and make no sense half the time. Explain it away it you want, but the way you feel isn’t going to change on its own. You’re jealous of the brothers for having Blue’s attention.”

 Stretch turned his face away, tearing his eye lights off of you. “Even if you were right and that’s all true, there’s nothing to be done about it. I’ll mind my words around the pair. You don’t need to worry anymore. ” 

You got up from your seat and tugged on the back of his chair, turning him around to face you. Stretch didn’t fight it but he also didn’t look up at you as you loomed overhead. 

“That’s not true, and playing nice isn’t the only thing that’s important. Your feelings matter too. You don’t feel great right now and that’s no good. You’re my friend. I care about that.”

It wasn’t what he expected to hear, judging by the way his eye lights shot to your face and glowed brighter, so much so that someone not looking might even notice them. His brow bones shifted into an expression of disbelief and you scoffed. 

“Don’t look at me like that, Stretch, of course I would care.” 

“…it’s not…”

You don’t mind his emotional slip. A faint echo of magic behind his words wasn’t a big deal.

“It’s a big deal to me because it’s you , numb skull. You think I wouldn’t care after what you’ve helped me go through? Don’t be dense. I care and I want to help you .”   

As if it wasn’t clear enough with just your words you reached out and grabbed the fabric of his shirt where days ago your teeth had been, biting and sobbing as you fell apart in his arms. He hadn’t left you or judged you or rushed you, but he let you cry to your heart’s content no matter how messy it made him, and then helped you into bed before sunrise. He had been there to see you do your terrible deeds and he stayed until the end, until your ugly fallout. 

Stretch recovered and chuckled, fingers itching to hold something. You pulled a honey stick out before he could hanker for a cigarette, tossing it at his hand without explanation. 

“If you want I’ll talk to Blue and he can tell you all on his own, without prompting, how amazing of a brother he thinks you are. You’re always complimenting him but don’t think he doesn’t think the same of you. You’re his brother, no one else. You all might be…alternative versions of one another with similar features or whatever, but those boys aren’t going to take your place with Blue.”

“….I know that.” He glanced down at the stick of honey in his hands, fingering it gently. “It just sucks you know.”

“Well suck on something sweeter and then maybe it won’t be so bad.” 

As if setting an example you reached into the front pocket of your hoodie and pull out a stick of rock candy. You had a couple more left but you decided you could be liberal with your last few if you were going grocery shopping soon. You pulled off the plastic and sucked on the sugar while Stretch ripped off the end of his honey stick and did much the same. 

“You going to be good?” you asked, resting your rock candy on your bottom lip to watch for his reaction.

  You felt good about your talk, but Stretch’s emotions were what really mattered. You knew it would take more than one affirmation to deal with such sensitive feelings, and you weren’t even the subject of his discontent.  

“I’m…going to be fine. Yeah. Sorry about the comments too, really. I’ll watch it.” 

You hummed in appreciation. “Thanks. I’m not asking you to be besties right away, but I’m sure you can all get along. You’ve already got a ton in common.”

“Oh yeah, like what?” 

“You're both monsters, you’re skeletons, you’re not from this world, you’re in a bus with me, you’re on a secret mission for a shady branch of the government, you like to eat…”

Stretch laughed and it made you smile. 

“Alright, I get it, I got it, you’re good honey.” 

“I thought you didn’t like that nickname?”

“I never said that, I just didn’t want you calling me that. It’s my name for you . It’s not fair we all have to go by nicknames around here aside from the ‘originals,’ so share in our suffering.” 

“I’d hardly call it suffering.” 

“You don’t think it obnoxious?” 

You grinned, tapping the end of your rock candy off your bottom lip while you thought. “Nah, it’s nice when it comes from you. I’d deck the wrong guy for trying to use it on me though. I’m not a fan of nicknames from strangers or people I don’t like.”

“Oh, so you like me now?”

“Of course.” 

Stretch’s grin fell off and in its place was a healthy orange blush, a shade darker than the golden honey dripping out of the plastic sleeve. A second later he blinked and began to recover but not before your lips had curved dangerously into a cunning grin. 

You were having too much fun flustering your friends. It was fast becoming your favorite bad habit. 

Before he could recover enough to tease you back you got up and moved to the gps, selecting a new destination and updating it before leaving for the end of the bus.

You could hear Blue and Papyrus getting along as they supplied commentary to the action anime and you could see Red and Edge arguing about food’s nutritional values. 

You couldn’t hear Sans. 

Considering how quickly Stretch got jealous when his brother made friends with two new skeletons, how did Sans feel about his brother, the mascot of all monsters and internet influencer, getting along so well with practically everyone else? Since the start of the trip…how often had the two of them hung out?

Maybe you were way off, but you had a sad gut rolling suspicion that you weren’t.

You climbed up the ladder to the top bunk and brushed back the curtain just enough to grab his attention. In the dark, the glow from his white blue eye lights stood out. 

“Hey,” you spoke first.

An awkward silence stretched between you before he replied. “….Hey?”

“We’re going shopping soon. You wanna come?”

You watched the way his eye lights wavered in the dark.

“Nah…wasn’t planning on it.”

He was still sort of a jerk and the older brother so there wasn’t any excuse for how much of a wad he had been to you...but….! Ugghhh!!!

“Well you should come. I’m going to drag Papyrus out too so we’ll all go.” You started to climb back down but thought better of it and paused to say one last thing. “We’ll be there soon so don’t be…choco late.” 

Sans’s eye lights didn’t even blink and you groaned to yourself, scrambling down so that he wouldn’t be able to see how stupidly embarrassed that pun made you. It was terrible and you knew it and this was why you didn’t like puns! 

Notes:

Part 2 of this 6 part series is here! I'm excited for the road trip adventures to continue with Red and Edge. They're a good pair.

Who do you think it was shooting mini daggers at Red for being so casual with the reader?

I am a big fan of a few things and one of those things is open communication. Like, I'm a sucker for the drama too, but reader is determined to make sure all the boys get along. There are going to be issues of personality and things like jealousy that get tackled and I feel like there's for sure that romantic angle, but also these boys love their brothers a lot and jealousy doesn't always have to be romantic-trust me, I get low key jealous of people who have time with my best friends while I'm stuck on the other side of the country. It happens.

Weekly updates are gonna be a Saturday thing cause I'm so tired and burnt out from work I can't manage the Fridays, lol. Look forward to it!

Chapter 13: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 2

Summary:

Shopping trip with Red and the boys.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You weren’t sure if it was because you were traveling in a group or because your stupid bus was so horribly oversized for most of the back roads, but it felt like it took forever to find a way into the parking lot of a suitable supermarket. At the rate you were all going at it would really take another two months to get where you needed to go.

No, that was just you being pessimistic. You were going to be fine. 

Behind you the entirety of the bus empties into the parking lot and you can hear several different branches of conversation going off at once. Some wanted to go get drinks from the smoothie place (Blue and Edge), some wanted to just walk around and wander (Stretch) and some of you were going into the grocery store itself to do the shopping. 

Though he hadn’t seemed thrilled at the idea, you had invited Sans and Papyrus to go with you and help pick out the foods best suited for feeding monsters. You could take care of your needs well enough but you didn’t know what everyone else would need. 

“You need human foods still, and it’s not like monsters can’t gain nutrients from such foods,” Papyrus said, reaching for a shopping cart to guide out of the parking lot. 

Sans was a few paces back and meandering in your direction so you decided to stop and wait for him to catch up before going any further. If he wanted to mope and sulk he would have to try a little harder. The more you thought about it the more you were convinced there was something unresolved between the brothers. They had been on the surface exposed to human culture longer than anyone else and it had shaped them in undeniable ways. Papyrus was a monster ‘influencer’ on the internet and Sans was… a puzzle.

“They don’t replenish your magic or give you as much energy though, and I mean if we’re being honest here, I gain a lot more from your monster food than you do from my human food,” you answered. “I still need help replenishing my magic just as much as my physical energy.”

“You do eat a lot,” Papyrus hummed. 

Behind you Red snickered and you turned around to glare lightly but let him have his joke. It wasn’t anything worth getting upset over. It was true after all, you did eat a lot, you needed to. 

“…Nothing wrong with that.” 

You blinked, too surprised to say or do anything else when you realized the comment came from Sans. Sans ?! He almost sounded… nice. It was a considerate comment if nothing else. 

“Absolutely, completely! A healthy appetite and diet are both essential for a well balanced lifestyle,” Papyrus agreed. 

Feeling empowered you playfully glared back at Red over your shoulder. When he caught your eye you stuck your tongue out and then laughed when he flustered.  

You walked even with Papyrus while Sans and Red trailed a few steps behind you. You had a list in your pocket you pulled out and showed off to Papyrus. He recognized almost everything on the list and you only had to explain what a few human foods were before deciding to cut those off. You tore the list in half and handed the side with more monster meals to Sans.

“Can you and Paps get these and meet back in the middle? You two probably know these stores better than anyone and will be best at finding what we need.”

Sans took the paper like it was something that might bite him but it was Papyrus who spoke up.

“Of course, when we were on our own I was always in charge of acquiring the necessary groceries for our daily living. Sans, lazybones, was helpful in transportation.”

“No kidding,” you chuckled when you noticed how Sans turned towards his brother. 

“Heh, not a lot to that. You lead and I just ketchup .”

“SANS!”

You didn’t even wince as Papyrus slipped back into his old habit of talking with magic behind his words. You, along with Red, chuckled at how comically the younger brother reacted to the pun.

“Heh, if you don’t wanna taco bout it that’s one thing but don’t go bacon my heart when I’m trying so hard over here.”

“Trying hard at what, you insufferable brother?”

Sans’ smile reached his eyes as he looked up at Papyrus.”What, can’t dill with a little cheese ?”  

“I am so utterly disappointed in your manners at this moment in time,” Papyrus moaned with both hands over his face. 

“Heh, lettuce all romaine calm and just get what we need. No need to get all burnt up over it.” 

You nodded to Red, waving your half of the list before starting to head off in the opposite direction of the store. Behind you, you can hear Papyrus and Sans fall into an easy sort of banter that’s not familiar but something you still somehow recognize. They sound like brothers and it’s a little sad how easy it was to just get them together again when you know thanks to Sans’ stubborn personality it had been a while since they were so familiar with one another. 

“They sound like they’re going to be okay.”

You glanced to your side, hands still loose in your pockets, and caught the look Red was sending your way. “Hmm?”

He chuckled. “As flattered as I would be to think this was just a slick way for you to get us alone together on a shopping date, I think you’re a far kinder person.”

You feel the heat on your face and blame it all on the way Red watches you, with a knowing sort of stare that makes his smile all the more….more…alluring? Ugh, when did that happen? 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Where is the candy in this place?” 

You hear his chuckle past your shoulder and it seems to echo a little more with the depth of his voice. Red doesn’t let you get far before he’s at your side again, walking shoulder to shoulder like the two of you make a pair.

When he reaches for the list you don’t stop him from grabbing at it but do look up when he calls your name. 

“Heeeey, I know you're busy today, but can you add me to your to-do list?”

You nearly choke on the gasping laugh that gets caught in your throat, reaching up to slap both hands over your mouth and wheeze in-between your fingers at the way he pairs his awful pick up line with his wiggling brow bones. It’s too much to handle at once and you’re far too amused to pretend you hate it. 

“Red, shut up,” you laugh through your fingers, feeling the weight of tears caught in your lashes. You rub your eyes with the heels of your hands and cough to get your breathing regular again. “Give that back.”

When you reach for the paper he pulls it out of reach and stuffs it into a pocket of his hoodie and laughs. “Nah sweetheart, I got it this time. There’s only three things on tha’ list and they’re all human things.”

“I know, it’s why I tore the list off where I did. We actually have a lot less to find, comparatively. We’ll be done in five minutes, eight tops if the check out counter is backed up.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun.” 

“It’s not supposed to be fun, it’s a chore, we’re in a store.”

“Don’t mean it can’t be fun.”

You scoff playfully at his comments and make a show of rolling your eyes. “If you say so.”

“It’s all about the company you keep. Wanna bet we can make it fun?” Red asked, bending low and close so that his voice is a warm breath on your neck right under your ear. You almost miss a step when his arm reaches over to loop around your waist, tugging hips to hips. 

You’re close enough to feel his body’s heat, rolling like his magic, steady and warm. You hate admitting it to yourself, but it’s a nice feeling and you wouldn’t mind curling up around it like a house cat and dozing comfortably. You haven’t known Red long, just a couple days, but after exposing your his soul you feel impossibly close and familiar with him. You trust him, and his touches aren’t unwelcome.   

Almost subconsciously you feel your grip on your magic go, and some of it leaks free to brush up against Red’s. He notices it instantly by the way his grip on your hip tightens and his own step falters. You hear his sharp intake of breath and then another sound deeper in his through that he tries to mask with a chuckle that sounds almost nervous. 

“Damn, babydoll, why you gotta be so forward? My soul can’t take it without warning,” he laughs, sounding near breathless. 

“Sorry, I was careless,” you confess, feeling hot from embarrassment. Hastily you snap back your magic and Red leans into you more with almost a whine sounding in his throat. “Sorry, I just sorta was absent minded for a second. You okay?” 

Red looked up and his eye lights flickered with a circle of orange red magic before his grin stretched wide enough to distract you. “Did I mention wanting to be on your ’to do’ list because I sure as hell could take a bit more of that.” 

 You snort back another laugh and shake your head. “You’re terrible, you know that?”

“I’ve been called worse by lesser minds so don’t think I can’t take that as a compliment!”

“Just…. get a basket. We’ve got stuff we need to pick up. If we spend all day standing here we’ll never get anything done.”

“You could get me done.”

You laugh loud enough to turn a couple heads but it was worth it to hear Red’s chuckle. 

Without much more distraction you manage to acquire a basket and find a couple of the things on your list in the first few aisles. Red insisted on carrying the basket and arranging the items in it before you could keep anything to carry for yourself. 

“Why does it say candy at the bottom, how is that specific?” he asks with a huff when he rereads your list.

“It’s not, that’s why I’m here. I know what I like.”

“What about the rest of us?”

“Ha, I know that too, or no one mentioned it. Stretch is a sucker for those honey sticks at least. You want anything for yourself that isn’t on the list?” you ask, turning down another aisle, absently keeping an eye out for the others. 

Sometimes you could hear Sans or Papyrus taking to one another two aisles up or over. It was easy to give them their space and let them pass you by, knowing their monster foods were located in different, nearby, sections of the store. It sounded like the brothers were done well with each other. Sans hadn’t short cut out of there so far, which was a good sign at least. 

From what you had read on his bio from the files the Embassy gave you all, that was his favorite way to avoid conflicts or unwanted situations, and you recognized early on how a person could abuse such an ability to get out of emotional confrontations.

“I like cigars and smoking but I know better than to find that here. Stretch…he the other one who smokes, right?” Red asked in a casual tone, though it didn’t sound like a question when he voiced it. 

“Yeah, but he doesn’t do it around us so much because he knows it’s deadly for second hand consumption. Ma tell you the same thing?” 

“Pretty much,” Red hummed, walking along beside you with an easy pace. 

It made you slow to keep even with him until he stopped and you had to turn and look back at him to see what it was. There wasn’t anything around you on your list and it didn’t seem as if he was looking at anything on the shelves. 

“Red?”

He glanced up, brows raised in a silent question.

“You got something you need to ask me?” 

There was a slight quirt to his grin. “I knew I liked ya. I’m not one to beat around the bush if I can help it, but I wanna be fair about it. The other Papyrus…Stretch? Yeah, he don’t like us none, does he?” 

You shifted the weight of your body from one foot to the next, watching him as an answer took shape inside your head. You didn’t want to say the wrong thing and throw Stretch under the bus or lie to Red about anything. 

“He might feel a bit threatened by your closeness to Blue, his brother. He’s a decent guy and he said he’d be kinder cause yeah, I noticed it too.”

“I saw you talking to him after that, thought it was cute you looking out for us,” Red said. “Bro won’t make a big deal about it if he can let it go, he likes to be positive even after all we’ve been through. Still, he knows as well as I what’s what. He’s not dense.”

“I didn’t think he was.”

Red huffed and glanced down at his shoes. “He’s a lot cooler than me sometimes. I couldn’t just let it go so easy but he’s, yeah, he’s the coolest. He’s such a smart kid too, he was like a straight A student with Ma and the others. It only took a couple of weeks and he was like a whole new skeleton! I-I learned so much slower.”

Red’s pride for his brother was overwhelmingly obvious and it made you grin. “You love him a lot, I can tell. Yeah, he’s the coolest.”  

Red huffed, a faint blush on his cheekbones. “Hey, yeah, but what I was getting at, if there is something I need to say...umm, I wanna try and let go of what I can but I can’t promise I’ll be able to if it’s for my brother. You can talk shit about me all day long and, hell, I’ll join in, but my bro ain’t someone I ever wanna hear anything bad about. He doesn't deserve it.” 

“I think I understand what you’re trying to say. I…get it. One of the things you all have so much in common is how much you love your brothers. It doesn’t matter what time or world you came from, you’re as thick as thieves when it comes to your brother, huh?”

“I…guess so.” 

You nod along and take a step backwards before turning on your heel. You stop a few paces down and pull out a package of two dozen honey sticks. You think better of it and grab a second one before waving them at Red who hurries to your side and takes the packages into his basket. 

“I don’t think you have to worry too much about Stretch from now on. He’s coming from a place where he’s a bit more overwhelmed with how out of place he feels in this new world, he didn’t have a Ma or Mini to show him the ropes and form bonds with. The people who picked him up weren’t that warm. He just had his brother and maybe that was enough, but when it looked like that bond was being threatened by two flashy new and cool skeleton bad boys-” 

Red chokes on a laugh and with private delight you catch the way his blush darkens across his skull.

“-but I think he’s a bit more secure right now if Blue’s texts are anything to go by.” 

To prove your point you withdraw your phone and show off a picture of Blueberry, Stretch, and Edge all posing with different milkshakes and the milkshake statue that stood outside the shop. The three of them looked like they were old friends having fun in a playful photo. 

“Damn, they look like they’re having all ‘da fun, don’t they?”

You smile over at Red and his expression of fond amusement. He was an older brother after all, he was allowed his sentiments. “They’re doing okay, I think.”

“Fine, okay, you convinced me. Thanks for looking out for us sweetheart,” he chuckled. “I owe you one. Let me know when you wanna cash in.”

“I’ll keep that in mind for a rainy day,” you casually banter back.

The colors on the candy shelf drag your eyes down until you find a party size package of sour candies and pull it free. There are enough individual bags to keep you set for a while so you toss it to Red before looking for the other thing you need before leaving. 

“What else is left, or is your sweet tooth that bad?” Red asked.

“Less for my sweet tooth and more for…uhh, more for just me.”

Red chuckled behind your shoulder, drawing closer. “How is that supposed to make any sense?” 

“It’s a habit?” You tear your eyes off the shelves to catch him staring and remember something. “Ah, I haven’t explained it to you or your brother. It was something that I picked up as a part of the training I went through. Before monsters surfaced me and a group of kids were raised to be a precautionary defense against the monsters if they should ever break the barrier and make war again.” With an easy roll of your shoulder you go back to searching the shelves. “It’s why I can use magic and why I’m on this team looking for another one of those kids. Anyway, humans don’t use magic the same way monsters do.”

Red’s voice is close as he hovers just past your shoulder. “Yeah? Funny fact, tell me more.”

“You’re okay hearing about how I was raised to fight monsters?”

“You’re not fighting me now, are you? I mean, I’m not one to normally turn down a friendly spar if that’s what gets your engine revving. I’m sure my bro would bend over backwards for a chance at ya too.”

“I don’t want to fight you, dork.”

Red laughed close enough that his breath was back on your neck. “I know, I felt your soul and saw it too. You’re not a bad apple, not by a long shot. What else were you saying?”

“Well the candy helps me focus. When I feel magic from another monster there is a sorta danger sense that’s triggered. Basically I taste something sour in the back of my mouth and it helps me to hyper focus on any perceived threat.”

Behind you Red goes still.

“And sometimes it’s just fun casual magic I’m feeling so I like having some sort of candy or gum on me that I can suck on until my body realizes that yeah, it’s okay, I’m safe this time,” you say.

With a delighted gasp you spot a plastic tote on the bottom shelf double stacked with different flavored rock candy sticks. It’s perfect and huge and will last you a good long while. It even came with a handle! 

“So what’s these ‘em tarts here for?” Red asked, voice slow as he poked the bag of Sour Patch Kids.

“That’s if I need the focus. I sometimes….” 

You pulled up the tote to hold and then realized how heavy Red’s gaze on you was. It was enough to make you falter. You trail off into a nervous laugh and glance away. It had been going so well you hadn’t thought how awkward it would be to admit to something so personal. 

You remembered the day on the roof of the bus, talking with Sans after your fight. You remember almost falling into those darker memories and scrambling for the candies before it became too much. You were sure Sans thought it weird but thankfully had hadn’t pressed you on the issue. Maybe he didn’t know they were panic attacks.

And it wasn’t like you were ashamed of them or yourself! It was pretty normal considering all the crap you went through to make yourself ready for defending humanity. There was some messed up stuff you hadn’t deserved, and other things they exposed you to. So, years later you still weren’t over it and likely never would be.  

You weren’t ashamed of your panic attacks, but it was nice when people didn’t know, when they still thought you were…

“I get them too.”

You met Red’s steady gaze with one of your own. You expression is a lot more open than you wanted it to be, but he doesn’t call you out on it or maybe you feel small for it. 

Red shrugged and broke off the gaze, some color still on his cheeks. “It’s only at night though, when I hear certain things or don’t hear other things. It’s tricky, ain't it? Touching something familiar helps, the…tactile aids help ground me and it’s been good so far.”

“It’s good you have something that helps,” you finally say after enough awkward silence passes between you. In the aisle there is no one else to hear you or see you, but several over you can make out the voices and conversations of others going about their day and minding their own business. 

Red closes the distance between you and stops in front of you, toe to toe. You have to tilt your head back to look up at him, as he’s a wider, taller Sans from a harsher world who actually prefers wearing real footwear as opposed to some ratty, god-awful house slippers. 

You’re close enough that you can smell what makes him unique. He’s a Sans but he’s still himself, an individual with his own past, thoughts, traumas, and ideas. The thick of his jacket smells like old tobacco and woodsmoke, with something sharper you can’t yet identify but still appreciate. 

He leans down and you don’t flinch or pull away, letting him do as he pleases. You can see his grin curve and the gold of his tooth catch the light as he moves. Then you feel his hand on your wrist, phalanges sliding over the soft of our hand down to your fingers, stopping when they feel the plastic handle you’re still carrying. 

“That looks heavy.” He tugs it out of your grip but doesn’t back up. “Lemme get it for you.” 

You don’t say anything in response and don’t pull away, even when he hovers his face right over your ear, breathing warmth over the skin. It’s another terribly long second before he speaks, and it’s raspy and low compared to everything else that’s come out of his mouth. 

“You ever, and I mean ever, feel unsafe around me or the others, don’t hesitate or apologize. I don’t want that between us. You’re always going to be safe with me, yeah? You do whatever  you gotta ta feel that way.” 

You don’t know why you feel dizzy when you lift your head. “Oh?” You take a breath. “Don’t you think I’m dangerous?” 

“Hella, babe,” he laughs. “But that don’t mean I can’t feel this way or recognize what’s right in front of my eyes. We’re peas in a pod, aren’t we?” 

“Sorry if I gave you that impression, but I’m not scared of you or your brother.”

“Oh?” 

You feel his other hand on your wrist and you don’t know why you don’t pull away. You like it, the feeling of his bones tracing lines up and down across your skin. You remember feeling like a house cat and wonder if something is wrong with you.

“I trust you and your brother. I…feel safe around you both. If I didn’t you would have been able to tell in my magic.” 

And to prove your point you push some of your magic against Red and he stiffens at the contact but then he laughs, backing up and running a hand over his face, scratching at his colored cheekbones. 

“Sh-shit sweetheart, don’t tempt a guy. I hear ya, I hear ya.” He held up the rock candy tub between you like it was some sort of shield. You noticed the color is still bright across his skull in spite of his laughter and smile. “Imma give it to you now because I’m not composed enough to fall apart in the candy aisle of a FoodClub.”

You want to ask him what makes him think he’s going to fall apart but bite your lip instead. You decide to let him be for the moment and mention finding Sans and Papyrus somewhere else in the store so you could pay for all the stuff (on the company card) and get the gang together in time for a dinner out. It was too late to cook anything and you’d have enough food to take care of yourselves tomorrow night. 

Before you’re out of the aisle you grab a few more bags of candy for the rest of the boys and ignore the way Red laughs at your back, carrying the basket no matter how heavy it gets. 




Notes:

Red was a fun one to write, I really enjoyed this chapter and specifically all the moments when they got closer (physically and emotionally). I love writing all of them, but dang was this chapter fun and all they did was shop.
Next week Sans gets more attention but for now he's happy closing some of the gaps between him and his brother.

I'm sick in bed for the rest of the day, so don't mind me as I take a nice long nap after this and try not to fall apart. (Low key wishes for a skelly to take care of me rn.)

Chapter 14: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 3

Summary:

Another encounter with Sans~

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sans scrolled through a new file left in his drive, skimming through most of the reading before closing it out in favor of returning to his favorite files. 

Back when Asgore had asked him to work with the human branch of the Embassy he had been apprehensive, but it had turned out to bare more fruit than he could have predicted. The documents and files he had been given (and the ones he had taken) were a wealth of new information. Data on souls, magic, the original barrier, their own kid soldiers…. like you. 

In his drive the most read and studied file had been yours. Even before picking up on the project to hunt down his copies-er, the versions of him and his brother from other worlds, you had stood out. There weren’t a lot of soldiers that the Embassy let walk free like that and he had puzzled nights and days over the why of it all. 

Why you? Why had they let you go? Why not someone else who wanted out?

Like a bad habit Sans opens up your file once more and lets the text fill the page. 

Subject: SevenA

The name was an odd fit and he liked the name you chose for yourself much better. The numbers and letters didn’t mean as much to him even if they were supposed to help people of ‘importance’ distinguish one child apart from another. He had asked about the naming convention once and hadn’t gotten an answer that appeased him. All the kids had a number and then a letter and no two kids had the same letter if they had the same number. It was confusing. Just give the kids names. 

There were stats on your magic and your HP and your Defense and then a note that * subject’s current status may not be accurate past date XX/XX/XXXX

It was an old date and he wondered if they hadn’t checked after your ‘physical’ the morning you all left over a week ago. Still, your magic stores were impressive even if your HP and Defense were average at best. Some of the other kids had you outclassed by a lot. 

But damn if the roster wasn’t a skeleton crew anymore. It was chilling to read some of the updates and hear the clinical language used to describe how some of ‘operatives’ had offed themselves after the barrier came down and they just couldn’t deal. 

What the hell was Sans supposed to do with his sympathy for the boogeyman who had been literally bred to hunt and kill him and his kind? They were just kids, some younger than Frisk. 

You had been younger than Frisk when they picked you up. He could read about that, about the orphanage they plucked you out of after tests and physicals to determine the probability of your success in their project. 

“and they call us monsters.” 

At least he and Papyrus had a dad up until his accident with the machine. It hadn’t been that long, but at least it had been something. Someone had tucked him into bed at night and he had been that for Papyrus once they were left behind. Had anyone tucked you into bed? Ever?

Sans felt the temptation to close out of the document and fold up the tablet completely but as usual, he let it be. Maybe there was something close to guilt crawling down his spine, cause yeah it did feel shifty to be reading up on you while you were asleep in your bunk just a few feet below him, but talking with you had been hard. This was as close as he was going to get to a decent conversation for a while more. 

He knew it was his fault. He wasn’t stupid. He had screwed up royally during that first meeting. He just….didn’t believe in coincidences and that was a hell of a coincidence so of course he was suspicious!  

Did someone know about his stupid crush? Did Hightower expect it? Was it all fabricated to lure him in like a pitcher plant with flies? Did you know? Were you really as kind as he hoped or were you like the others? Would you burn him too? 

Reason for Dismissal: Insubordination, excessive defiance, failure to perform to standard, deviation of thought….

Oh yeah, that sounds like you. 

He remembered the exchange you had with Hightower, the big bad at the Embassy who had found him right after your fight. He had taken a shortcut right out of there to hide behind a corner and listen, daring to believe that maybe your cover would slip and the suspicion he had wallowed in would be worth it. It hadn’t. You had bit back with anger in your voice and Hightower had…relented.

“Then so be it. Do as you wish.” 

It sure as hell sounded like you were a model of insubordination. You were probably more trouble to control than you were worth since the grand threat of monster war was out the window. They didn’t need you for that anymore and the jobs they had set up for the other kids didn’t jive with your personality. He couldn’t see you behind a desk or in a meeting or on a landline phone setting up appointments. 

And hell, for being ‘rusty’ you were pretty damn swift in a fight. Fast as a whip and just as hard to hit. He…hadn’t be so challenged since one of Frisk’s genocide runs. Those had been scary. At least you hadn’t tried to take a swipe at him. He knew you wouldn’t. You had a fire engine red soul of determination that could mean anything but when he checked you…  

Is determined to be a good person and do the right thing

What the heeeeeeeeeell? Who had such a stupidly cheesy pure soul like that anymore? You were supposed to be some sort of bad ass with an undercut, hard heels, and a glare sharp enough to shave ice but you were just a huge... marshmallow, weren’t you? 

Sans closed out of the document, not needing it anymore as he groaned and dropped the tablet onto his chest. He dropped an arm over his eye sockets and let his legs stretch out. 

It only got harder to try and make it up to you as the days rolled on, one into the next. You were close with the rest of the bus, even the two new ones. 

Actually, Red and Edge were especially chummy with you in a way that made Sans suspicious (rarely a good thing). The pair were too well coordinated and talked too openly with one another. Was that because of the world they came from? It had been a harsher reality so of course there were sure to be some differences. 

Either way, you were close with all of them and did a lot to mediate peace on the bus. Even with him and Paps. He hadn’t said anything about it and he doubted Papyrus had either, but you had picked up on the distance that existed between him and his brother, a distance that didn’t exist between the other pairs. 

But that was to be expected after being topside for so long. Papyrus was so popular with so many fans, humans and monsters alike. Sans did what he could to keep up, but… ah well, there was a reason Asgore made him the Judge in the first place. Who would expect a short stack with criminally low HP and Defense to be anything to watch out for? He was the element of surprise and magic and little else.  

Topside where the dangers were all political and complicated there really hadn’t been a place for him. He was a puzzle piece that didn’t fit anymore. 

The sound of the front door opening drew his attention and Sans rolled over enough to peer over the edge of the roof. Speaking of Papyrus, he was out and about, warming up for his morning run. You stepped out behind him, rolling your neck and waving your arms. 

It must be almost dawn. Damn, did that mean he had stayed up all night again? He was going to have to get better about sleeping at reasonable hours. Napping all day wasn’t going to cut it for much longer.

Eh.

He must have been too distracted to notice Papyrus’ attention but when he looked down again his brother was grinning and waving like crazy, silently expressing his joy in ways the other bus residents couldn’t hear. They were always so careful, after all, not to wake up anyone with their morning routine. 

You were looking up at him too, waving a small hand. 

Sans hesitantly waved a bony hand back, hoping Papyrus wouldn’t wave him dow-oh nope, there it was, Papyrus was falling for a reason. 

It was easy enough to roll over and take a short cut down to land between them. 

“Sup?” he asked, sucking the magic out of his words. You had never flinched before, but he thought he had been enough of a shit to you without the added headache, it was the least he could do.

“Will you join us on our run brother?” Papyrus eagerly whispered. 

“Nah, not my thing.” Sans looked between you and his brother and shrugged. “Have fun.” 

“You are such a lazybo-such a, aah, a lump . What about staying healthy? All you do is nap.” 

You were watching him, waiting for an answer. 

“Ah, you know me, Paps, too lazy to even exercise good judgement.”

It wasn’t a clever pun but it got you to snort and that was enough to get him to smile. Sans felt light and just adventurous enough to push his luck. While Papyrus scowled with the usual little brother frustrations Sans tugged at the collar of his hoodie. “Yeah, you sweater believe it but I just don’t have the guts for so much working out.” 

“Sans!”

“I’m so lazy, I'm bone idle!”  

“Enough with the puns. That is-” Papyrus is too frustrated to finish his sentence in time and Sans is quick enough to squeeze one more in before it’s too much for his younger brother. 

“These aren't all of them. I've got a skeleTON more!”

You’re laughing but you lean on Papyrus with a mock expression of outrage. “Sans,” you nearly snort, “you-your jokes aren't even that humerus .” 

“I’ve been betrayed!” Papyrus exclaims, forgetting to be subtle even as you cling to him and refuse to be thrown off by his raised arms. “Backstabbed, double crossed, swindled, misled! How dare you, my dearest friend!”

“Paps, I’m sorry,” you whine, reaching for his jogging jacket to bury your face in. Sans can see the pink flush across your skin even if it isn’t something anyone else could catch. “I’m sorry, it was just there, I could-I couldn’t he-help it.”

You can’t even get a sentence out without punctuating it with giggles. 

cute

“If you are so inclined to join the lessers in their pitiful banter then so be it, you two can train together for all I care,” Papyrus huffs, sticking his nasal ridge up in the air. 

“what?” Sans forgot to suck out his magic in his surprise.

Papyrus lifts you up by your shoulders and pulls you off, holding you up so that your feet dangle and swing when you kick out. It’s enough to make Papyrus grin before he swings you around and deposits you in front of Sans.

“What, you mean like a spar?” you scoff, eyeing San oddly. By the way you look at him Sans knows exactly what you’re thinking of. The last time you two were in an encounter together it hadn’t been friendly.

“That’s not a good idea Paps,” Sans chokes out. 

“Why not?”

It wasn’t Papyrus who asked it, but you. 

Sans doesn’t have the words to reply quickly enough and Papyrus isn’t one to wait around. Sans hears his brother say something and feels the pat on his shoulder but doesn’t react until Papyrus is gone, sprinting off with magic in his steps. 

His voice sounds broken but Sans says your name and you wave a hand at the nearby field before turning in that direction.

“Wait, what are you doing? Where are you going?”

“I don’t want to wake anyone else up and based on past experiences we can get noisy.”

“You’re not seriously-yo, you don’t really want to do this, do you?” 

There’s a fence half rotten and older than the road you’re climbing over. It separates the dirt and weed choked gravel from a field full and rolling with healthy grass that’s just wild enough to reach mid calf. If you falll it would hurt a lot less than the rocks and gravel…or the hard floor of a media room. 

“Come on bone boy, our last dance left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. I’d like to have the opportunity to try this again…on better terms.” You’re straddling the fence with one leg on either side when you look back and offer a hand. “You okay with that?” 

“You’re okay with me ?”

You roll your eyes and retract your hand. In one fluid motion you vault the rest of your body over the fence and then turn back to face him with a hand on your hip and a quirk to your lips. 

“Don’t flatter yourself. I’ll be lucky if I can get a sweat out of this. This is a friendly spar, not me dodging for my life, kay?” When Sans didn’t reply right away you huff and shift the weight of your body from one side to the other. “Seriously? You gonna stay stuck there and make it too easy on me?” 

It’s more than he hopes for, but Sans is done self destructing the moment suspicion comes creeping. He takes a shortcut over to the break in the fence, a handful of paces down, and makes a show of stepping over the break when you made such a show out of vaulting over. It’s enough to get you to roll your eyes and he really can’t ask or hope for more. 

You can’t trigger an encounter but he’s more than willing to take that step, if only to give you the first move. He’s not surprised when you waste it. You were a cautious fighter. You reacted more than you acted. 

He summons a dozen different bone attacks at once. “What was that you said about breaking a sweat?”   

You snicker and brace before springing into the attack, finding openings for your body and your soul like an eel in the water. 

Unlike the fight with Frisk, your soul doesn’t fully detach itself from your body. It’s too saturated with magic for a full removal, but it’s emerged enough for you to be able to manipulate it through Sans’ attacks with deft ease. Your body isn’t anything to underestimate either. 

Sans is used to encounters where it’s only a small heart shaped object he’s trying to hit. He can nick your body and you barely take any damage because that’s not your soul, but you guard your arms and legs and head and hands as well as your soul and it’s impressive.  

Man, if this was how you moved after a week and a half of basic endurance training he was glad he never had to go up against you in a monster-human war while you were at your peak. He’d be mince meat. 

You’re inventive, using the fence to vault off of when it looks like you won’t be able to jump high enough to avoid a sudden blaster attack. You don’t sacrifice too much sweat when you roll low into the grass only to pop back up a few feet away. 

On your turn after a few rounds of easy dodging you call up your magic and Sans is tense for the feel of it. You pull it into your hands and he sees the way your fingernails turn black, almost as if burned that color, before your turn is over. 

The next turn when he throws his bones at you instead of dodging you grab one out of the air and it explodes, throwing the rest back. Thankfully the encounter has muffled the sound enough that you both know it won’t wake any of the others. Your palms are red and glowing with roaring magic. The tips of your fingers are turning like charcoal the longer you hold onto your magic. 

Oh, Sans had read about this. It was exciting to think he’d be able to see it in real life. Reading could only do so much to excite the imagination. With magic pooling in the palms of your hands and leaking out into the air he could feel the heat of it. If your magic had an elemental preference it might be fire.

He doesn’t know what he says as a taunt but it’s something that makes you grin. He uses both bones and blasters in one move and none of them reach you thanks to a shield of magic. Oh! You had cast that several turns back but now it was only just materializing. 

On your turn you use the shield like a blunt object and throw it at Sans, but he can blink in and out of its way. Sans knows in addition to his impressive magical capabilities he can be near impossible to hit. 

“I think I see that sweat,” he calls out to you. 

“It’s hot over here, or are you blind with only one eye?” 

He laughs back, summoning four different blasters to hit from all different angles. “I can see just fine how hot under the collar you’re getting.” 

Sans also noticed how when you used magic only one of your eyes lit up with a silver red halo of reflective magic. It wasn’t so different from his own magical habits.

Still, between the two of them, you were a hella lot more intimidating. Papyrus might disagree but-

WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING ?!”

The bone attacks Sans had summoned fell apart as he reacted on reflex to the killing intent. It was just enough time for him to see the barrage of bones and short cut out of their range. Shimmering blue magic dug up chunks of earth on their way towards him and it wasn’t even an official turn so there was no rest for Sans as he blinked in and out sweating from the effort.

A red wall of magic stopped the next attack and Sans actually staggered, seeing as how they all impacted loudly against your barrier. 

The attacks fell apart and Sans heard Blueberry cry out your name, sounding worried and scared.  

The barrier fell down and you stood up from the grass where you had been crouching, both burning hands extended. You blinked and the magic left your eyes and then your hands. The encounter was over, having been interrupted by Blue.

“Hey,” you weakly called, holding your arms open for the smaller Sans to run into. Blue stumbled at the last second and fell into your hold, making you stagger back. His hands lit with magic as he checked you, now in contact. 

“He hurt you,” Blue breathed into your shoulder. 

It seemed he had noticed the few nicked HP points Sans had managed to shave off before you started fighting back. Actually, you hadn’t ever fought back, just used your magic to block and defend. The closest you came was throwing your barriers at him and that was like…. nothing. 

You looked up over his head at Sans and then down at Blue. “It’s fine, we weren’t fighting for real. It was just a friendly spar. I’m not really hurt, look.” You pulled him back and smiled wide. 

Blueberry must have believed you because he didn’t say anything else, but he did glare back over his shoulder at Sans with more venom and pure anger than Sans had ever seen. 

It reminded him of the spat they had that one day they were supposed to be looking for Edge. Somehow Blue had found out about the first day fight and had wanted to talk to Sans about it. Sans had avoided as much as possible before it turned into a semi friendly encounter with Blue trying to check him for more info. 

Blue had heard about the fight but Sans wasn’t sure if he knew about the bruises. He hoped not. Humans could get hurt from attacks that still missed their souls completely, and be in pain in spite of their HP being at full.

“It’s fine, Blue.” Stretch was outside, climbing over the broken part in the fence to get to his brother.  “She’s fine, you can see for yourself. There wasn’t any malicious intent, right?” 

Blue made a sad sound into your chest and then stepped back further. “I… I think I overreacted. Sorry.” 

You tugged the ends of your sweatshirt down over your hands and used the fabric to brush your palm across his skull and then dab at the moisture around his sockets. Sans felt another roll of guilt when he recognized the honest panic Blue  had to come down from. 

“You don’t have to apologize to me, I’m fine, and Sans is fine too.” Sans can see the way a huge smile takes over your face as you try to cheer up Blueberry. “Hey, don’t worry about me so much, I’m a badass who can handle herself in a fight or two. Look, you’re safe here with me. Stretch too…”

His brother came up behind Blue and rubbed at his small back. The shivering had tapered off and Blue took a couple deep breaths before looking up at your face again. 

“If you say so. Still, sorry for interrupting your... fight.” 

“Yeah, and I was just about to win too.”

Stretch snickered and you glared up over Blueberry’s head at him. He waved off the angry look and pat at his pockets, looking for something to put in his mouth. 

“I didn’t say anything,” he hummed.

“What, you laugh at anything now?” you snapped back.

“Nah, just jokes.”

“I assure you, my victory was no joke.”

“If you say so.”

You gasped dramatically before reaching for Blue, turning him around to face his brother. “Did you hear him? The nerve.”

“The absolute appalling nerve,” Blue agreed, his smile wobbling back into place as a faint blush covered the front of his skull. 

Your arms were draped over his shoulders and crossed in front of his chest while your head awkwardly rested behind his neck. You weren’t taller than him without the heels (and how you managed to move so well in them during his fight Sans will never know).

Stretched rolled his dark eye lights. “Yeah, yeah, you can be offended over breakfast. Blue, weren’t we planning on something this morning?” 

“Omelets! They’re like tacos but with eggs.” He turns around, keeping your arms around him and you’re close enough to kiss as he reaches up to support your shoulders. “With cheese and peppers, you’ll love them!”

“I’m sure I will.” You squeeze Blue in a friendly hug and then pull away but Sans doesn’t miss the way his counterpart follows your withdrawal, seeking our your touch for the last bit of contact. “But I’m gross and need to take a shower. You mind keeping something warm for me?” 

Sans looks up and notices Papyrus back from his run, standing next to the bus talking with Edge who was outside and leaning against its side. Neither looked too bothered about what had just gone down. 

The only one missing was Red, but he was just lazy enough to be the only one to sleep through the whole ordeal. That was fine. Sans wasn’t terribly fond of the cop-iteration of himself. Edge was enough of a stickler for manners that he wouldn’t make a fuss over it but Red was just bold and obnoxious. No filter on that guy.

“I think it’s a good enough idea for all of us to turn in,” Stretch agrees. 

You look back at Sans and nod to the bus. “You coming?” 

It’s enough for today. His soul feels heavy and light and in pain all at once. He’s...willing to be content with that for now. 

Notes:

Okay, so who of ya'll said it was Blue glaring at Red a few chapters back? Not to confirm or deny anything but he has a habit of showing up and stealing the show, lol.

Sans and the reader got a little closer this chapter and had some moments, plus we got some insight into where he's coming from and how detrimental it can be to not have that open channel of communication going with your family and friends. Paranoia doesn't shut up, but your friends can be louder.

Thank you for the 'get well soon' wishes! I'm feeling much better but I have no voice left. I sound terrible when I try to squeak out a few words, but I'm that person who's like 'I need to run my mouth or I'll die' at the end of the day; rip to people with common sense but I'm different.

Chapter 15: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You had all been on the road long enough. The hamper was full, you were out of clean things to wear, and the compact living situation was starting to eat away at some of your sanity. It made sense to stop and find a hotel to crash at, something with real beds and enough room to move. 

Finding a hotel was easy, booking the rooms was a little trickier considering who would be sleeping with who. It didn’t seem fair to have a room all to yourself but you had an endless credit line and six adamant skeletons who insisted you deserved your own space. Even if they had to make do with modest rooms.

Over the phone you confirmed your reservation and the AI pulled your bus into the parking lot before evening could bloom out of late afternoon. And it was a nice enough hotel, but after so many days on the road, it might as well have been heaven on earth. 

“I’m going to die of joy, is that possible?” Red asked. 

“You seem healthy enough,” you snicker in response. 

“Are you sure you’re okay then?”

You raise a single brow in question. “What are you getting at?”

Red’s grin went wide across his face. “I don’t know, but have you been to the doctor's lately? Cause I think you're lacking some vitamin me .”

 Edge does you the honor of smacking his brother upside the head without looking. It’s more of an involuntary reflex by now, and one that always makes you chuckle.

“Lets see where our rooms are and then we can unload a bit. For all I know the rooms are all over the hotel,” you say. 

Papyrus was ahead of you at the doors, holding them open until everyone was inside. 

At the counter a middle aged woman with a clinically neutral expression ran your card and turned over four sets of key-cards. And it’s only when you see them out in front of you do you breathe a sigh of relief. You had been worried about not getting enough rooms or having to share with someone. That would have caused way too much drama and you had too much on your plate to deal with anything else. 

“We’re all on the same floor, and these two rooms are right next to each other,” Stretch commented, pointing to two different sets of cards. 

“They’re all in the same wing,” you correct before grabbing up all the cards and gesturing for the boys to follow you to the nearby table area where you can distribute the key cards appropriately. 

You keep out the only single card as it’s for a single bed room and the one intended for you, but take note on where everyone else is staying. You’re between Stretch and Blue’s room and Sans and Papyrus’ room. Across the hall is where Edge and Red are sleeping. So far it’s good enough to keep everyone happy. 

Your room is a tad smaller than the other two, as the others are all on ends, (and yeah the set up is weird enough to almost care about) but at least you have a balcony and a private bathroom for the first time in over two weeks. 

The fact that there’s a bag for laundry service is almost too sweet to stomach. The fact that it’s an extra charge doesn’t even phase you. (Every time you run the card you’re vindictively delighted to know you’re draining Embassy resources.) 

You were in the middle of stuffing all your dirty things into the bag when there’s a knock at your door. 

“Hang on!”

You scramble to get the rest into the bag and then pull open the door, standing to the side so Blue and Stretch can come in if they want. You can hear more voices belonging to the other boys further down the hall. That’s when you notice the...swim trunks?

“Oh, hey guys. What are you up to?” 

When did they even get swim trunks?

“Look! They have a gift shop downstairs and Papyrus got these for all of us!” Blue rushes to explain, somehow reading your confused expression well enough to know. “We’re going to try swimming!”

“You can do that?” you ask before you can stop to consider how…impolite that might come across. 

Stretch chuckles first. “Nah, we can’t float on our own, but we make do with blue magic and some of us just like standing around in the water. This place is pretty empty too so…” he ended with a shrug. 

No one would get too upset at a number of skeleton monsters in floaties helping themselves to the pool. 

“Do you have a swimsuit?” Blue interrupts. “We could get you on and we could all go swimming. You don’t even need blue magic in order to float, right? I wanna see it, I’ve not seen a real human float yet.” 

It’s such an odd thing to say you can’t help but snort a bit into your shoulder. “That all?” You glance back at the bag of dirty laundry you still need to drop off. “Well I don’t know about swimming just yet. I have these clothes I need to drop off first. Ah, speaking of that, any of you boys need your clothing washed?” 

Stretch’s grin makes you feel bad for asking. “We can figure out how to do that ourselves. You don’t have to baby-bones us.”  

“I was being polite .” 

Blue  snickered and you felt betrayed by the look he shares with his brother. 

“Fine, see if I ever offer to be helpful again. Remind the others when you see them. It’s better if we get it done overnight so it’s ready for us in the morning.”

“So you’ll come after you’re done?” Blue asked, eye lights sparkling until their shape nearly morphed into stars. You felt weak to his excitement and heard yourself speaking before your brain could comprehend what was coming out of your mouth.

“I’ll meet you down in the pool room when I’m ready, don’t rush me.” 

You close the door on Blue’s cheer and before the door shuts you can hear someone further down the hall ask about you. It could have been Red or a groggy Sans, but your money was on Red since Sans asking after you still didn’t make a lot of sense. 

You two weren’t antagonistic with each other, and the cold war vibes were practically gone since your spar, but you were easily closer with the rest of the boys. Plus, Red was always pestering about you. 

You stuff most of your things into the bag, and fill out the laundry tag before attaching it and dropping the whole unit down the laundry chute at the end of the hall. 

Back in your room you start to get ready with what you have. Blue had wanted to see you float but you didn’t have a swim suit and… buying one seemed like too much of a hassle. Plus….

You caught sight of yourself in the mirror and tugged at your shirt, pulling it up over your head enough to see what you looked like underneath. 

You can stomach a handful of seconds before turning away and scrambling for your pajamas. 

Your hands fumble but you change into the long black nightshirt with sleeves long enough to end at your elbows. The bruises were all but faded so you didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing those.  

You take a minute longer to calm down and spend it breathing purposefully on the edge of your bed. Eventually you glance at yourself in the mirror, see your coverings, and breathe deeper. Arms and a bit of leg…you were… fine. 

You were being stupid. It had been years and you were still so squeamish.

No.

Just…. 

You’re not sure how much longer you sit on the edge of the bed, watching seconds and minutes tick by. Nothing stops for you. Maddeningly, the world moves on without you. You’re the only one making a big deal out of this. Blue was waiting for you. He wouldn’t care. The others would wonder where you were. Someone would want to know why you were taking so long. 

You smack your cheeks and stand up. You find a handful of sour candies and chew through a whole package before you feel put together again. 

You were fine. You were going to be fine. 

 The bathroom had a robe you decided to borrow, carrying it over your own arm and slipping your room card into its pocket. 

A voice at the end of the hallway catches your attention. 

You follow it to the bend where the elevators and the opposite wing start, only to find Edge on his phone, holding it up for a video call. You recognize the face waving goodby before the red  phone icon signals the end to the call. 

Hearing your footsteps Edge turns and you think he grins, but it’s hard to tell if he hadn’t already been grinning for the end of his video call ‘home.’

“How are Mini and Ma doing?” you ask casually.

“They’re doing well and happy to hear we’re on solid ground again. They were afraid we’d tear apart the bus if we were left on it much longer. A baseless concerns, I assure you!” 

You snicker at his bluster and  reach over to push the elevator call button. “I’m sure you two wouldn’t be the first to crack. It was tiring for all of us and this stop was well deserved.” 

“If there had been someone to ‘crack’ under the pressure of confinement I would have stepped in. I’m not sure where their concerns stem from, honestly. I have far too many manners for that.”

You glanced briefly back and noticed his lack of swimming attire. “You weren’t planning on joining the others in the pool?” 

“No, I thought calling would be a better use of my time. In addition to that, I didn’t want to buy a suit for swimming. If someone wants to see all my bones they can ask instead of gawking at them out in public!” Edge finished with his nasal ridge turned up and the sight he made was enough to get you to laugh. 

He almost scowled at the sound but the color on his cheekbones let you know it wasn’t in any real anger. 

“I fail to see the humor in my remarks, human.”

“No, I was-it just made sense. I thought so too but I didn’t think a skeleton would have those kind of thoughts,” you answered through your chuckles. 

Edge’s halfhearted scowl abated. “Ah, I...see then,” he commented as the elevator pinged before opening. He followed you in and punched the button for the floor requested and the ‘close door’ option.  He makes a ‘humph’ sound before speaking again. “I should have suspected you to be the only other one with a modicum of decency out of our lot. You are always very… coordinated in your manner of presentation.”  

“Thanks. I mean, Blue and Papyrus are pretty coordinated too I think, they’re just more outgoing with their style.” You cast a glance his way and then grin. “But I would have said the same thing about you too if someone mentioned it.” 

“Me?”

“You’ve got a signature look,” you laughed, wagging your fingers in his direction. “Edgy bad boy.”  

The blush was darker on his face and you can tell Edge is a bit thrown by the way he crosses his arms and holds himself straight. “That is nearly the same thing Mini said of me when we first met, but she thought it was aesthetically pleasing with a private context that she only recently shared with me.”

“Oh?” your interest is sky high and you make a mental note to call Mini about it later. 

The lights inside the elevator slow as you approach the ground floor, but Edge pulls out his phone and opens up his photo apps. By the time the doors open and you stepped off he has what he was looking for pulled up and he turns his phone to show it to you. 

It takes everything in you not to double over laughing. 

Mini had sent him a photo of the cover from one of her period harlequin romance novels. The cover had a ‘bad boy’ type hero with a scar over one eye, slicked back pompadour styled hair, a leather jacket and dark jeans. There were some tasteful blood stains on his shirt as he held a busty damsel under one arm protectively. 

Love in Blood and Leather was the title of the paperback smut, featuring bad boy heartthrob Edge Lawson and Betsy Sweetheart.

“Oh…my….” You couldn’t manage to say anything else for fear or risking a loud laughing fit in the lobby. 

Edge scowled but there was no real anger behind the expression. “Don’t laugh too loudly. You’ll disturb the other patrons,” he lightly chastised. 

Edge’s name came from an old paperback smut novel. This was cursed knowledge and you didn’t know what to do with it but you were dying to at least laugh. Your chest hurt from keeping it all in and he must have seen since he rolled his eye lights and tugged you down a nearby hallway. Ducking into an alcove he pulled you close and muttered. “You can laugh now if you want to,” he said before pulling you even closer.

You buried your face in his jacket and cackled . Your shoulders shook with the effort and you felt tears in your eyes. You needed to find that novel online and, ohmystars you couldn’t think about it without picturing your Edge on the cover. It fit so well! Oh this was going to haunt your thoughts for days to come if not for as long as you knew Edge. It was too much and exactly what you needed to forget about your episode in front of the mirror. 

Edge ,” you whined into his shirt, careful not to dirty it too much.  

“I-I’m not changing my name even if you think it’s weird. I like it so get your chuckles out now!”  

“Never change it, not ever. I don’t think it’s weird at all,” you giggled, pulling back enough so that he could see the wide smile he had given you. “It’s perfect. You’re perfect just the way you are. Don’t ever change.”

“I hadn’t planned to!” he proclaimed.

Before you could say more, or maybe before you could notice how colored his skull was, Edge pulled you back and wiped at your face with the end of his shirt, smearing your tears and roughing up your cheeks with the explanation that you ‘looked a mess’ at his expense. You let him fret over you a moment longer before pulling out of his arms and grinning easily back up at him.

“Thanks for that. I think I needed a good laugh.”

“Good laughs are rarely unpleasant, but why would you say you needed one?” Edge asked, poking the skin under your eyes as if he was looking for more tears or a sign of tears to come. 

“I ah, I actually hadn’t felt like swimming and I was sorta, ugh just, I didn’t want to go?” you explained, shrugging at the end. “Not a big deal, just wasn’t feeling it.”

“If you didn’t want to go swimming what are you doing down here?” he asked, voice pitching higher as he fit his hands over his hip bones and leaned into your personal space. 

You shrugged. “Everyone else seemed so excited for it and Blue asked.”

“That’s not a good enough reason. If you didn’t want to go swimming you don’t have to and you shouldn’t feel obligated to. You spend enough time stuffed in that metal tube with Blue, he can survive one evening without your company.” 

“I don’t mind hanging out with everyone….”

“You don’t like swimming though, do you? Is it because of the…” Edge held up his hands and waved them in a poor imitation of flames. He had been watching your spar with Sans since almost the beginning, you found out later on, and he had seen you use fire based magic.

“No, it’s not that. I’m... fine in the water, I’m not Grillby or anything, not great though. I just don’t…I’m not terribly fond of feeling so exposed if that makes sense. You know what you said earlier?” When he nodded you go on. “I’m also not super excited to get gawked at, even if its by friends, sorry.” 

“That’s the last thing you should be apologizing for,” Edge responds, sounding almost angry, though not at you. “If you wanted time to yourself we would understand. Blue might get huffy about it but he wouldn’t hold it against you.” 

“I’m not tired though, and I really did want to hang out with everyone. I just didn’t want to…” You tugged at your nightshirt, long and dark, hoping Edge would understand without you having to put it into words. 

“Honestly, I’m not sure what you’re so apologetic about. No one is entitled to your time or your body, not even your friends.” Edge made a face before tilting your chin up, enough that you see his eye lights as he finishes his thoughts. “I don’t intend for my words to make you embarrassed, but I don’t want to see you doing anything you’re not okay with for the sake of others, even if it’s something small and seemingly insignificant. Please understand what I’m trying to say. Nothing is more important to us than your comfort and consent.” 

Damn

You really didn’t want to start crying on Edge again, especially not so soon after laughing tears of mirth into his t shirt. But he was too sweet, too good, and way too considerate for his own good. How did he expect a person to react? 

Had you ever heard anyone say that to you outside of therapy? Your comfort and consent? When had those ever been a priority growing up? 

Even when you had been uncomfortable enough to ask to be left out of events and activities at the Embassy, the shame and guilt you felt later one when you had been forced to watch the others, ( the younger, the smaller, the weaker), do what you had been too scared to accomplish...that always drove you back. Your consent wasn’t a real thing for so many years. Like a fairytale or a myth, it was something you hadn’t believed in until you were outside.

“It’s just swimming. I’ll be fine,” you try to say.

Edge leans into your space, scowl deepening. “It’s not just anything. Don’t belittle your own feelings. If you want I can explain to them that you’re too tired and turned in for the evening. They will understand.”

“But-”

“But Blue can shove it,” Edge interrupted, still leaning. “His happiness is not more important than you. Don’t sell yourself short. And if you need to, I can talk to him about it for you.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. I-honest, I really do want to spend time with everyone, but if I’m being completely honest I’d rather just sit in a lawn chair and stay like this.”

“That’s acceptable,” Edge said, looking convinced but still weary, like he didn’t trust you to take care of yourself if the situation changed. “But do not push yourself for anyone else’s sake.”    

“I won’t. Would you feel better if I promised to let you know if I didn’t feel comfortable?”

“Please do.”

You grabbed his hand and held onto it, surprising him with the contact. “Thank you, Edge. I feel better knowing you’re looking out for me. Let me make it up to you somehow. Please.”

“Yo-you d-don’t need to do that.” 

Edge blustered and there was another dusting of dark color high on his sharp cheekbones. As delighted as the sight normally made you-because you loved watching your skeletons squirm-you wondered if a day would come where the simple things wouldn’t be so big a deal. 

You hoped not anytime soon.

This was too much fun to watch. 

“I do not need compensation for behaving admirably.” 

“Are you trying to tell me you don’t think there’s anything I could do that you would like?” you asked coyly.

Edge’s eye lights shrunk and his sockets narrowed. “You are trying to manipulate me.”

You don’t miss a beat or falter in your response. “Yeah, because I wanna do something nice for you and you’re not helping me by making it any easier.” 

 “You don’t need-”

“I know I don’t need to, but let me do this good thing, please, Edge,” you cut him off, tugging on his hand so he has to look at you and see how open your expression is. You really do want to do something to show your appreciation for his care. You would with anyone. When he doesn’t respond for another long beat you squeeze his hand through his glove and add an extra, softer, ‘please’ that you hope gets him to understand.

His shoulders slope down and you see some of the tension ease out of him as he dips his head in your direction. His eye lights waver in their sockets before you can hear what it is he’s mumbling into the collar of his shirt.

“What was that?”

“A s-spar with me too. I want to spar with you too, the way Sans got to.” 

That was it? 

“Of course, I’d love to. Don’t hold back because I won’t.” 

You give him hand another squeeze and he inhales without the need for air, sounding a little off balance thanks to you. You watch him for all the little details that let you know he’s pleased, savoring every last one. 

“I’m not going to-I don’t. It will be a fair spar.”

“You don’t think Sans’ spar was a fair one?” you asked, tugging him along. The two of you walked down the rest of the hallway in the direction of the pools. The smell of chlorine in the air only grew stronger to closer you got. 

“He initiated the encounter without issue, even if it was interrupted unceremoniously. I have nothing to take issue with in that spar,” he said. 

The pair of you got to the double glass doors and he reached for them first, pulling the one closest to you open for the both of you to fit in through. The pool is easy enough to see from where you enter in, and as expected Papyrus, Blue, and Stretch were all scattered around the main pool while Sans and Red took up space in the nearby hot tube, (five feet apart from one another of course). 

Papyrus was the first to see you enter and it was his voice that called out to you in greeting before Stretch could look up from his float or Blue could come up for under the water. You dropped your things onto a nearby lawn chair and shucked your room slippers off one by one, waving. 

You glanced back at Edge and noticed how he was in no way dressed for poolside fraternization. He was still in his tall red boots and decked out in all his usual garments, including the studded leather jacket and trailing scarlet scarf. 

Catching your look he huffed and pulled out his phone to flip around and wave. “I will be enjoying a good chair and some casual reading if you don’t mind.” He hesitated with his phone halfway replaced in his jacket pocket. “You’ll alert me should you need my…help, won’t you?”

“I’ll be fine Mr. Lawson,” you teased.

Edge’s blush came back but he didn’t fluster at the comment. With a firm shake of his head he turned and claimed a nearby chair for himself to stretch out on and went to his reading. From the pool Blue surfaced and was kicking from his pool noodle to the edge of the water. You met him at the edge and sat down.

“You came down, I thought you were-um, is-are you really down or are you just saying hello goodby?” Blue grabbed for the ledge and hung, watching you with a curious expression.

“Sorry, Blue, no floating from me today. Do you mind if I just hang out here on the ledge while you all have fun?”

“Of course!” he exclaimed a little too loudly. He winced and then ducked his head before adding, “I’m happy you’re here at all. You don’t have to swim if you don’t want to. But look, I can go around the entire pool with this thing and I don’t even need to use blue magic for it.” 

And before you can say anything more Blue pulled out his pool noodle and used it to lean on while kicking his way across the rim of the pool, much to your delight. 

You weren’t sure why you had been dreading that talk. Blue wasn’t angry at you or even disappointed, no one was. Papyrus boasted on how he could stay afloat with just his blue magic while Stretch drifted lazily on his popsicle shaped floaty bed. Anytime he got too close to the edge he’d use his magic to bounce back.   

It was a nice evening and it lasted until dinner time when you all decided to hang out in Blue and Stretch’s room for room service and watch MTT classics for a change. 

And it would have been a perfect way to end the day.

But that was out the door once you got a call from your least favorite person. A text made Sans’ phone vibrate and you meet his eye lights across the room while the television program played in the background. 

It was easy enough to slip yourself out and cross the hallway to your room with your vibrating phone pushed close to your chest. You hit the answer button just as Sans appeared, blinking after a shortcut, in the hallway next to you. 

Wordlessly you let him in while answering your call. 

“Hightower?”

“You’re at a hotel.” His voice was sharp and to the point. It had been a while since you last heard it, but it was just as cutting as you remembered. He hadn’t even reprimanded you and you felt chastised. 

“We needed the break. You gonna chew me out for the room service bill,” you sassed. It was easy to snap and posture instead of cower in fear. You weren't afraid of Hightower. He wasn’t anything that could hurt you anymore. 

“That is inconsequential. Are you aware of the local development in your area?” 

“What local development?” you asked out loud, meeting Sans’ eye lights again. His face was just as confused as yours even though his phone was buzzing with new emails. He showed you what was coming through and you recognized the sender, but every email was blank with just a single document apiece.  

“That is a no.”

“You can be helpful and let me know what we’re looking at here or try to make this into another damn lesson I’m not going to learn from? What is it?”

You felt your skin crawl and knew if you had hackles they would be all on end, ruffled and raised. It had been such a nice evening and you felt good, but no matter what came out of Hightower’s mouth next you knew that your night was going to end on a sour note. 

“You should be more aware of your surroundings. You’ve been keen on tracking FourB but neglect in observing other items in your vicinity.”

Before Hightower could finish speaking you flared your magic enough to use it for a map. You saw your surroundings, you saw the hotel, and then you saw the city block. You zoomed out further, scanning for anything of consequence. 

You saw it before you were more than four miles out. 

“What?”

“I assume you spotted one of them.”

You swallowed and zoomed out further until you saw a second and then third name pop up. “Why am I seeing these names, Hightower. I thought I was the only one you let walk?”

“You were. As dirty as the laundry may be, there were a number of your colleges who broke faith with our policies in a less amicable manner. They are as rouge as FourB now and likely in communications with the subject. I’ve sent their files to your counterpart. You may review them together.”

“Hold on a hot second Hightower, what do you mean-”

But the line was dead. 

In a fit of anger you pulled the map back fast enough to get dizzy by it, but you can see up to fifteen miles now and spot all the Sans and Papyrus dots on top of yours, but also see where FourB, FiveG, FiveH and TwoK all reside. 

  “…what are these files for?” Sans asked, and you realize with a startle there is magic in his voice again, but that’s only because you hadn’t responded the other two times he asked.  You dismiss the map and let the magic fall apart as you blinked at the lights behind your eyes.

“I…” You swallow to feel your throat again.  “I think we should tell the others about this. FourB isn’t the only one like me nearby. I…I think he has friends and I don’t think he plans on coming in peacefully.” 

Sans watched you slowly before nodding. “You want to tell the others now?” when you nodded again he huffed. “Alright then. It looks like we might be having that sleepover after all.”

And then he was gone.

You stood still, too stiff to move. Your chest hurt with something close to anger. You had been so happy and so content with the way things were. You and the skeletons were…enjoying yourselves. You were having fun. You were watching movies and eating out and telling funny stories every-night. Sure sometimes things got tense with such close living quarters and the unending barrage of terrible jokes and puns from some of them, but it was good. You had been enjoying yourself enough to forget the real reason for your time together. 

There was a job, and you had been plucked from the mediocracy you had found after therapy and the Embassy for a reason. 

The names from the map...all of them had been close with FourB-with Raven. All of them had been upset with the peace between monsters and humans, more so than most of the other kids. 

You realized a moment later what the unpleasant feeling in your gut was for. 

These kids had been raised to kill and hate monsters, and there are currently six monsters you were very close with and in no way prepared to even think about losing.

No.

Your heart burned with something loud.

You were not going to lose any of them. 

You were determined not to.   

Notes:

Another fun chapter that actually has some plot at the end! Also, FourB's name is revealed as Raven and he'll be referred to as both from now on, but mostly Raven and you'll find out why soon.

I really didn't want to give Edge a new or different nickname, but I understood why someone would think 'Edge' could be insulting, so here is the compromise. Thus this fun little backstory. He's such a good Skelly, he deserves to be happy.

Enjoy!

Chapter 16: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 5

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You walked into Blue and Stretch’s room to find most of the skeletons already surmised of a change in plans, but it’s clear that Sans hasn’t gone into any detail. The attention falls on you as soon as you enter and even though the number of bodies hasn’t changed, the room feels smaller than before. 

“You have an update for us?” Papyrus asks, standing as you enter. He’s the closest to you while everyone else sits or lies scattered around the room. 

“Yeah, I got a call from the-from Hightower at the Embassy.” Calling him ‘the bastard’ probably wouldn’t help anyone understand. “He heard that there were some other individuals in the area we should watch out for. Before we leave for anywhere tomorrow we should probably…talk about them.”

Individuals ? That doesn’t sound ominous, sweetheart,” Red laughed, flashing his gold tooth as he grinned. The comment is, of course, sarcastic. 

“Well, hopefully it isn’t so bad,” Blueberry offers. 

“Regardless, it’s a good thing to talk about. You have information on these people?” Stretch asked right after his brother. His eye lights were on you, but he also glanced sideways at Sans who was shuffling from one foot to the other with his phone out. Apparently his disappearance hadn’t gone as unnoticed as first intended. 

“That is what we're here for,” Red laughed like the suggestion was something obvious before winking at you. “Tactical shenanigans and all that, right sweetheart?”

You opened your mouth, but before you could say anything Sans exclaimed from the back corner. “Got it!” a second later the television screen blinked with a familiar document. Sans phone had casted to the monitor and all his emails showed up in the background with the first one open and extended for easy reading. 

What’s a presentation without a few visual aids? 

You heard a few murmurs before squeezing past Papyrus, cradling his elbow as you passed, to stand adjacent to the large monitor where everyone could see you. It helped you not feel so overwhelmed when you remember you had been sharing space and close companionship with each of them for two and a half weeks if not more. They were friends. 

“So yeah, there are some new faces that we found out about and it would be good to give it all a rundown right now while we’re together. These new guys are like me and FourB, they’re from the Embassy’s Defense Project.”

Monster Defense Project.  

Red and Edge shared a look between them and then it was Red who shot his hand up in the air like some school kid in the classroom. 

Shoot, that was cute.

“Hold up there, before we talk about ‘em other kids, you wanna slow down and mention something else we’ve been meaning to ask you?” Red asked. 

“Is it about the-oh no, never mind. Yeah, sure. Shoot, Red.” You’re a little thrown, but it’s Red. 

“You mind giving me a run down on how the whole project got started and how you got messed up with it? What made you choose it?”

Choose

Your monetarily thrown and the words don’t come as fast as they should, but Sans, of all people, steps in. The screen changes as a new file is pulled up-yours. 

“Kids don’t sign up for anything, do they?” Sans asks in a lighter tone. On the screen he scrolls until the section about your birth and adoption. There was a link to a photo of the adoption papers with the date and transaction number and everything. “I mean, not a lot of choice when there is no alternative, is there?” 

You’re not surprised that Sans has your file-even a redacted one.  

You swallow and find your voice again. “Most of us were from orphanages like this one. We were raised this way but some of the kids didn’t stick with the program the whole way. They were put into foster families because that had always been an option, but I hadn’t wanted to quit. At the time I believed what I was doing was the right thing. I thought I was going to need to be the way I am now in order to protect people.”

You forced yourself to face Red, unwilling to look away or run away from the truth. It tastes like metal in your mouth, chaffing and cutting but you lean into it. “I knew what I was doing. I didn’t run away from it. I made the choice to stay with the program for as long as I did. That’s on me.” 

You think you see Sans deflate from the back corner but you don’t look away from Red as he watches you. His expression hasn't changed a whole bunch and it was hard to tell what he was thinking. He was good at being unreadable when he wanted to be. 

“Good.”

His voice made you blink in surprise.

“Good?” you echoed dully. 

“Yeah, good for you. It wasn’t a bad idea if you’re thinking of it objectively. Yeah, in this world everything turned out peachy because people were willing to work together and trust in one another, but you know what our world was like? If that barrier had come down and we hadn’t been welcomed with open arms, yeah, there would have been war.” 

Blue scoffed with a sound of disbelief and Edge purposefully averted his gaze, red eye lights sparkling brighter as they narrowed. 

“It wouldn’t have been so bad,” Papyrus interjects. “The humans of the surface, yes are not all universally good and understanding, but so many of them have welcomed us with arms wide open. They would have tried to work with you and your world.” 

“Not the way we came out of the ground swinging,” Red laughed with something that sounded like the laugh of someone at the gallows. It was dark and humorless. “Not with the way our world was. We made war with each other from time to time, humans would have just been another easy conquest.” 

“Not easy,” you replied.

Red’s grin grew again and the gold glittered. 

“Nah, you wouldn’t have rolled over so easy for us, sweetheart, but we cut our teeth on the fight day in and out. The rest of your people, Ma and Mini and all those families…they wouldn’t have made it.” 

“You don’t think that, even now!” Blue exclaimed, popping up out of his seat. “Don’t tell me you believe it. You wouldn’t have.” 

“Me?” Red blinked and switched his attention to where Blue and Stretch sat next to one another. “I would have been out there, right behind my brother, doing everything I could to keep him alive as we followed the orders from the top. Family comes before strangers.” 

“Bu-but Mini and Ma aren’t strangers to you,” Blue pressed, eye lights small and shaking in his sockets. “You would have fought them just because your king told you to? You wouldn’t have questioned it?” 

Red didn’t even hesitate to answer. “Yup, pretty much. That’s how it was.”

 Blue looked like he wanted to say something more but Stretch reached up and set his hand on his arm, tugging Blue back down into his seat. When he was close enough Stretch leaned over and whispered something that seemed to appease the smaller of the brothers. 

“But that isn’t how things are, not here in this world, and that’s how it’s been this whole time. We’ve been cohabitation the surface for years now,” Sans interrupted, drawing most of the attention in the room his way. “And that’s the way we’re going to keep things. New monsters from other worlds risk that balance and that’s why we’re hunting down this FourB guy.”

“Yeah, figured that was his MO with us. He was lucky he pulled us through together and not King Asgore or his wife,” Red chuckled. “No point in putting the effort into something we weren’t personally invested in. ‘Sides, we came through rough and even we wouldn’t turn around and bite the hands that saved us. No honor in that.” 

“We might not get so lucky with the next set that comes through if we don’t nab this guy,” Papyrus sighed, sounding resigned. His usual bravado didn’t color his words. 

“That’s the gist of it. Maybe a rundown of the original perpetrator?” You looked over at Sans and nodded meaningfully. When you look back at the television screen FourB’s file was pulled up. “He’s pretty formidable. Unlike me he can manipulate space magic and even time magic and some combination of those two is how he was able to pull boss monsters from other worlds to ours. In addition to you guys we also identified a sushi fry cook fire elemental that went by the name Grillby.” 

Blue and Papyrus looked up in surprise at that. 

“Grillby?!” Blue gasped. “When?” 

“A few weeks back,” Sans answered, interrupting. “He just got cleared and they set him up with a new place to run his business out of.” 

“We can go make a visit out of it later on if you’re up for it,” you say softly. “I just found out recently myself. No news on a Grillby or any other boss monster from your universe,” you add looking to Red and Stretch. 

“Damn, my tab is too long to feel too bummed about it,” Red muttered while Edge eyed him knowingly. Red was still a Sans and he was sure to miss his Grillby’s if his job at Ma’s was anything to go by.

“But back on topic, FourB was pulling monsters from their homewards for a purpose, specifically Boss monsters. He wanted to start something or provoke a fight of some sort.” You ran an absent hand through your hair. “It was what he was raised for.  When the monsters surfaced and peace was established a few of the other kids didn’t take it so well. A lifetime’s worth of training and instruction amounted to…nothing. He’s trying to find purpose.”

“What a way to go about it,” Red sighed. 

“There are three other people who broke off from the Embassy and are nearby, FourB, FiveG, FiveH and TwoK.”

“The names are gonna give me a headache. Why didn’t they just get nicknames?” Stretch interrupted. 

“If…that makes it easier. FourB’s name is Raven. He was, well, we were all pretty close growing up, but FiveG is….” And you wait until the picture on the screen changes to a girl with dark curly hair and a cutting glare you had always admired. “Thrive is her name and the two of them were closer.”

Sans pulled up the other two files, FiveH is a taller, thicker male version of his sister and answered to the moniker Tank. TwoK was older than the other two by a handful of years. Her face didn’t have any wrinkles yet, but there were dark shadows in all of her pictures no matter what her hair color had been dyed or bleached. In the latest photo it had been a little mermaid red and chopped off just below the jaw. Her casual name was Esperanza or Esper for short.   

Blue listened intently, seemingly committing ever detail to memory while Edge still looked away, listening in his own manner. At least you hoped he was listening. 

You gave a quick run down on the different proclivities their magics took. Each one was a bit different. Like you leaned towards fire, Thrive liked magic that had to do with vegetation or the manipulation of plants. It was a unique skill that none of the other kids could replicate and that set her apart almost as much as Raven-the dark bird that he was. Sans called Raven’s combination of time and space magic voice magic. Several others agreed, mentioning their ability to use shortcuts being much the same. 

“Its funny how you aren’t all the same. I thought humans would be more uniform,” Stretch said, speaking up. “You seem more alike than monsters at least.” 

Behind him Sans snickered and Papyrus blustered about ‘not being racist’ and how humans were all unique and different, no matter how similar they might appear at first. You waited patiently until they were done exchanging their comments before pushing forward to add any new information. 

Tank and Esper were pretty basic fighters. Tank was, to no surprise, pretty strong and could go a few rounds with the best heavy hitters. Esper’s magic was actually pretty sub par in comparison, but she was smart as a whip and good at other things. 

“Is that because her number is so low?”  Sans asked. 

“Her number?”

 He wagged his finger in the air. “You know, Seven A, Four B, Two K? What’s with all the numbers and the letters. What are those for?”

“Oh, it wasn’t obvious. That’s for our magic. When humans develop magic outside of their own souls it kinda leaks. The first few kids to go through the process were all Ones because their magic just came from one reserve. Then there were a few kids who had either unstable magic or too much magic and it was too much to store in one chamber, so their magics naturally split into two chambers. Esper has two chambers or reserves of magic. You see here where it says her total magic? If you checked her in battle it would show you half of that because she hasn’t used the other one.”

“So the higher your number the more magic you have?” Stretch asked. 

“Not…exactly. Raven and I have almost the exact same amount of magic in total, but his is divided into fourths and mine is split into sevenths…making it a little harder to do things. I also suffer exhaustion faster and need to eat a butt-ton to keep up my calorie intake. That’s not as big of a problem for the others.” 

“Don’t worry darlin, you’re still plenty of bad ass!” Red cheered, laughing from his seat. Edge glanced up but didn’t move to whack at his brother. 

You feel some of the tension in your shoulders abate and you take another deep breath. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I’m pretty sure I could take most of these yahoos out in a fight. Raven’s magic makes him hard to catch, but he’s a wet noodle. Tank is strong but his magic isn’t the best. Esper is smart, not much more.”

“And Thrive, the girl?” Stretch asked. 

You winced. “No problem. Plants or fire, who would you bet on?”

You don’t mention her utter seriousness or drive from the fights you had seen her in. She was intimidating as hell to see charging across the field at you and she was a well rounded fighter with plenty of tricks to fall back on that worked even if you saw them coming. 

“Then tactics should be the next issue of discussion. Our odds are far better, we outnumber them nearly two to one,” Papyrus said.

Blue nodded vigorously. “Yes, and with each of us already compatible with our own brother it would be ideal to set ourselves us together. All that is left is to decide who takes which human.” 

“Oh, it is just that easy?” Edge sneered, sounding a bit more jaded than you were used to hearing. Only hours ago he had been kind and soft with you in the corner of an alcove, talking to you about consent and comfort. That kind side of him was gone, replaced with something harsher, more bitter. Beside him Red’s ever present grin was a tad strained. 

“As captain of the royal guards it is just that easy,” Blue huffed, holding himself up. 

“I was a captain just as well, but in my world it actually meant something. Have you stopped to consider what it might mean to everybody else if we actually do fight with these-”

“Renegades,” Sans cut in. “If they’re doing what they’re doing to incite terror then call them what they are; terrorists .”       

“They’re still humans,” Edge bit back, sounding angrier than before. “Can you really say they know any better?”

“They’re endangering other humans so yeah, yeah I can,” Sans said, keeping his tone even.

“They’re not confirmed to be anything just yet. So far all they’ve done is brought a few of us over to this prime, ideal world and as far as I’m concerned that’s a reason to thank them, not try and murder them.”

“It’s weird to hear this coming from you of all people?” Sans laughed, though it was a sound without feeling. “Didn’t you-”

Edge stood so abruptly and reached for Sans that the words stopped there. It wasn’t an encounter or anything so civil or uniform, but he reached for Sans with his hands and nearly had the smaller skeleton between his claws before a shortcut winked Sans away to the far side of the room, behind you. Edge looked enraged and it takes both Red and Blue to hold him back while Papyrus leaps to protect his brother with his own defensive stance. Stretch stays where he was, watching everything.

“That’s enough,” you shout. 

You reach out and push Papyrus aside to stand in the middle of the room, ready to use your own magic in constructing barriers if you have to. You have a good idea of what Sans was going to say and you don’t blame Edge for his rage. The fact that he and Red killed humans in his world wasn’t a pleasant memory for either of them to face, not after how close they had grown with Ma and Mini.

 “We’re not fighting or baiting anyone here in this room, got it?” You add when no one else looks ready to move. “Table it and get back to where you were. I’m not done here.” 

Slowly, staring with Blue and Red releasing Edge, the skeletons stiffly amble back into their original places, eyeing one another warily. You tried to catch Edge’s eye lights but his gaze was turned down and away. Red gave you a little shake of his head and you decided it would be wiser to drop it for now.  

“I don’t want any of you to have to fight at all. These kids were trained to take down monsters and yeah, you’re all bosses and pretty neat on your own, it’s still too much of a risk and I’m not ready to gamble with your lives. I want to avoid these encounters if possible or manage them as peacefully as can be if they turn out to be unavoidable.” 

“A wise call. The human ambassador to monster kind themselves would agree that mercy and understanding are chief instruments of change,” Papyrus praised.

You can’t help but think his voice sounded stiffer than normal. 

“Yeah, well it’s a little more than that. I don’t…want to hurt any of them. They’re misguided, that’s for sure, and if they do anything to hurt or incite I’ll stand up to them, but…they’re just messed up people who are a little lost.” 

“So, you’re not going to fight them?” Stretch asked from his seat, studying you carefully. 

“I’ll beat Raven’s ass into the dirt because he deserves it but I don’t want to do more than that.” You rubbed at your neck, awkwardly remembering the boy who had followed you out of the orphanage all those years ago. “But I still don’t want to risk any of you. It’s….”

“It won’t come to that, doll face,” Red cut in, sounding softer and calmer than his brother.

“We can more than take care of ourselves,” Blue agreed loudly, standing up in his chair and puffing out his chest. “You couldn’t be in safer hands to communicate with domestic terrorists.”

Numbly you nodded before glancing back over at the screen just past your shoulder. The picture of a boy a few years younger than you was still up. It was old. Raven was the same age as you but there wasn’t a more recent picture. He looked too much like you from that age apart from the hair, eye, and even the skin tone.

 It was hard to see him and think domestic terrorist, but Sans was right and you were determined not to let your sentiments keep you from doing what was right. It wasn’t what you had envisioned for yourself, but years later, you were still trying your best to be a hero to someone. 

“It’s late,” Stretch interrupted your thoughts. “Maybe we should turn in for the night and get the rest we can. Tomorrow morning will be busy, won’t it?”

You nodded. “I want to try and reach Raven before the others can meet up with him. So far there is still plenty of room between them.” 

“Then we rest,” Papyrus said, reaching for your shoulder. You felt the warmth of his hand squeezing in encouragement. You glanced up and smiled, letting him know you appreciated the gesture for its kindness by patting his gloved hand in affection. 

Sans blinked and was gone while Red and Edge shuffled out, neither saying a word to anyone else. Before they passed you tried to catch Edge’s eye but still couldn’t. Red made an apologetic expression and shook his head before closing the door behind him and his brother. 

You pat Papyrus’ hand on your shoulder once more before walking out with him into the hallway. You were just in time to hear Red shut their room door.

Behind you Blue loudly wished you ‘sweet dreams’ and then let their door shut too. You stood awkwardly in the hallway, alone with Papyrus, still connected by his hand on your shoulder. 

“You worried about me?” you teased him, sounding tired even to your own ears.

“If the leaking of your magic is anything to go by, consider me apprehensive but optimistically engaged with your well being.”

His manner and way of speaking made you smile. 

“I’m soul weary if that makes sense.”

His hand slips past your shoulder, down your back and you feel the touch of magic on you. Papyrus is checking your stats, you realize a heartbeat later. Outside of an encounter physical touch was often required for monsters to access that information. He must have seen something that displeased him since his smile fell off.

“Your description has changed. You’re worried about...us?”

You feel your face flush and smack both hands over your blush to cover it. “Shoot, did it say that? Man, Paps don’t look at me when I’m embarrassed like this!”

Your pulled into one of his all enveloping hunts before you know what's what. He folds over you a fraction and stretches his arms all the way around you. It’s a tight embrace and you are tempted to snuggle further into his touch. What would it be like to lie down and cuddle with such warm arms around you? 

Before you can get lost in your own thoughts much more he lets go and moves only far enough to turn your face up to meet his. His expression is soft and open and you…you feel overwhelmingly safe for some reason. Strength has nothing to do with it. You soul is safe. Emotionally you’re as content as one could hope to be after what you’ve had to dredge up in front of so many faces. 

You hear his signature laugh, though it’s soft enough to be considered a chuckle. “I apologize for flustering you my dear, but I’m too enamored with all your cute human expressions and want to see them all. You are…truly a treasure. Do not worry about us.”

“I worry because I care. It’s not something I can control at this point,” you sigh, feeling free by the truth of your confession.

You do care about all of them...a lot. More than you should. It had only been two, maybe three weeks and already you were so attached. You had known the other kids all your life. 

Why did it feel like when you shared your soul with one of the skeletons it felt like knowing them for lifetimes? 

“I didn’t think so,” he laughed. 

You felt him tug you in for another hug but instead his face cuddles into your hair, messing up the style and shifting it loose. You don’t care about that as much when you hear the warm hum that comes from his nebulous absence of a throat.  

“Thank you for sharing your soul with us. It’s something I will always treasure, no matter how embarrassed it makes you.” He pulled away and bopped the tip of your nose, laughing at the way you wrinkle it to his touch. You wonder if he can see the freckles dusting your skin from so close. The reaction seems to please him. “Now go to bed. Sleep and rest. We will talk more in the morning, but not until then.”

You made a sound of displeasure but leave his warm embrace and key into your private room, suddenly colder than you wished you were. 

When you hug yourself it doesn’t work as well and you fall asleep wishing to find some fulfillment in your dreams.

You don't hear what goes on outside your door. 

 

Notes:

Cool, so some more insight into what makes these boys all different. They may have the same natures but they've been nurtured and shaped by very different worlds and it shows. Still, at their core there are some similarities, like...who they're attracted to.

Sans Pro tip: if you want your crush to notice you, insult their friends.

I bet you're relieved that they didn't end up fighting each other in this chapter.

*FourB is called Raven, FiveG is Thrive, FiveH is Tank, and TwoK is called Esperanza - Esper

In other news, November (NaNoWriMo) is virtually over and I am not ready for December. Ha ha ha *cue nervous laughter*

Chapter 17: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 6

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sans looked up when he heard the door to their room finally open and close. Papyrus strolled in, soul thrumming with vibrancy and a dusty coloring high on his cheekbones. Even down to the way his brother walked was a bit more buoyant than normal. 

“someone’s got a spring in their step,” Sans commented, falling loudly on his bed so that the springs inside the mattress groaned. 

Papyrus stopped on his heel and scoffed loudly at the pun. “THERE IS HARDLY A REASON TO MAKE UP SUCH A USELESS PUN IN MY PRESENCE. I NEED TO SHOWER AND WASH MY BONES. I’M SURE I STILL SMELL LIKE THE BLASTED POOL WATER. HOW EMBARRASSING.”

With you absent the brothers felt free to slip back into their old way of speaking. There was no reason to pull the magic out of their words anymore and it felt good to fall back into the habit.( Even if it was a habit he was willing to kick if that’s what it took to make you happy.)

Speaking of you… 

“…so paps, what took you so long. I know I’m the one with a shortcut, but you looked like…” Sans peeked into the shower room and saw steam, “you were walking on clouds or something, eh.”

“DON’T BE NONSENSICAL ABOUT YOUR PUNS, SANS. I WALKED IN ON NO SUCH CLOUDS. IF I’M IN A RELATIVELY CHIPPER MOOD IT MIGHT BE DUE TO THE FACT THAT I DIDN’T PROVOKE A FIGHT WITH THE MEANEST LOOKING SKELETON IN A CONFINED SPACE.”

“meanest looking?” Sans echoed, “who you talking about, Edge?”

“YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!”

Sans rolled his eyes as he heard the shower door pull back and close. The steam trailed out freely, unhindered by the open door between the two rooms until it was too thin to see. The decorations in the room reminded him too much of farmlands, as the art above the bed (a picture Papyrus confessed to adoring), was of a red barn complete with a silo, set back against a field filled with animals. It was funny to think about Papyrus confessing to liking the idea of farm life with his proclivities for neatness. 

Papyrus was the neat freak between the two of them, taking a good deal of time to wash and lather his bones until there was a new smell to them, something fruity or floral that came in a bottle. Paps had always been like that, but it had changed a bit more once they surfaced. Papyrus was more meticulous and groomed far more frequently. Almost as if he cared what others would think of him. 

Sans rolled over on the bed and grabbed for one of the pillows to hold in his arms. It squished nicely and would be perfect to fall asleep holding. The bus didn’t have nearly enough pillows for all of the cuddle obsessed skeletons to get away happy.

A few minutes later Papyrus’ shadow spilled out over Sans.

“DO NOT THINK THAT WE ARE FINISHED WITH OUR EARLIER CONVERSATION REGARDING YOUR BEHAVIOR. WHAT WERE YOU THINKING YOU WOULD ACCOMPLISH?”    

“relax, i knew you’d keep me safe, there was never anything to worry about.” 

Papyrus reached for the pillow and pulled it free before smacking Sans in the face with it.

“I AM YOUR BROTHER AND I KNOW BETTER. YOU WERE ATTEMPTING TO STEAL A MARCH.”

“-steal a what now?” 

“YOU WERE TRYING TO-UGH, FOR BEING SO FRIVOLOUS WITH YOUR PUNS YOU DON’T KEEP UP TO DATE ON THE IDIOMS OR EXPRESSIONS OF THE HUMANS, DO YOU? IF YOU STEAL A MARCH ON SOMEONE YOU GET AN ADVANTAGE OVER THAT PERSON BY ACTING BEFORE THEY DO YOU NUMBSKULL BROTHER OF MINE.”

“i know what the expression means, but what does that have to do with what was said ‘cause it doesn’t make that much sense to me?”

“FOR BEING THE ‘SMARTER’ OLDER BROTHER YOU CAN BE INCREDIBLY DENSE SOMETIMES. YOU WERE BESMIRCHING EDGE’S REPUTATION WITH PURPOSEFUL INTENT.”

Sans had a feeling he knew where this conversation was going and he groaned, rolling over. He wanted to take a shortcut out and hang out at the lobby’s bar or something, but that would only result in prolonging the inevitable and he had promised himself very recently that he was going to TRY and be better about his habits to avoid confrontation with his brother. That had been one of the reasons they grew so far apart from one another in the first place. Still, he hated being read like an open book. 

“edge was just being mouthy, no biggie…”

“AND THAT REALLY HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH Y/N BEING IN THE ROOM?”

Sans had his face turned down into the mattress, hiding his micro expressions from Papyrus, but he didn’t doubt his brother was able to see enough to know. He mumbled his next words into the mattress, hoping Papyrus wouldn’t be able to hear them. 

“I AM YOUR BROTHER SO OF COURSE I KNOW. DO YOU THINK I BLAME YOU?” 

Sans really wanted to run away. It would be so easy. All he had to do was avoid Papyrus for a handful of hours and then in the morning they would be in a huge group again and societal convention made Papyrus more of a prisoner than any physical trap so of course his brother wouldn’t bring anything up. It was like watching a Perry the Platypus Perrysode. 

“SANS.” He looked up when he heard his brother and sighed at the sight Papyrus cut, arms crossed, eye lights smoldering, all while wearing an extra fluffy white bathrobe. 

“what do you want me to say?” Sans sighed. “i might have been out of line but edge was the one who tried throwing the first punch.”

“HE DIDN’T EVEN BOTHER WITH AN ENCOUNTER.”

“….so?” 

Papyrus rolled his eye lights. “SO HE WASN’T PLANNING ON USING ANY MAGIC.”

“cool, I would have been fine, don’t see why you’re having a cow over it.” 

“GAAAAH! YOU HAVE ONE HP POINT OF COURSE YOU WOULDN’T BE FINE, HE WANTED TO HURT YOU, NOT KILL YOU, AND HE WASN’T STUPID ABOUT IT YOU ABSOLUTE BAFOON. WHAT MADE YOU THINK PICKING A FIGHT WAS WISE?”

“i wasn’t-”

“YOU ALMOST BLURTED OUT THAT HE HAD KILLED HUMANS. WHAT DO YOU THINK THE ONLY HUMAN IN THE ROOM WOULD THINK IF THEY HEARD IT?”

Sans tries not to be bitter about it but he still sounds sour. “i don’t think they would’ve minded seeing as how close they’ve been…probably already knew about it.”

“YES AND I KNOW PLENTY OF TERRIBLE THINGS ABOUT YOU BUT IT IS STILL UNPLEASANT TO HEAR ABOUT THEM IN COMMUNAL COMPANY AND YOU KNOW BETTER.”

“so do you Paps, so why you gotta call me out like this?” Sans tried to chuckle. He hoped Papyrus would just, for lack of better words, throw him a bone , and spare him the inquisition.    

Papyrus sighed once more, this time deeply, before rounding the be to sit on the edge and face Sans head on. He clasped his hands in front of him and bowed his head enough for Sans to understand that his brother was being serious. They had grown up enough to have their usual tells for moments when jokes and japes, and puns all fell away. 

“I LIKE THEM AND I KNOW YOU DO TOO, BUT PLEASE DON’T BE SO ANGRY ABOUT IT.” 

Sans REALLY wanted to shortcut out of the room and find the bottom of a bottle at that bar in the lobby. It would have been so much easier and to be honest, he had run away from far less uncomfortable conversation. The only thing that made Papyrus’ call out worse was that tacked on confession. How much worse could things get? 

“that ain’t what this is about, paps,” Sans tried to laugh,  but even he could feel the magic bead and leak off in sweat drops around his skull. Why was he so good at running away if he wasn’t supposed to? 

“I KNOW THIS IS SOMETHING DIFFICULT FOR YOU TO HEAR AND I KNOW YOU WANT TO RUN AWAY, FRANKLY I’M NOT SURE WHY YOU HAVEN’T, BUT I APPRECIATE YOU CHOOSING TO STAY. YOUR FEELINGS ARE IMPORTANT BUT THEY SHOULDN’T BE THE REASON FOR ANYMORE STRIEF IN OUR MIDST.” 

“i don’t have-”

But Papyrus has already initiated an encounter and the room around them dimmed as the natural barriers fed by magic stretched thin. Papyrus as the initiator bowed his head and readied himself for his own turn while Sans floundered. Mercy wouldn’t work, he didn’t want to fight, and his items were shit. Not knowing what else, more as a reflex, he checked his brother and saw the bold details everyone else could see. 

IS VERY SERIOUS ABOUT MAKING Y/N A DATE MATE   

That’s what his status was? Everyone could see that? 

When Sans checked on his own as a Judge he could see plenty, but there wasn’t a person he didn’t know better than his own brother so he hadn’t bothered to check Papyrus in a while. 

But that was his turn and it was back to Papyrus. Sans felt dread down in his gut as Papyrus skipped over the Mercy and Fight options. Sans couldn’t see it, but he knew when his brother could by the way Papyrus’ expression changed. 

And then the turn came back to Sans and Papyrus was content enough to spare with a highlighted Mercy option. Sans chose that and sat back, bracing for what would come next. 

“…so….”

“WHAT DID YOU SEE WHEN YOU LOOKED AT MY STATS?” Papyrus asked first. 

“that you also like ‘em?”

Papyrus laughed unabashedly. “THAT IS THE TRUTH AND I’M NOT ASHAMED OF IT. WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR WHAT YOUR OWN STATUS SAID?”

“not really.”

“TOO BAD, YOUR STATUS SAID YOU-”

“-don’t.” 

“REGRETS NOT INTRODUCING HIMSELF MONTHS AGO.”

Sans fell back into the mattress but rolled enough to catch the edge of the bedsheet and flip it over his burrito shaped form. If he couldn’t shortcut himself out of the uncomfortable talk he could hide from it. Wordlessly he groaned into the comforter.

“I DON’T THINK THE OTHERS NOTICED, BUT THAT DOCUMENT WITH HER INFORMATION WAS DATED AS NEARLY A YEAR OLD.”

“that was because it was a part of the information exchange between the embassy and King Asgore’s open borders treaty…there were plenty of files, that one wasn’t…it wasn’t supposed to matter.” 

“A FASCINATING STUDY, I’M SURE.”

Sans groaned again and rolled further across the bed, rolling himself up even more. He was tangled up and shortcutting out of the bedsheets wasn’t impossible, but would be messy. It was taking every last ounce of his self control not to run away again. 

It wouldn’t do him any good if he ran off now. Papyrus already knew, had already seen the proof, and if he booked it out of the hotel room now it would only result in more miscommunication and distance between him and his favorite skeleton. 

As hard as it was to face the music, Sans didn’t want to lose his brother again. His absence was too easily filled with adoring fans and media relations and monster interviews. 

“…what do you want me to say, paps? yeah, it was a fun read and there were plenty of others so i can’t tell you why it was just that one, but it was…and then nothing came of it so it was harmless and that was all it needed to be but…” He needed to take a break, he needed to pause and reconnect the thoughts that flew loose in his brain like wild constellations. “then i fucked it up real bad…it didn’t feel good to know that the others could get a pass so easy.”

“LET'S START BACK AT THE BEGINNING. HOW DID YOU MESS UP, BROTHER?”

So Sans told Papyrus. He started way back with the file and how he had tried digging deeper when he realized parts had been redacted, eased, and just not included. He had kept those salvaged parts to himself and no one had seen them during the presentation, but every video, every test, every interview for ‘emotional stability check’ made him think ...made him feel closer to a person he had never met. 

Then he had dived deep into some of the other files and found nothing half as interesting. They were pretty much the same videos and documents, but they lacked the part that made Sans keep coming back to your entries. 

Back then your hair had been longer, soft and full enough to tempt his wandering fingers-but he didn’t admit that to Papyrus. 

When Sans asked Papyrus if he wanted to see the videos Papyrus pulled back physically and shook his head. In just as many words Papyrus explained that he didn’t want to know or see anything of you without your explicit consent, and that made Sans feel all the more guilty. 

“AND AS BAD AS THIS STALKERISH BEHAVIOR IS, I’M AFRAID TO CONFESS I KNOW YOU TOO WELL TO KNOW YOU DON’T SEE THIS AS YOUR…SCREW UP.” 

Paps really did know Sans best. 

“it was too suspicious when they turned up and that guy told us we would all be working together. it had been such a messy split so what would the reason be for bringing ‘er back other than…?”

Papyrus grabbed for his face with both hands and groaned into his gloves. “YOU DID NOT QUESTION THEM, DID YOU?”

If only.

“…not….exactly, but there was an ugh-an encounter.”

Papyrus’ fingers split enough for his single eye light, so dark and subtle it was nearly impossible to make out when contrast against the rest of his skill. With enough emotion it flared to vibrancy. 

“SANS…”

The tone was warning enough but Sans was already in his burrito of shame and he hadn’t left so far. He was going to try being determined for once and stick this out. 

“it wasn’t as bad as you think, but it was really wrong of me to suspect them in the first place! they sort of um, didn’t-i thought they might fight back but it was a lot like fighting frisk.”

“YOU NEVER FOUGHT FRISK SO DON’T TRY TO USE MY EXPERIENCES TO ILLUSTRATE YOUR OWN MISTAKES.”

Sans didn’t correct his brother about the failed timelines and all the other resets. He had fought Frisk enough times to tire the kid out and send them all the way back to the beginning where they made the right decision and stuck with it all the way through. He remembered that well enough but no one else ever would. 

He wondered, for a brief blip of time, if that kid you had called Raven had the same sort of abilities that not even Frisk understood how to manipulate. Since going topside there hadn’t been a single reset in years, a new record, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t possible for there ever to be another one in the future….

The thought chilled him to the bone.

 “well, back on topic, it seemed like all that cause they never fought back and were pretty adamant about being a ‘good guy’ whatever that meant” Sans chuckled nervously. 

When Papyrus pressed for more clarification Sans didn’t hold back and gave his brother the details, revealing a bit more about himself than he meant to, but it didn’t seem to matter to his brother as much as the fact that you had been…hurt.

“YOU HURT SOMEONE YOU LIKED?!”

“it wasn’t like that-okay no you’re right it was like that, but i couldn’t believe it cause when does something that perfect ever happen to us?”  

Sans must have said something that struck a cord  with Papyrus. His older brother sagged in his seat, deflating a bit form his righteous fury of moments prior. 

When asked if he checked your soul Sans had to look away when he admitted it. “that was when i-i knew i couldn’t do it anymore and it was true so that’s where it ended and i’ve been trying to make it up to them ever since.” 

“HOW, BY AVOIDING HER AND ANTAGONIZING HER FRIENDS?”

Sans plopped face first down on the mattress again and groaned out loud. “i know-i told you i fucked it up didn’t i!”

“WELL, YOU ADMITTED TO IT SO THAT’S STEP ONE.”

Sans didn’t look up, but he blustered through an explanation of all the conversations he had held with you, of what you had said to him, and what he had done to try and fix his mistakes. That seemed to appease Papyrus some but it wasn’t the end of their conversation by a long shot.

“YOU ALSO OWE AN APOLOGY TO EDGE.”

Sans snorted. “I’m sure his big edgy bad boy feelings aren’t hurt that hard. He seems like the stoney sort. doubt I rocked him too hard.”  

 “WELL AT LEAST YOUR AWFUL PUNS ARE BACK, BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT OF WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY. EDGE IS IMPORTANT TO HER AND YOU DON’T LIKE IT BUT THAT’S A FACT, SO YOU HAVE TO APOLOGIZE TO HIM FOR THAT REASON, BUT ALSO BECAUSE IT IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO.” 

Papyrus stood and gestured to the door with a flourish of his arm and Sans felt himself drain magic. If he had been human he would have going pale, but it was the same sort of feeling. 

“…now?”

Papyrus wordlessly reached for his phone and began to type something out. A minute later the screen lit up with something new and it seemed to satisfy the younger brother.

“YES, NOW. THEY ARE BOTH STILL AWAKE, LIKELY DIGESTING ALL THE COMPONENTS OF OUR EARLIER TALK. YOU’RE GOING TO GO OUT INTO THE HALL AND FACE EDGE AND YOU’RE GOING TO APOLOGIZE. RED IS SENDING HIS BROTHER OUT NOW SO…”

Sans struggled out of his shame burrito, throwing the blankets off into a wrinkled mess on the floor. “b-but now?” he repeated in a higher pitch. 

Papyrus didn’t use his blue magic, but he held open the door and pinned Sans with a look that no brother, older or younger, could refuse. With great effort Sans picked himself up and trudged over to the door, hearing another door open and close somewhere down the hallway. 

Why did being a good person have to be so hard?

Edge was already outside, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed and one heel braced against the waistcoat molding halfway up. He was taller than his own brother, the tallest of the three Papyrus iterations, and with his heels he only seemed to be made of even more leg. 

What did you see in an edge-lord like him? 

He remembered, against his better judgement or maybe in spite of it, the way you had laughed so free and full into his chest only hours earlier, and the way Edge had held onto you while your body shook with cute little shivers and shakes. You had laughed a couple of times in the videos but never like that and it was because of something Edge said? 

What the fuck had happened in his life to get to this point?

Edge looked up and pushed off the wall, dropping his hands to his sides and standing at his full height. Sans shuffled out in his slippers, hands stuffed into the pockets of his favorite hoodie, and pretended the smile on his face meant something. 

“I apologize for trying to strangle your fat little neck,” Edge spoke first, lifting his chin and staring down his nasal ridge at Sans. “That was uncalled for.” 

From one of the closed doors Sans heard Red curse. 

“Eh,” Sans began, making sure to pull the magic out of his words the way Edge had. “All water under the bridge. Sorry for yanking your chain , you just have so many of them.” 

Edge flinched in irritation. “What?” 

Sans held up his hands in a pose of mock surrender. “Thought it was just part of the bad boy look or something. Didn’t know you were trying to fool anyone.”

Papyrus made a sound of frustration on the other side of his door and Sans rolled his eye lights.

“Sorry for my part in this…misunderstanding,” he added. 

“As…am I,” Edge ground out, hands curled into fists at his side. “We will speak in the morning, marshmallow.”

“Looking forward to it,” Sans cheered before he blinked out of the hallway and back into his bedroom. 

Papyrus turned stiffly around from where he had been listening at the door and sighed at the sight of his brother. Sans shrugged and held up his hands in a ‘what can you do’ sort of pose that only made Papyrus deflate further. 

“I SUPPOSE THAT WAS THE BEST I COULD HAVE HOPED FOR. YOU BETTER SHAPE UP BEFORE TOMORROW THOUGH OR ELSE THIS WILL IMPACT OUR SUCCESS WITH THE PLANS.”

“eh, you don’t have to worry about me. just get some sheep . we’ll all feel better about it in the morning.”   

Sans didn’t believe it, but Papyrus didn’t fight him on it and in mere minutes the lights were off and the floor was ...mostly silent. 



Notes:

No reader this chapter, but plenty of character development for the UT brothers. (It balances out the next part since that’s the ‘mission’ chapter.) Sans is trying not to be such a gremlin trash boi and Paps isn’t stupid.

Sorry for this chapter being a bit more rough and unpolished, I had to edit and post from my phone due to circumstances and I was not blessed with magic thumbs so, ta da~

Chapter 18: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 7`

Notes:

Reader's Discretion Advised: for some mild body horror/depictions of violence at the very end of this chapter

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

You were surprised by who you found first. Papyrus and Blue were notorious early risers, and Edge was pretty good about it too, citing a number of health benefits that didn’t even apply to skeleton monsters. But lounging over the railing on the rooftop Stretch smoked a single cigarette and slouched into his arms, staring up at the early morning clouds. 

“Hey,” you called out, startling him.

You heard him fluster out your name before cursing to hurry and put out the cigarette. He had remembered your dislike of secondhand smoke and you appreciated that. 

“Hey,” Stretch lamely replied. “I guess this isn’t early for you, huh?” 

“I’m surprised to see you awake, were you even able to sleep or did you just stay up the whole night?” you teased. You crossed the rooftop to where he stood and leaned over the railing yourself, looking out. 

“I slept, not a lot, but I was able to get some shut eye.” He eyed you wearily. “What about you?”

“I look that bad?”

“Eh, I was searching for it. You got some worries about the teams?” 

You turn around and rest your elbows on the railing, leaning your head back to stare up into the sky. It was early morning, but some of the clouds still carried a golden orange under-glow that reminded you of the skeleton beside you.

“Not the way you’re thinking. I know we talked about strategy and tactics and have intel on their powers, but I grew up alongside those kids and I know they’re a…I know what they’re like. They’re all lost and empty.” 

Stretch reaching into his pockets for a honey stick to replace in his mouth. “What makes you say that?”

You laugh but it’s not strong enough to convince Stretch and you know it doesn’t reach your eyes. “Experience? I don’t know, it’s just a feeling. I don’t want to get into a fight with any of them.”

“That’s understandable,” Stretch hummed. “If you all grew up together then aren’t you all like a family of sorts? I’d die before I did anything against Blue, but I think I trust his sense of justice and goodness more than my own.” 

You know why Stretch’s words hurt, but it’s been years since you thought that way and the last time you had seen any of them, especially Raven, it had been as messy as it was unpleasant. There had been no kind words left for you before differing ideologies drove the last nail in the coffin. 

“Blue is a great person to believe in. I’d put my faith in him too,”you admitted after a longer pause. You could feel Stretch watching you but didn’t turn to face him. His eye lights could wander all over your face and he wouldn’t find anything you were ashamed of. 

“Yeah, my brother really is the coolest. It makes sense why you’d like him, but don’t you think you’re being a little harsh on Raven?”

Stretch using FourB’s chosen name made you turn to face him.

“Why?”

Stretch worked the plastic between his teeth before pulling free the half finished stick of honey. “I don’t know, I just figured you’d feel different since that guy’s your brother.” 

“My…brother….” you echoed. 

“Not like how the others are a family to you, I mean…” Stretch waved at his face. “You have a lot of the same features, they’re subtle but they’re there. You got the same dusting of freckles, the same nose, and the way your ears are…it’s too coincidental. Also, I looked, you have the same birthday and you came from the same orphanage. Same age and everything.” 

You sagged under the weight of his words. Stretch didn’t look at you or watch you for a reaction, but waited patiently until you were ready to speak again. It was a moment more before you could find your voice and dislodge it from where it had been stuck in your throat. 

“You’re the first to guess it.”

“It wasn’t a guess, honey,” he murmured with affection. “But it’s okay, I haven’t told anyone else about it if that’s what you’re worried about. Maybe OG Sans picked up on it already, but he hasn’t said anything either. Why, you worried how others might react?”

No.

If that had been all it would have been so much easier to just…admit it at once and rip the bandaid off all those old and buried feelings with some cold, stoic facts. You and Raven had the same biological mother and had come into the world one right after the other, covered in the same blood and breathing the same air. You had been each other’s shadow for an entirely too short lived childhood and then beyond that. 

But even blood and water couldn’t keep you two in sync and the fractures had started well before the monsters surfacing. That day of peace and hope had only been the catalyst to something long since festering.  

“You guys all have great relationships with your brothers.” You waved a hand in a circular motion to draw his gaze. “I just can’t relate. When we last saw each other it was right before I got-before I left the Embassy and it hadn’t been a pleasant sort of farewell. He didn’t like what I was doing and I didn’t believe in what he wanted.”

“What was that?” 

Stretch’s questions were too direct and too fast. You felt like they were pulling the answers from your without the work. It had been a small hell of its own to swallow down your own feelings and walk away, but Stretch got the story without the labor or the worry.  

“It’s not so easy a question to answer in so few words.” 

“Then you don’t have to use words, do you?” You looked over at him and Stretch had a finger raise, just one, that tapped against his skull. “Can’t you just skull drop a memory or two in my noggin? I’ve seen you do it.” 

You almost laugh at how ridiculous the suggestion was. “You’ve seen me traumatize humans before and you want me to do that to you?”

“Yeaaaaaaah, but not that memory, I don’t wanna know what it was those guys saw unless I really have to. I was thinking something more along the lines of…what it was like to have him as your brother.” 

You weren’t sure if he was serious with you, even though you wanted to believe it. Stretch was always so laid back it was hard to tell when he wasn’t joking. 

“You… might have a bit of a headache.”

“Ehhhhhhh, what’s a headache between friends?” his voice shifted with a new layer of magic. “if you feel guilty about it then you can just chalk it up to us getting even after i rattled your noggin with my words.” 

It was early morning and no one aside from the staff was even out on the roof. You two were practically alone under a fading honey yellow sky full of clouds and Stretch looked just as relaxed as ever. Considering how understanding he was being with you, it didn’t seem fair. 

“Would you compromise with an encounter then?” 

He blinked and the dark hazel brown of his eye lights flickered brighter. “Eh?” 

“To make it fair…” you elaborate, “you can initiate an encounter and I’ll use my magic to share a memory.”

Stretch had pushed himself off the balcony and the plastic of his honey stick was wrinkled between his teeth, nearly empty. “Yeah, but what’s an encounter have to do with it?”

“You don’t want to do it that way? I thought this would be what you’re used to.” 

Stretch rubbed at the back of his skull. “I just never did it before with a human. Haven’t done it at all in a long while to be honest. I might…I might be rusty but if that’s fine with you.” 

You offered him your hand, magic already rolling free. “That’s fine. You initiate and I can lead.” 

It took a moment longer but he reached for you and met your magic with his own. You let it overpower yours and the world around you went hazy. To monsters it would look black and white for as long and far as their magic would go. Stretch had magic to spare but he didn’t waste it, keeping the field of influence small. 

Your move first. 

Preparing the memory you let your magic wash over Stretch, seeing the way he went tense at the touch. It wasn’t a physical touch, but to a monster made out of magic it might as well have been. You couldn’t see his soul or tell the color, but with gentle probing you could tell that it was the sort of soul that made you think of warm naps, soft pillows, fuzzy blankets, and all the good soft things you had ever touched in your life, like an oasis of calm and patience. 

It wasn’t the sort of traditional ‘check’ monsters were famous for, but it was the best you could do, and you preferred it this way. Children could see more, but you liked feeling the truth in someone’s magic. 

“That’s it for me,” you sighed, pulling your magic back and ending your turn. When it came back around to you the memory would be ready and hopefully so would Stretch. 

Stretch didn’t say anything but you felt the familiar sensation of someone checking your stats. Any old monster that touched a human could read those, but with an official encounter details were more clear-or at least that’s what you had been told. 

Last night Papyrus had said your status had changed. What did Stretch see that made him grin and end his turn?

You held the memory like a little silver box, darker around the corners, and fragile enough to pop open once it was dropped. If Stretch didn’t want it he could refuse it, but you sent it off with your magic and like most of the things in his life, Stretch didn’t fight it. 

You saw the memory too, impossibly long and details in a single second. 

You had been small things that fought like cats and dogs but always ended every day with love. Then you had been picked up and some of the edges blurred to focus on you and your brother, how much of an utter nerd he had been about his comic books and his action figures and his anime and his video games and all the things he dragged you through… you teased him for it but stayed up watching his shows even when he turned his nose up at your magical girl series. 

When you got older there were fractures as you argued over silly things and friends who didn’t like friends, but you always ended the day with love. Even when he and another girl got close enough to make promise, you knew it wasn’t your place to interfere so you didn’t. 

And then the monsters surfaced….

And then there was screaming and tears and curses between you. You had betrayed him. You were going to get yourself killed and no one would care because he told you so because he knew you better. And in all fairness you had been harsh with him too. But neither of you backed down, and then you left and he told you he never wanted to see you again, to not come back to him until you had changed your mind.

And the day didn’t end with love or affection, and neither did the memory.  

When it turns back to Stretch he spares you and in mercy you both take a half step back. 

“That…was a trip ,” Stretch chuckled. “It’d be easy to fall into some easy assumptions, but mind if I still ask ya some questions?”

You reached for the railing and sagged against it, noting how the staff at the counter were trying to hide their wandering curiosity. Encounters in public were pretty rare and some humans still got antsy about them, even the flirty ones. (Kids were better about it, but the older generations still hadn’t been won over.) 

“Shoot, cowboy.” 

Your pun made him chuckle. 

“How do you feel about it now?”

“About meeting up with him again?” 

Absently you used your magic to see how close or far you were from your brother. Raven’s dot was only a handful of blocks away while the other ex-embassy kids were closer, but still far enough away from Raven.  

When Stretch only hummed in affirmation you took a breath and grappled the words from your heart into submission. “I’m super nervous and a little bummed out that it’s going to go down like this. I had been hoping things might fix after the peace stuck and people adapted. But that didn’t happen and now he’s a legit threat to all monster kind and on top of that all what I’m really worried about is you guys getting hurt.” Stretch laughed, and it made you turn your head and glare. “What’s so funny?”

“No, I know you’re worried about us, but I thought that was, pff , that was funny. It’s not worth your concern.” 

“Yeah it is you jerk. Don’t be a bonehead. I could kick your ass if I wanted to and if they’re as fit as they once were they can do some damage too.”

“Oh, I’m sure, but you have a lot of other things you could be worrying about and that…that’s still your chief concern?” He reaches out and grabs your nearest elbow to gently cradle. It’s a comforting touch that makes your irritation deflate completely. “We’ll be fine, hon.” 

You almost answered him but a dash of red and white down below drew your eye, followed by something blue. You turned around and looked over the railing to see Blueberry and Papyrus jogging together up the path back to the hotel, looking just as energetic and eager as always. Stretch followed the direction of your gaze and chuckled when he recognized his brother. 

“The others must be waking up. Think we should head down to the main cafe or wait here?” you asked. 

“I can always send a text. Let’s order something and eat it up here. You like mimosas, don’t you?”

“Stretch, it’s not even,” you check the nearest clock and squint to read it’s arms stretched across a roman numeral face, “eight in the morning. That’s too early to be drinking.”

“But we should make mimosa this opportunity, we can get Fizzical with our enemies later.”

You laugh and groan at the same time, pushing him away to approach the bar and order some orange juice and a handful of different scones to munch on before asking for anything heavier. (That encounter had left you famished).

Stretch sent off a text to his brother who told Papyrus who told Sans and Red, who in turn dragged Edge up out of the indoor gym he had been using since before sunrise. 

Once you were all assembled on the roof with a couple of tables pulled together you ordered some heavier food, charged it all to the card, and went over some more last minute specifics. 

You were all checked out and on the move less than an hour later and making excellent time if what showed up on your map was anything to go by. Raven was alone, or at least not with any of the other ex-embassy kids, and from the looks of it, none of them would be able to reach him before your bus. Every five minutes you had your map up, checking it habitually until you were outside the parking lot to an old, run down looking arcade and pizzeria, the kind that eight year old boys would cry and demand to have their parties at. 

“This…” Sans said, jaw a little slack and voice a little faded. “Eh, its slice looking at yeast , don’t you think?” 

Cheesus crust , it looks like a deathtrap with lights,” Stretch interjected in perfect monotone. 

You reached back and gently pushed on the side of Stretch’s skull, making the rest of his body follow halfway out of his seat. “Cool it with the cheesy puns you dorks. I’m going head on in first. You guys remember to-”

“Keep watch for our marks, we got it!” Blue interrupted. 

The plan had been for each pair of brothers to keep watch outside for a specific target. They wouldn’t move until they saw that person least they let said person come up behind them in a ‘ disastrously disadvantages flanking maneuver. ’ 

You spare them all one last look, but turn to head out before you can change your mind. You were closer now than before and you didn’t know when an opportunity like this would come up. Raven was too slippery with his ability to travel across space and time like all the other shortcutting skeletons. Yeah he couldn’t use his ability over super long distances and it took longer to cast with more limits, but it was just one more thing he could do that you couldn’t. 

You let yourself in, unsurprised by how barren and quiet the pizza themed arcade was. A couple of games blinked and whistled with different sound effects from the back and you followed the noises deeper in. 

You saw his back first.

He was playing Tekken7 on two player mode with no one. His character advanced across the screen and danced in a swirl of color before drop kicking the idle opponent. Making a noise of displeasure, you reached for the joystick and clicked the red and blue buttons to make the fighter, Nina, kick and fight back. 

“Dipweed,” you hiss under your breath, abusing your buttons.

“Skank.”

“Bastard.” 

“Shitforface.” 

“Turn around, you’re looking in a mirror, moron.” 

“No, that was just the glare from your oily ass forehead you-ugh, asshole!” 

On the screen his character went down and you didn’t wait for Jin to climb back up, but abused your ability to spam him with stomp attacks until his health was in the danger zone. That’s when Raven physically shoved you and recovered his character. You shoved him back, interrupting his attack and that finished him off.

“You cheated!”

“You lost, hah, that’s worse.” 

Raven curled his lip but pushed the Player 2 button and reset the game, all without turning to look your way. The second time around you chose different fighters and went into it. It was the third round out of five when you finally spoke up with a voice lacking the bravado from before.

“What the hell man, what are you doing?”

“Currently, kicking your ass as Paul Phoenix.” 

“You know what I mean,” you sighed, turning your character around to finish off her combo and win the third round. The fourth round came up and Raven went into it, fighting less aggressively and landing cleaner hits until the victory was his. On the last round you were nearly finished with mirrored red health bars before he said anything.

“I wasn’t surprised to see you show up. If they had planned on sending someone-ugh, it would have to be you.”

“Why’s that?” you asked, eyes still focused on the screen.

Raven delivered a stellar combo you didn’t bother to interrupt and that clenched the final round for him. The screen went back to load a preview while the centermost section flashed with a plea for coins to play. 

You turned to face your brother, noticing the modest stack of qusrters left beside his far hand. He stepped away from the game and left his coins there. 

“The pizza here sucks but the vending machine candy is still good.” Raven moved his hands into his pocket and turned away from you, walking towards the back where a couple of different machines sold candy. You followed him there and he bought a handful of different bars with a ten dollar bill. Out of all the candy he handed you one box and kept the rest in his arms before nodding to a nearby table. “Let’s sit.” 

You followed him over before tearing into your box of chocolates. He ate a little slower, but slapped at your hand fast enough to keep you from stealing the rest of his stash.

“Stingy miser.” 

Raven scoffed. “You don’t think I know you enough to know you have one of those fancy executive credit cards without a limit? I bet you were charging that thing everywhere for the Embassy.”

“They have more than enough money and they took enough from me so it’s fair compensation. Might as well abuse it for as long as I can,” you say. 

“That’s disappointing. I thought you would be a little more bitter. Didn’t you hate their guts?” Raven scoffed. “He said you were working for them but I didn’t want to believe it. Yet here you are, in the flesh. Tell me, how did they do it?” 

“Do what?”  

“Make you their bitch.” Raven bit hard into his KitKat bar, ignoring the indents and breaks he was supposed to fold back. His eyes were hard and you could see the dark smudges that betrayed the illusion of young health. 

“They dropped you name, and that’s all that mattered, but get this straight at least, I’m only here because I want to be and I’m on nobody’s leash.”

“Says the skank rolling in stolen money?” 

You roll youe eyes and flip him off. “So I make a few withdraws from their debit, it ain’t stolen and it ain’t the reason I’m here, wax-for-brains. I just told you why.”

It was Raven’s turn to roll his eyes. “Oh yeah, because you care about me?” 

“Of course I would.” 

“What about those monsters you’ve been hanging around, or the ones you worked with? You care about any of them too? I bet you helped them in need.” 

“Yeah, if a monster needed help I’d help them, but that’s because I’m a decent fucking person, not because I hate you. Grow up.”

Raven finished off his KitKat and reached for something else. “You haven’t changed. You’re still as bull headed as ever. So what, is this the part where you drag me back and make me undo all the bad things I’ve done?”

“I’m not going to make you undo anything.Those guys don’t want it and I’ll honor their wishes even if they change.” 

Raven scoffed and then bent his head over his candy. You watched as another long strand of ash white hair fell free from behind his ear. It was longer and lacked the color of his youth, almost as if he had aged to-

You cut your own thoughts short.

“Have you only been eating this crap?” You snapped, grabbing for the third candy bar before he could reach it. When he tried to swipe it back you held it over your head, out of his reach. “What about proper meals? When was the last time you ate something green that wasn’t a jellybean?” 

“Lay off old lady.”

“We’re the same age.” 

“You don’t get to tell me what to do-ever! You walked out on me and all of us, on everything, and you didn’t even look back.” Raven abandoned his attempts to reclaim the chocolate bar and fell back into his seat, sulking with darker eyes. “And you left me for the monsters of all things. A lifetime of training and for what? Like you never cared.” 

“That’s not fair and you know it. You’re just bitter.” You tore apart the wrapper with your teeth and then passed the bar back to him. “What you’re doing right now is wrong and it’s going to end up getting people hurt. I know you want to be a good person and be a hero, but this isn’t it.” 

“And you’re the authority on heroes now?” 

“I’m not a hero, I’m just trying to be one.”

For a brief moment in time Raven’s expression crumpled and pinched all at once. You could see the conflict written across his face. The boy who dreamed of one day being his own sort of superman was still at war with the boy made in the image of rage and violence. He had been crafted by cruel hands and brought up for far worse horrors the world would never see. 

He wanted to be good, he just-

Your head screamed as a sound like nails across a chalkboard broke in. It made you reach for the table and brace if only to keep the room from swimming. But Raven looked up and frowned, recognizing something behind you with casual irritation.

I   t h o u g h t  w e t o l d y o u   n o t t o d e v I a t e  f r o m o u r p l a n s .”

“It wasn’t a deviation. I was just talking. You were here, she wasn’t going to nab me.”

Y o u  a r e f u l l  o f h u b r i s,  c h i l d . S h e w o u l d   b e a t h u m i l i t y i n t o  y o u i f I l e t h e r , b u t … .”

You slid off the table and out of your chair, feeling cold and hot all over as your brain burns from something it can’t comprehend. Your vision blurs and you panic, bringing up the map screen and zooming in on the room you’re in. You see your dot. You see Raven’s dot. Right behind you is a dot with a name. The name isn’t written with words though. The symbols aren’t ones you recognize and the longer you stare at them the more frantic they seem. 

Something touched your shoulder and turned you around and you scrambled backwards on your hands until your back was up against the Skee-Ball arcade game. You cancel out the map and force your right eye to focus, because the other one wasn’t working. 

Someone stood in front of you, and they reeked of magic. Your mouth felt like it was exploding with tang as danger and warning filled your blood and marrow. An enemy you hadn’t anticipated stood over you, tall and disjointed. They pulled back enough and you were able to focus enough to see what they were.

Another monster with a pale skull and dead sockets lit with gray light. 

The name settled into your brain as did his language.

The image sharpened. 

You were looking at another skeleton, but behind him you saw Raven still at the table, watching with a nervous expression. Raven’s lips moved but you couldn’t hear his words. But it looked like he formed the words ‘her’ ‘we’ ‘this’ and many others you couldn’t understand. 

N o, we’ve  i n d u l g e d  their v o y e u r i s m  long e n o u g h. N o w i t i s t i m e . ” The monster spoke and his voice still rang like a gong and a whistle in your head. It was more magic than any of the other boys were used to using their voice and you had an inkling of an idea why.

You had heard those words before.

Somewhere. 

“Winn, don’t!” 

 Oh, so those symbols meant Winn . This skeleton’s name was Winn. Did that mean he was a Sans or Papyrus or-

His hands had holes in them and one of-

!!!

The skeleton’s fingers dug into your socket almost gently, but not gently enough to miss the edges of your false eye-the one that never glowed with any magic. He tugged once and when it didn’t give he pulled back and used his strength, ripping free the entire device and all the loose tendril-like bits that had once worked so well with your brain. 

 

You screamed.  

 

 

Notes:

So yeah, there we go, a few reveals (FourB/Raven is really reader's brother), those other operatives never showed up, but another skeleton(?) looking monster did. His nickname isn't going to make sense until later on, though I'm sure I'm not as clever as I think and someone is going to figure out what his nickname is for early on. Also, reader knows how to read Hands...sorta.

This chapter was sorta hard to write/revise but also one of my favorites because of what it sets off and how it fleshes the reader out? There's a lot longer to go and more skeletons to meet-not al of them start out as friends.

Huge apologies to anyone going into this and wanting a very blank reader insert character, but the deeper into this the more trauma/history gets uncovered that ties into the plot. I had fun crafting and writing this story and I like it for what it is so I hope you do too.

Chapter 19: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 8

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You scream something unholy and raw and everything that’s in you goes into that sound. 

It’s not just your bleeding, empty eye socket, but it's also the heat in your brain as suddenly there is a vacuum of data from one half of the visual supply. Your brain, already rattled by the voice from the void, is rattled enough for everything to blink out. 

And you’re back there.

In the dark that’s darker than dark.

A place where light always dies.

And you panic. 

You pull at the magic and it flares up around you, you know your hands are black and charred while the fire leaks out from your wound. It whips around the side of your face manifesting as a wild flame you can’t see. 

You hear the shuffle and movement but nothing makes sense as you cover your face with your burned hands and bite into the fabric of your pullover hoodie to stifle the scream. They’re still nearby but you’re in too much pain and too disoriented to make any sense of it. 

You think you hear yourself cursing but you’re not sure. 

And you may be disoriented and sick to your stomach with a headache that’s only going to get worse once the shock fades, but you’re still you . So you pull up the map and see it in your mind’s frazzled eye, and just like a hallucination it’s crystal clear, showing several Sans and Papyrus moving dots, one for Raven, and the last for the mysterious Winn-a monster who wasn’t a monster- who’s name was written in symbols you didn’t know how you understood. They were still the closest ones to you, with Winn nearly on top of you.

You spew fire from your mouth, smelling burnt meat as it flared in front of your face, wider than it was farther. The dot for Winn flashed and you knew you had hit him when he staggered back. Still blind, you climbed to your feet only to pitch and fall, your equilibrium shot. 

You'd be damed if you didn't go down swinging though.

“Shit!” Raven exclaimed as his dot reached Winn. “That wasn’t our plan, he- Fuck , no. Don’t do it. You got what you wanted. She’s clean, she’s clean, so leave her be!”

The other dots were drawing closer, Sans bouncing around as he could only shortcut to places he had already been. 

H e l l i s h  s p i t f i r e n e v e r  d i d l i k e  y o u .” 

You watched as Raven’s dot overlapped Winn’s and then winked out, going off map. The shockwave of his spacetime magic making your mouth pucker with lemon tang. 

Your head was the inside of a gong, rung one too many times and still echoing. Winn’s last comment had been saturated in even more magic than before, making you want to hurl.

The fire in you socket extinguished but your magic still crackled under your skin and you rolled onto your side, pulling your knees up to your chest as the dots closed in.

And that’s all you could do.

You let the rest of the world go back to black. 

 

 

SevenA Lv1 XXXX:XX



Continue                Reset



[are you sure]

 

 

?

 

 

You get the notification in the middle of the night and wake up to read the scrawling message across your old pager. You half thought it was a dream, the way the archaic technology buzzed to life the first time in four…five years? 

You’ve been summoned. 

The dark persists endlessly above you but New Ebott never sleeps and that’s reflected in the dozens of neon signs and city lights that color the storefronts as you make your way across the vibrant district. 

The Embassy stands devoid of color, tall, stark, and white with greek column that stretch up for more than just two stories and doors tall enough for even the tallest of monsters to get through without issue. But that’s just the front. The back of the building is devoid of marble and official seals and guided banisters. The back of the building is all glass and metal. 

You take the elevator and punch in the number of the floor you need to get to, watching the world as your glass box ascends. A dozen different nocturnal bodies drift through the streets and you can tell most of the time which ones are humans and which ones are monsters. 

The television from the Embassy continues to play behind your head as the elevators continues to rise. 

On this five year anniversary of the Mt. Ebott barrier collapse several noteworthy celebrities have shown up in attendance to show support and share in the love for our favorite new neighbors… ’    

You can see the reflection in the glass from the television as different photos slide across the screen from last spring’s celebration. You recognize some of the faces including the monster ambassadors and the ten year old human spokesperson. 

Your mouth tingles and it’s all sour and sharp so you dig in your pockets for something sweet to suck on. Suckers, mints, honey sticks, jawbreakers… 

More than five years since the barrier came down, that meant it had been four years since you were last here, four years since they last needed you. 

Funny how you never expected to hear back from your old boss. You figured after his business went dark he would pretend it never happened and canoodle with the monsters like the rest of the world. 

A ding sounds and you turn to look as the doors stop a floor earlier and opens for someone else. Raven steps into the lift and sighs, the way you were used to seeing him sigh after something especially disappointing. His eyes are wet and glassy enough to see yourself reflected there.

Your reflection paints a different picture, one of your bruised and bleeding and hurt. Your left eye is bleeding and empty, the entire ocular orb and connecting tendrils having been removed.

Someone stands behind Raven, a monster with a human soul. His bloody hand is holding your old eye but it’s crushed and useless, falling to the floor and turning to ash before it can impact. 

“These can’t happen anymore. For better or worse, it’s what we make of it now,” you say and push Raven out. 

You find the wooden end of a packaged rock candy and rip the plastic off. The sugar helps ground you and you lean back, resting your shoulders against the glass and wait for the rest of the trip to finish. 

The lights go out. 

You close your eyes and there is no difference. 

 

 

 

SevenA Lv1 XXXX:XX



Continue                Reset



[are you sure]

 

 

?

 

 

 

[yes]

 

 

 

It’s warm. 

You’re not in your best shape, you can tell that before you even finish waking up. The specifics aren’t clear to you, but you can tell there’s a lot messed up with your brain. It still feels like someone took a cleaver to it and left it cracked open under a dozen different church bells all set to ringing. 

You didn’t want to move, you felt barely held together, but there’s something warm around you and something else hovering over you.

Something with green magic? 

No, someone .

You try to open your eye and it hurts too much. You hiss in pain and curl up, grabbing at the blankets around your like that will help you escape the pain. The blankets move and you’re cocooned. 

You can’t make sense of the noises. You think they’re voices. You can’t be sure.   

All you can do is curl up into the warmth and hold yourself together. Eventually your brain will calm down-probably-hopefully?-and you’ll be able to open your one good eye and see what’s going on around you. 

But before then you just try to listen and make sense out of all the uneven sounds and noises. They’re growing clearer. The static is rain. There’s rain outside. The sounds are voices, devoid of magic- thankthestars !- and they’re going back and forth over your head. 

 About you.

The blankets around you shift, ever so slightly, and you turn your head down, covering your face with your hand, but still listening. 

“Try it again.”

“I did, ’ Blue whines, sounding frantic as his voice pitches high. Two other voices shush him harshly when you flinch. “-but she’s already at max, we can’t get her to go above her max HP if her HP limit is different .”

“Trust me, he’s trying.” 

The third voice…Stretch?

“Please,” a fourth voice, closer than all the others, sending vibrations through the blankets you curled into, pleaded softly. “I think she’s waking this time.” 

“Is that…a good thing? She said not to take her to a hospital but-”

Had you said that? It felt right. Going to an unvetted hospital might have resulted in more issues than you were willing to deal with. Questions you weren’t prepared to answer. Besides…this was an old injury and you had already disinfected it with trailing fire. There was nothing more to be done. You didn’t need the help. Your migraine was dulling too. 

But

If you went to a hospital Hightower would know.

 ...we’ve indulged their v o y e r i s m  long e n o u g h

“That’s a load of shit, we’re nearly close enough ta see one and vanilla bean can just pop her over to-”

“No void magic, we talked about this. It’s unstable now, at least around her.”

“But a hospital-”

“No.”  

The chatter stopped at the sound of your voice. Keeping your good eye shut you made an effort to push up off the bed-couch-mattress? And sit up. It was disorienting, not being able to feel gravity pulling you one way while your equilibrium still struggled to balance out. Someone put their arms under you and you felt them pull you up and backwards until you were leaning against their chest. 

You inhaled enough to fill your lungs and then exhaled with your whole body. You figured you were leaning up against Papyrus based on the fact that Stretch wore a hoodie-not body armor-and Edge’s jacket was unmistakable by smell alone. 

“Sweetheart, how are ya’ feeling?” Red asked from somewhere nearby. “You said no hospital but we’re real close.” 

“It won’t be necessary, I’m just tired. I need to rest. Can…someone tell me what happened?”

“We were hoping you could fill us in, doll face,” Red sighed. 

“But on our end,” Sans interjected, “we held back as planned and waited until there was someone new on the property. None of us moved in but we could feel his magic. It warped the space around the arcade so it was like running up a down conveyor belt and none of us could shortcut in.”

“Which was a real bad sign,” Stretch interjected. You sniffed and could smell the lingering scent of tobacco and smoke in his direction.    

“But then we could feel you and how your magic was all flaring up like crazy, babe, and it snapped reality back or something-”

“No,” Edge cut off his brother, speaking up for the first time. “Before that, we heard you scream.”

Like magic, the environment went tense. You could feel their nervous shuffles and uncomfortable fidgets. You wish you could see their faces, but you didn’t want to risk it with your only good eye so soon. Your hand was still over the empty burned out socket, hiding it from sight. 

You imagined you were quite the grizzly sight

Ehhhh , probably no worse than Thor at the end of Ragnarok and plenty of people still wanted to sleep with him.’

After that,” you rasped, still smelling burnt steak on your breath. 

Sans spoke. “After we…heard you, we rushed in and I saw it, so did Blue and…Red? Yeah, Stretch just missed it but we saw this guy with FourB and then he was gone, the two of them winking out. You were on the floor clutching your eye but you fell unconscious as soon as we reached you and then we pulled you back here. I tried to shortcut you into the bus-”

“That didn’t work,” Red cut in. 

“Space didn’t want to be folded so we did it the old fashioned way,” Sans grumbled. 

“You woke up once, long enough to tell us ‘no hospital’ and then you were out like a light, sweetheart. Don’t know if ya remembered that bit or not,” Red finished. 

“What happened?” Blue asked, speaking up for the first time in a while. His voice sounded so thin, not like him at all. It had been like that when he snapped at the others about how hard it was for him to heal you. 

“It…went according to plan. I found Raven and we…we got candy and sat down and talked. He didn’t try to run away once. We were talking and then from behind me I felt this presence in my head and it was enough to knock me to the ground. It was really strong.” You feel the pull to disassociate and it’s a temptation you have to set your heels against and resist with an effort no one would ever understand or know. 

“And?” Sans prodded.

“This person came up behind me with way more magic than anyone I’ve ever encountered. It was really cold and made my head split whenever he talked. I could barely listen to it. He said something to Raven about…” 

-indulged their v o y e r i s m  long e n o u g h

Something must have shown on your face or someone saw it in your stats because Blue reached for you, climbing over Papyrus’ long legs to kneel in front of you and rest his hands, glowing with green magic, against the sides of your neck. Low on your back you could feel Papyrus do the same. Your soul wasn’t injured and green magic wouldn’t do anything, but it made you feel a little less broken and a bit more put together. 

“Thanks,” you whispered, letting your head lull between Blueberry’s arms. 

Papyrus’ gloved hands ran up and down your spine, tracing a pattern across your back that helped soothe your further. 

“Well, yeah, there was this person Raven called him Winn, but when I saw his dot on the map his name was written in a symbolic language. He removed my false eye saying something about no more spies and then he destroyed it. It’s a little fuzzy after that since I sorta freaked and attacked him blind. Then they left.”

Someone reached for your hand, the one covering your ruined socket and you flinched away. Blue made a sound and Papyrus pulled you closer to his chest, arms winding around you in a reassuring hug. 

“Does it still hurt?” Papyrus worried.

“N-no, it was an old injury. I lost my eye when I was much younger. The implant was from the Embassy and it-shit-I think they did something to it so they could keep an eye on me and that’s why they knew about it and made a point to remove it. There was enough hardware in it to hide something else like a listening bug.”

“I’m sure there were better ways they could have gone about it,” Red scoffed, sounding angry and mean before muttering under his breath. “The shortassmotherfucker.”

Yeah, no, that creep was shady as all get out but like, I never saw him coming and he could have done a lot worse with me in that position. I don’t think Raven’s intentions are so straightforward anymore. I-I think there’s something else to this that the Embassy has been withholding.”

“I’m sure there’s tons they’re holding out on everybody, but is that enough reason to feel so peachy about a spook hurting you like that? Even if it was a fake he plucked out, we all heard that scream. It wasn’t no picnic for you, sweetheart.”  

It hurt a lot more the first time you lost it, but you don’t mention that out loud. 

“That’s only because it was so integrated. Him forcibly pulling it out like that on top of all the nausea from his voice and power just made it worse. Sorry for scaring you.”

Stretch was the one that cursed but Blue quipped back before anyone else. “Don’t be apologizing for something like that! Tha-that’s the last thing you should be apologizing for. It’s not like you wanted to freak us out or experience something like that.”

“One of us should have been in there with you,” Stretch added. 

“It wouldn’t have mattered.”

“Still,” Stretch trailed off. 

“Raven wouldn’t have talked to me if he knew you were so near. Apart from that unexpected element in the equation, it would have all worked out I think. I just…I never saw him coming. Even when he was right on top of me it was hard to see him on the map.” 

“But you did see him?” Sans asked. “Could you…couldn’t you describe him to us? He was a human or was he a monster?” 

You hated the memory, but with your eyes closed it came back so easily. You remembered his pale face, skeletal and cold. His eyes were empty voids apart from a pinprick of gray light in each. “He was a monster, but I don’t know how a monster could have that much magic or a soul with so much pressure to it. It was like a human’s.”

“And he looked like…?” Red prodded.

An enemy you hadn’t anticipated stood over you, tall and disjointed.

Another monster with a pale skull and dead sockets lit with gray light-

-his hands had holes in them!

“…indulged their v o y e r i s m  long e n o u g h…”

You inhaled purposefully and found the words.

“He wasn’t a version of any of you from another reality, but he was a skeleton. I can’t tell you much more than that, I didn’t get a very clear picture.” 

Even in your memory he was a figure that you couldn’t focus on. Like his words and like his magic he was just a bit more than what your brain could handle and you weren’t a fan of pushing past your limits so soon after passing out.

“How long was I out for?” 

“Not even an hour,” Sans answered for you.

Red growled softly and you heard him shuffle closer. “You sure you don’t need ta see a doctor about that? You said you’re fine but it don’t look fine.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it was worse the first time around, but I should probably get up and treat it.” You braced to get up but hesitated to turn back, angling your face up even if you couldn’t see him, to speak to Papyrus. “Thank you for taking care of me. I felt safe. And for the healing magic too. I appreciate it, from both of you,” you said, turned to where you last heard Blue. He might have moved since last time, but you doubted it.

“It wasn’t much, but you’re always welcome,” Papyrus answered in a voice that lacked it’s usual vigor.  You don’t doubt he’s rattled, but that’s to be expected after everything went to shit on the fan.

“We wish we could do more,”Blue chimed in.

“Could you help me find the bathroom?” 

Papyrus moved around you and grabbed for you again, lifting you up and placing you down on the ground where Blue grabbed your arms and slipped one across his shoulders as he guided you out and into the bathroom. He sat you down on the edge of the toilet and before you could even ask for it, he had pulled out the first aid kit and popped it open. In the room next door you could hear the boys arguing, but they weren’t loud enough to make out.

“I might need your help with some other things,” you admitted before Blue could excuse himself. “Just, um, I wanna see if I can ...if I can open my other eye or if I need to bandage them both up for a while.”

“Both?” Blue echoed in quiet horror. “Why? What’s wrong with the other one?”

“I just need a rest and it’ll all recover, but the other eye was connected quite ...extensively. With it gone my brain is sort of mushy and using my one good eye is just a little too much for it to process right now. Could you…?” you let your question hang unfinished between you as you raise up your arm in a gesture seeking support. 

Blue didn’t hesitate long, if at all. “Ready?” he whispered, sounding strong in spite of his worry.

“I got it,” you whispered back.

 You felt his touch as he moved back under your arm, ready to support you as you braced on the sink’s counter and made the effort to open your one good eye. 

You saw yourself for a brief moment and then everything felt like a scream as the image stretched and scrambled too bad to make sense out of. You nearly fell again from the disorientation but Blue was already under your arm, supporting you.

“Well, that answers that,” you weakly laugh. “I guess I’ll need those bandages after all. Would you… mind?” 

“Of course not,” he answered softly in a voice that wasn’t a whisper anymore, but no less thin. It sounded so unlike him that you almost doubted it was really Blue with you in the room if not for the feel of his arms supporting you. Who else could hold you like Blue could?

Blue  helped you with the roll, padding the gauze over your ruined socket even though the fire had cleaned it out and burned off what could end up bleeding. He wrapped it like a blindfold over both your eye sockets, twice and then a third time before taking the clasp and pinning it in place. You pulled you hair out and poked at the bandages but couldn’t find a fault in the treatment. 

“You think you’re okay now?” Blue asked from just over your shoulder, likely watching you in the mirror.

“I have a headache and I’m tired enough to sleep for days, but I’ll recover with food, sleep, and time. You sound worried but don’t be. I’ve gotten out of worse scrapes than this.” 

“Tha-that doesn’t make me feel good!” he exclaimed, almost loud enough to make you think he was crying. “I heard you scream and there was blood too. I-you’re a human and you’re made out of all these soft bits that can get hurt so easy. It was so fast and I didn’t do anything.” 

“You can’t blame yourself for that. It was too fast for me too and I was there,” you chuckled, trying to keep the mood light. You didn’t like the way Blue’s voice came out sounding so strangled and thin. “At least I was able to walk away this time.”

 “Your Max HP even went down and there was nothing Papyrus or Edge or I could do to fix it cause it was your max! That just means if you get hurt again,  it-it-your soul can’t endure as much as before.”

Humor wasn’t working. You reached back and felt for Blue, grabbing onto his arm and then his shoulder. He didn’t protest but he did make a sound of surprise when you pulled him close and wrapped your arms around his shoulders and bent your head against his neck.

 He started to shiver and you held him as he cried, grabbing you so fiercely you were afraid he was going to accidentally drag you into an encounter, but it was just another hug. Magic made his tears wet on your shoulder but you didn’t mind. 

Stretch and Blue came from a timeline before a human hero came down to visit. All the other humans had been before their time. This was probably the first time Blue had seen a human hurt. He was kind and patient and mature with other things, but there were still plenty of experiences that were new to him, as well as experiences he would have to grow and learn from. Had your human blood been the first he’s ever seen? 

“I wish this didn’t have to happen, but I’m so grateful you were there for me after it. You and Papyrus really helped me get over something painful, and having everyone else here in the bus made me feel safe. Thank you, Blue,” you whisper against his skull. 

“It wasn’t worth it. This job, you never even signed the contract for it so you shouldn’t even be out here. If you’re going to suffer like this I-I want to go back to New Ebott with you.” He pulled back just enough to squeeze an arm between you both and rubbed at his face, presumably because there were tears there. “We don’t have to stay at the Embassy but somewhere you won’t get hurt like an apartment or something. I could get some work and Stretch could find some odd jobs to keep busy with.” 

“Blue.” At the sound of his name he inhaled sharply, sucking in the air over his teeth. “I promise you that you’ll see a day like that, but I can’t stop now. There are still things I need to do and that’s got nothing to do with some stupid contract.”

“You’re hurt, you can’t do anything now!”

“I’ll be fine in a week or two, maybe even a few days, but I can’t stop now, even if it’s scary.”

“Why? Can’t you just leave it to someone else? What’s so important that you would wanna risk going up against that monster again?”

“Well, for starters, I found another Sans and Papyrus on the map that we probably need to get to.”   

Notes:

So which was a better cliffhanger, this chapter or the last one? I can't wait to hear what you guys think about the newest set of brothers. Who will it be? Who do you think it should be, and who do you want?

Red is the most mother hen of all the boys and Blue wants to elope. Reader's max HP took a dip too. Ouch.

Also in today's news, it's my birthday, so I'm going to be off for the rest of the day running around like a little Mario man trying to score as many freebies as I can before the day is over. #AdultLife (Don't get old or grow up kids, it's a trap.)

Chapter 20: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 9

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Getting around without eyesight was a lot easier on a bus as cramped and packed as the one you were in. There had been a small argument before the boys all agreed that the large bed in the back should be reserved for you, at least for the first few nights. You were determined to argue your way back to drawing sticks because it didn’t feel fair to take the best bed just because you couldn’t see. 

It was a temporary injury.

You’d get better. 

Eventually.

If boredom didn’t kill you first. 

Your bus had pulled over and parked next to a greenway just off the road. It was close enough to some sort of eating establishment that sold food with a scent strong enough to be carried on the wind. You were way more sensitive to smells now, it seemed.

“Food sound good to you, honey?” 

Stretch was eerily silent as he came up alongside you. You sensed his magic or felt his presence before you heard him. The only other one who was even remotely as quiet was Sans. You suspected Red could be quiet...but it was harder for him and not worth the effort. 

“I am always willing to eat,” you answered with an easy smile. “Do you think they do take out?” 

“Considering it is a drive through, I’m sure they do.”  

You paused, holding your breath to listen better, noticing the sound of cars idling in place, one after the other. That must be the drive-through Stretch mentioned. 

“What ya want, sweetheart? Me and baby Blue over ‘ere can get it for you?” Red asked standing close enough to cup the underside of your elbow and let you know he was there. 

“I can’t go with you?” 

“It’s faster this way,” Stretch explained, sounding like he wasn’t hiding anything even if you knew better. There was something behind his words, a double meaning you weren’t getting. He didn’t lie but he didn’t share the whole truth either. That’s just the way he was. 

“How will you know what to get for me then?” 

“Lemme guess, sweetheart, if they got it, triple patty, if they don’t, double decker burger and fries,” Red laughed. “It’s take out, how much fancier can they get?” 

“Anything with meat on it, we got it,” Stretch chuckled. 

“I like plenty of other foods too,” you huffed. “I just need the carbs to feed my magic.”

“Monster food would work just as well for that,” said Stretch. 

“Yeah, but we didn’t have monster food growing up. This is what I’m used to.”

“You got it,” Red laughed, squeezing your elbow again. “Anything for you babe. Just don’t forget to tip the delivery guy.”

You felt the fission as a void opened up beside you and the pressure on your elbow was gone, along with Red. You turned, trying to sense him in the distance, but without using your magic to pull up a mental map, your senses weren’t strong enough to travel that far.

“You doing okay hun?” Stretch tentatively called, sounding softer and quieter than before. There must have been something on your face to make him worry. 

Since the accident they had all been a bit more hesitant and quiet around you. You appreciated how they were trying to accommodate your temporary disability, but it wasn’t as big of a deal as they made it out to be. You were fine

“Can you tell me what it looks like?”

“The outside?”

You nodded. “I can use my map magic to see boundaries and people, but there isn’t any detail to it and I can’t…get too close.” You waved your hand out towards the wide open field next to the road you were standing in front of. “I know that space is big and open, but what does it look like?” 

“It’s filled with a ton of grass, the green kind.”

“Pff, okay, but what else? How tall is it? How soft does it look? Is it thick or thin or what about flowers? I know you’re more observant than that.”

You heard him sigh beside you before grabbing for your hand to tug up. The other boney hand slipped behind you to rest on your hip and guide you as you walked with him, down a slight slope, over a dip, and into the field. You could feel the grasses he described tickling you through your leggings. You reached down to grab some and rub it between your fingers. 

“What that feel like?” Stretch asked, sounding amused if his tone of voice was anything to go by. 

“Tickles a little.”

“Oh?” 

You heard a stalk snap and then something was brushing up against your face, making you startle and squeak in surprise. He traced the curve of your face with the fuzzy end of the grass stalk and you struggled out of his reach with little success. He only tugged you closer, his hand on your hip unyielding. 

“Sta-stap-stop!” you laughed as the fuzz ticked behind your ear and down your neck. To get away from it you turned in towards him and reached back with your free hand to crush the grass  and throw it onto the ground. So close you could feel his laughs as well as hear them. The fabric of his hoodie still smelled like faded cigarette smoke and tobacco even though you knew he hadn’t been smoking in a while. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell. You usually liked the way things smelled that had been on fire.  

“Don’t mind me as I take advantage of an opportunity.”

“You would take advantage of a poor, defenseless blind person?”

“You’re not defenseless and you’ll be fine in a week or so, said so yourself.”

“What if I had been lying?”

“You weren’t. I can tell when you lie.” 

“Pff, you wish. Don’t act so full of yourself, mister.” You slapped him playfully on the chest and that only made him chuckle again. “Don’t distract me. I’m trying to figure out my surroundings.” 

“You feel any of those flowers yet?” 

“No. What do they look like?” you asked while reaching out to run your hands through the grass, feeling for flowering weeds. He guided your hand until you felt something soft. “What color are they?” 

“These are purple. I can see some others that are yellow and white. The white ones are fluffy and almost see through.”

“Oh, those are dandelions. You blow their seeds off and make a wish. It’s a human superstition,” you explained.

“What do you wish for?”

His question made you shrug. “Whatever you want? New shoes, a toy, someone to have a crush on you, anything you can think of. It’s just a superstition and it doesn’t do anything serious but it’s fun to wish and dream, isn’t it?” 

Stretch reached over you and pulled something out of the grass. You heard the snap of the stem and waited while Stretch straightened. Beside you he breathed deep and then blew. Some of the seeds hit the side of your face but the majority scattered elsewhere. 

“What did you wish for?” 

“Isn’t there a rule with wishes about not blabbing about them before they come true?”

“That’s only on wishes from birthday cake candles.”

“Oh well in that case I’ll still just keep it to myself.” 

You would have rolled your eyes if you could, but by the sound of his chuckles he seemed to pick up on your feelings without the visual cue. You were glad he seemed to be enjoying himself instead of just fretting and moping around you. Sans kept his distance, Blue had cried a couple of times unprompted, Red hadn’t given up on encouraging you to see a doctor, Papyrus was more quiet than usual and Edge… well, he was avoiding you. 

Something about your accident had shaken him and he was still trying to pull himself together. When you asked Red you knew there was more to it but respected Edge’s privacy too much to pry or push the issue…for now. 

“Here, smell this,” Stretch said, tugging you closer. You sniffed and felt his hand close to your face, crushing petals between his fingers to make the fragrance spread. “These are the purple ones.” 

“That actually smells really nice.”  You said, not really recognizing the scent. You had never been the best with flower names. 

“You like it?” 

When you nodded he let you go and moved a few steps away. You heard him pulling at the grass and breaking off stalks. A few moments later he was trampling the grass to get back to you and you could smell the flowers he had picked.

“Here, hold these. We can head back now. Those two should be back soon with our food.”

“Good, I’m kinda starving.” 

You couldn’t see it, but you heard Stretch exhale and you swore you could hear his eyesights roll in his skull at you. 

In your hand you felt a bushel of stalks and smelled the fragrance of those crushed flowers. Stretch took your free hand and guided you back with his hand on your waist. You didn’t need the guidance but you didn’t mind the contact. So close you could smell his cigarette smoke again. 

He held open the door and you climbed the steps with practiced ease, knowing the way by heart. Papyrus was cleaning the table with a damp cloth and cleaner you could smell the alcohol and lemon in.

“Oh, those look lovely, let me get something to put them in!” he exclaimed once you were close enough for him to see what was in your hands.

“I don’t think we even have a vase on this bus,” you said while Stretch shuffled in behind you, close enough that his arm touched yours.  

“They’re just weeds too,” Stretch muttered.

“I like them though.”

“…There might be a pitcher for water under the sink we can use.”

Someone new took your hand and you recognized the gloves Papyrus wore. He led you to the table and helped you slide in, directing you to the place set for you. “Who else is going to join us?” you asked. 

“Red and Blue picked up food for everyone according to their texts, but I’m not sure if Edge will finish his session in time or if my lazy brother will wake up from his nap for food. Ah, and your placemat has a fork and knife set out but don’t feel like you-you have to use them,” Papyrus blustered. 

“I shouldn’t need to with a burger and fries.” 

“That is…good! I will…” you could hear the leather crack as he wrung his hands through his gloves with nervous energy. “You’re feeling better today, aren’t you? Do you want any more green magic?” 

You didn’t need it, but you felt how nervous Papyrus was and figured if not for you than for him. You shifted forward and smiled. “If you wouldn’t mind something quick maybe?” 

You heard the shift in expression when he exclaimed how delighted he would be to help, sounding more himself. You leaned into his touch and relaxed at the feel of warm healing magic trickle through you, doing nothing to replace your stolen eye but helping all the same. Even if it didn’t fix anything, it felt nice to be under Papyrus’ magic. 

You said as much before you could consider your words. 

Papyrus blustered vocally over you and you felt his green magic falter before tapering off. He chuckled, sounding nervous before pulling away. “Don’t feel like you have to hesitate with me.” 

“I won’t,” you promised. 

You heard the leather of the bench seat creak as Stretch scooted over next to you. He grabbed for one of your arms and started to roll down the sleeves of your sweater. You almost flinched and pulled back, but you realized he just wanted to keep your sleeves clean while you ate. Maybe he wouldn’t roll them down far enough to notice-

“Oh, you have an opening on your arm!” Papyrus exclaimed. “Did my green magic not work on you?”

“N-no that’s not it,” you chuckled. “Um, those are, those are old, like, way old. I thought that tattoos would have hidden them better but I guess you’re just too observant for me.”

“What are they for?” Stretch asked, tracing the pattern of the white inked peonies on your forearm. You almost shivered from his touch. 

“It’s, they’re not holes or wounds, they’re vents for my magic. I have other ones…elsewhere, but they’re all super old from when I was much younger. I had more magic than my body could handle and it needed someplace to go. I’m not a monster so there are some issues in controlling magic with a non-magical body.” You traced the paper thin line that cut into your flesh. “It’s… just a vent for excess magic.”  

“Does it hurt?” Papyrus asked.

Not anymore. 

“No, and if it was a wound your green magic would have closed it up but it’s like a piercing, so trust me, I’m all good here. Um, but maybe I don’t need to show them off?” You pawed the roll of your sleeve down just enough to keep the vent and your tattoos covered, but your wrists clean.

“If it’s a vent does that mean you still have trouble managing your own magic?” Stretch asked.

“Well,” you tried to smirk but doubted how successful it came across. “I am still human, aren’t I?”

“You do have an incredible amount of magic, but that is what we expected from human mages since your souls are so much more powerful than ours,” Papyrus hummed. 

  “I’m better about exercising control now. I’m able to manage so that my magic does leak out or overflow through the vents. If I wanted to patch these guys up there are pads for it I could use.”

“Oh?” Papyrus sounded surprised. “We have those?”

“They’re in the first aid kit. They look like, they’re just white stick on pads that are adhesive to magic. They’d stick all over you but on me they’d only stay in a few places.” You tapped your arm where the vent was. 

Stretch was quiet beside you while Papyrus hummed curiously, no doubt musing over the new information. Before anyone else could speak up Stretch leaned over to ask you with his teeth behind the shell of your ear-more breath than vibration. “You sound like you’ve used them before. Care to elaborate?” 

But the static in the room made you stiffen and made Papyrus lean back just in time for Blue and Red to appear with what smelled like a juicy hot meal. 

“Order’s up!” Red cheered while Blue zoomed to set out all the items in front of you in different places on the table. You waited until you could smell the meat and salted potato fries in front of you.   

Blue was faster than Red and managed to steal the seat open on your opposite side, making you the filling in a underswap sandwich on the bench. Red settled for a spot next to Blue and Papyrus sat on the other side of the table, next to Stretch. 

Lunch transitioned smoothly and before too long Edge was emerging from the back room, done with his conference call in time for Sans to pop back with a casual wave and lackluster greeting that set his brother off on a familiar tangent. 

 

After lunch you sat up at the front with Sans, aware of where the others were on the bus by means of sound and even smell. You could smell the condiments on their jackets and breath for some of them. 

“So we got two new bone boys. Any luck on finding out new information on them?” Sans asked.

“Papyrus and Stretch were using the social media leads to try and get a better idea, but so far nada. At least on the map they’re staying put.”

“For now,” Sans grumbled.

You nodded. “For now, but I don’t have any reason to believe they’d move on. It looks like they settled the way Edge and Red settled. It’s been a few days now.”

“Well we can be hopeful I guess.” Sans turned off his phone and tucked it away. “We’re gonna have to be if you ain’t contacting the boss man about it.”

You had never been overly fond of Hightower, even when you had wished he was your father as a seven year old new recruit, but now the thought of him made you shiver. 

You didn’t want to touch base with him, to be in contact with him, or answer any of his inquiries. The boys had told him you were sick and asleep any time he called in. The hidden cameras and listening devices had been cleaned out thanks to Sans- the master of paranoia himself- but none of you could be too careful. 

“He knows I don’t have my spying eyeball anymore so he’s been even more persistent.”

“I don’t know what he expects from you. This fellow has been on the run and uncaught for months and he expects you to just show up and solve it like that?” Papyrus huffed loudly. You could picture him crossing his arms angrily for your sake. 

You listened and inhaled slowly, noticing the absence of several other skeleton before confirming with your map. Only Sans and Papyrus were around you. 

You heard your name called and turned to face Sans. Even if you couldn’t see him you could indicate that you were listening by looking his way. 

“You sure you wanna go through with it?” 

He didn’t indicate what he was referring to, but you knew. 

“Yeah, I don’t feel comfortable going forward with so many variables. Everything has changed about this job. I-we don’t know who or what this Winn character is or how dangerous he could be. Plus, Raven and I might not win any sibling of the year awards, but I know enough about the guy to know when something is out of his hands. He wasn’t pulling the strings on this operation.”

Papyrus’ hand was on your shoulder, rubbing softly in small circles. You were tempted to ask him for another hit of green magic, just to feel his warmth, but refrained. You had heard that monsters using their magic outside of necessity was considered intimate…though you couldn’t confirm that. 

You weren’t sure if you leaned into him or if you just thought about it.  

Eh, just blame it on the bus moving. 

“Whatever you want, we’ll back your play,” Sans said. “You sound like you’ve really thought it over at least.” 

“It’s been hard not to,” you laughed. 

Papyrus made an unhappy sound behind you that you might have imagined but his circles spread out wider across your back. This time you couldn’t blame the bus on how you leaned into his touch. 

“You’re tired,” Papyrus said. 

“Yeah, I’ve been a bit more drained. It’s just my body trying to heal.” You didn’t mention the trouble you had sleeping and staying asleep. 

Or the nightmares. 

“Do you need ta nap? Paps won’t even blame you for it,” Sans said, snickering at a look from his brother you couldn’t see. 

“There’s a difference between resting and lazing about!” Papyrus huffed. 

“Then if you don’t mind, I think I’ll take you up on that offer. The bottom bunk is still open right?”

“They’re always open for you,” Sans chuckled. “But right now they’re empty. Feel free to pick one out. Red is dozing in one of them top bunks.”

You stood and made your way over with practiced ease, feeling around for one before pulling back the curtain and backing into it. Out of habit you checked on your map to see who was nearby and froze when you noticed the dot just outside your bunk. 

Slowly you moved into a hunched over sitting position with your legs out in the hallway. He didn’t say anything but you waited a few moments more before turning your unseeing face his way and nodding. “Edge? You okay?”

“Perfectly,” he rasped in a softer, quieter tone. “And you?”

“Sleepy.” 

“I shouldn’t keep you from your nap then.” 

You heard the way his leather jacket creaked when he started to turn away. Like a reflex, you jerked to try and grab for him but your fingers reached into empty air and grasped nothing. You tried again and still missed, but Edge must have noticed since he caught your wrist and guided himself over to you. 

“I’m here,” he said, sounding worried.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” 

“Not if you don’t want me to.” You heard him shift and felt like he was kneeling beside you. With his impressive height, it would make sense. 

“I-you’ve been avoiding me. Is there something wrong?” you asked.

He was quiet long enough to practice taking a breath before using his voice to try and explain. “I have been, I’m sorry. I…still do not do well with humans who are hurt. It makes me remember things I wish I could forget.” His hand holding yours flinched. “And I needed some time to clean out my head. Did you…were you upset?” 

“I was worried I did something wrong or that you didn’t want to be around me anymore,” you answered honestly. 

“That’s not the truth, but I see why you could think that. I just needed the time and space to keep my head on straight. I do want to be around you but I don’t want you to see me if all I can think about when I’m around you is how it-on how hurt you are.”

There was something there caught in between his words that he didn’t say. You wanted to press and dig out the truth but you kept yourself from prying. Whatever Edge was going through was personal and his business. If he wanted to tell you he could, but for now you needed to respect his right to privacy. 

“All things considered, it’s not that bad. I lost my eye a long time ago in an… accident and the implant was just a headache to lose. I’ll be fine with rest.”

“I know that. I keep telling myself that.”

You smiled, finding his words familiar as your squeezed his hand back. “It’s not a battle, its a war we wage within ourselves, one day at a time, with skirmish after siege after battle after fight. Keep telling yourself what you need to hear and don’t give up.”     

Edge leaned in closer to you and you could feel the heat from his body, generated with magic, as he rested his forehead on your shoulder. “I’m sorry I can’t help you right now. I can’t heal like the others can.” 

“That’s fine. Most people can’t do healing magic. Not even Red can do that.” 

“Red has other skills.”

“So do you.”

Edge just grumbled incoherently on your shoulder but you reached up to rub the base of his skull, appeasing him somewhat. After another minute he pulled away and then reached for your shoulders to gently guide you down onto your mattress.

“You need your rest. Sleep here, we’ll stay quiet.”

“And you won’t avoid me anymore?”

Edge hesitated but answered. “I will try my best to be there for you.”

“And I’ll try my best to remind you I’m okay.”

You felt his hand on your face, stroking affectionately. “Sleep now.” Then he pulled away and drew the curtain on its rings to close you in. 

You turned over and curled up, feeling your face where Edge’s fingers had just been. You couldn’t help but feel like you wish you could just grab him back and hold onto him until he wasn’t so hesitant or cold with his touches. 

 You itched to hold his hand again, but folded your fist up across your chest and curled up in the bunk, knowing full well that you wouldn’t be doing anything more than dozing. The rhythm of the bus on the highway was lulling, but so were your nightmares. 

Instead you laid awake with your eye covered and your body still, thinking yourself into a circle of doubt. You didn’t know what you were going to do next. You didn’t know what you should do. You had talked to Sans and Papyrus about it and trusted their input, but your gut wouldn’t settle down. 

 After a while when you felt the time had passed your heard voices soft and close by that you recognized. 

“Edge?” 

There was a pause and then some shifting sounds from behind the curtain. 

“I am fine, Blue. I apologize for causing you any measure of concern,” Edge answered. On the other side of the curtain you heard soft shuffling that you recognized as shoes on short carpet. Shoes, not boots. Those sounded different.  

“You’re…keeping watch?” Blue guessed. 

“Of a sorts.”  

“Need company?”

“…I…would not mind it.”

You think you hear Blue settle down somewhere close to Edge and the pair of them linger in silence which is more impressive for Blue than it is for Edge, but somehow still feels comfortable. The bus continues to sway hypnotically with its casual rhythm of constant running. 

Eventually you hear Blue break the silence with a question. “Are you worried?”

“Always. Of anything specifically? No.”

Blue chuckled. “You could have fooled me. You look like nothing rattles you.”

“Don’t try joking with me, Blueberry, it doesn’t suit you any more than it does your brother,” Edge playfully chastised. “Plenty of things are worrisome.” 

“Does that mean you have to worry about them?” 

“No. People and monsters both chose what they worry about, maybe not with their heads but with their souls they do. It’s what defines us each.” 

“Oh, I’m not sure it’s so much a choice, really. I couldn’t help this if I tried,” Blue chuckled.

“No, and you never could. I didn’t say the choice was yours to make, only that it was a choice. I’m as helpless to it as you,” Edge hummed.

“That almost makes more sense.” 

A comfortable silence lasted between the two and you almost drifted off to doze again before you heard the next thing said between the pair. 

“I’m still worried,” Blue whispered, almost too quiet to hear.

“As am I.”

“The HP thing…she got perma-hurt.” Blue’s voice almost squeaked as it struggled to stay a whisper. “That’s not something I can fix unless she gains more HP but…”

“Did you Check her while trying to heal her?”

“Of course, I needed to know how to help her and to see if what I was doing was any good. I’ve never healed a human before! They’re made of more than just their bodies, it’s so messy and complicated. With monsters we’re just…it’s all the same, our bodies and attacks and health are all made from magic so it’s all connected. Human bodies, even if they use magic like with Mages, don’t follow the same rules as the soul. My healing did little good.” 

Edge made a noise of understanding. “I’m sure she still appreciated the care and comfort you provided her with. She’s doing much better now and she even said it was an old injury.”

“It’s still hard for you too,” Blue grumbled. “Don’t make it sound like I’m the only one struggling here.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You were trying to comfort me, just like Pappy would if he was here. He says that same thing all the time whenever I bring it up.”

Edge almost chuckled. “Maybe that’s because he’s right?”

“I’m the older brother here, I know that!” Blue exhaled comically, causing Edge to chuckle before recovering enough to remember your napping and shush Blue. When Blue speaks again his voice is more controlled. “It’s just scary. I’ve never almost lost someone like that. Pappy is my treasured family too and if anything ever happened to either of them I don’t know what I’d do.”

“Keep going.”

“Hmm?”

“If you’re ever so unfortunate to lose someone close to you…someone you care for…keep going because there is still someone else you have to stay upright for. If you stop to dwell on it you’ll dust, so just…keep going.” 

From on the other side of the curtain you hear Edge stand and he moves before rustling the curtain as he passes, only moving it enough to no doubt peak in, but you were bandaged up and he couldn’t tell if you were asleep or awake, only safe. You heard him whisper a soft ‘good night’ before leaving Blue behind. 

No more than five minutes later you heard the curtains being pulled back a fraction and smelled Blue. He smelled like soap and cotton, fresh and neat and distinct. He was close and you shifted towards him, making a groggy sound in the back of your throat.

You heard him stiffen and then a panicked whisper of, “Did I wake you?”

“Blue,” you mumbled, sounding more sleepy than you felt. 

He made a noise of acknowledgment before pressing up against your side. The bunks weren’t enormous, but they were big enough for you to roll over and open your arms, inviting him in. He didn’t hesitate to follow you, nuzzling up to your side and then running a warm hand down your back, starting at the base of your skull, pulsing with green magic. 

You called his name again, ducking your face towards him. It sounded like a question, even to you.

“Shh, shh, shhh, I’m just…just being careful. I wanna make sure you’re all good.”

You looped one arm around him and pulled him closer, feeling yourself go limp with exhaustion at the contact. He was warm and his magic was soothing, but more than just that, you felt a stirring in your soul that made you feel safe. You were with Blue, he was with you, you were together. You were safe in his arms. You were safe. You could sleep.

“Night Blue, don’t…don’t leave me here,” you whispered on the edge of sleep.

You were near boneless after his magic passed through you a second time, warming you. 

“Never,” he promised too easily. 

You believed him and fell asleep.

This time there were no nightmares. 

 

Notes:

See, there are plot reasons for the cuddles. Reader gets nightmares without a bone buddy.

This is one of those chapters I wrote up after finishing the arc during revisions because the jump from last chapter to what happens next felt too sharp for me? There's one more chapter on the bus that's just...a Red chapter cause I love him, but I realized during edits I needed to address what was going on with reader during the time she was blind and explain things. More insight into Edge, foreshadowing with Sans and Papyrus, Blue raising some noise on that perma-hurt issue reader is dealing with....yeah. There we go. Enjoy. :)

Chapter 21: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 10

Summary:

Red POV chapter

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Red woke up in the middle of the night and turned over, reaching for the curtain to pull back. It made little sounds as the rings slid back on the rod, but in the still of their parked bus, every pin drop seemed to carry. He could see your bed, or where you had been slotted to sleep that night, empty with rumpled sheets trailing out over the edge. 

He rolled over enough to lean out and look up towards the front and, sure enough, the driver’s seat was cranked back and swiveled to accommodate your draped form. No one was in the passenger's seat. Without hesitation he shortcut himself into Stretch’s favorite chair. 

You don’t flinch, and he hopes that’s because you’re asleep. It’s almost impossible to tell with the bandages still over your eyes. It’s been days and they’re still in place. Red wanted to take you to a real doctor and have you checked out but no one else had been willing to force you into something you were so strongly against. And at the end of the day, as much as he hated it, that was what was most important, your consent. 

Red watches your figure a little longer before smirking to himself. 

“Couldn’t sleep either?” 

“It seems I’m not the old one.” You turn your face to whisper, but you don’t turn enough to meet Red head-on, even if you know exactly where he is.

“Yeah, but you know I nap enough during the day to make up for it, sweetheart.”  

“And you know I’ve slept enough this past week to make up for a dozen sleepless nights.”

“Yeah, your body needed it. Ain’t no point in trying to get around that.”

“Coming from a certified lazybones himself.”

Red flushes at the nickname, but you’re not able to see it so he only worries about the way his voice comes out. His brother had called him worse plenty of times, but there are a few things that change their meanings when spoken by a person who could be a potential… something or other . What would be the appropriate title for what he was thinking of; girlfriend, date mate, significant other, the echo of his very soul??? 

“Hey, there’s a reason it’s such a popular past time, doll face. Don’t knock it down so hard. Maybe next time we could try it together. And hey, we may not be socks, but I think we'd make a great pair. ”  

You laugh and it’s so soft and quiet in the cabin he knows it’s something you’re trying to keep trapped behind your lips. He can see the way you curl them in and duck your chin while your shoulders rattle. It makes him wish it wasn’t nighttime so that he could hear your laughter. It’s been a bit too long since the last time you really let it loose. 

“Good one,” you wheeze. “But I’m gonna have to turn you down. I have to try and get back into the habit of being awake. I’ve been too spoiled with all the fussing. 

“Spoiled? Nah. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t you know we skeletons are natural protectors and provider types? I’m sure ‘the great Papyrus’ has gone over it with you already, but we’re all good types to have around if you need a cuddle. It’s the calcium in our bones.” 

“I’ve…appreciated it. I really have. It’s helped since I need to touch to see and waking up can still be disorienting,” you say, relaxing back into the stretched out chair. 

“You shouldn’t be sleeping alone then,” Red blurts before he can think twice about the way his words come across. But even once he realizes it he doesn’t care. His filter ain’t the best, but if that’s the worst of his flaws, then at least it’s an honest one. 

“I’m not going to bother someone with it every time I go to sleep. That would be irritating.” 

“Shit, you kidding me, I’m sure we’d all fight over it and end up having to draw for it like the bed. Ey, ey, don’t make that teeth clicking sound with your tongue at me, you know I’m right about it.” 

“I know exactly how right you are, that’s what the sound was for. Still, it’s a bother even if you’re all tripping over yourself to be kind and helpful. I should…learn to get used to these things.” You say as you turn your head into the leather of the seat cushion and nestle into it. “Besides, I’m a restless sleeper in case you haven’t noticed.”  

Red felt an echo of fear ring out inside him. He didn’t like to admit it, but the sight of your bandages made him nervous and was part of the reason he was so eager to pay a doctor a visit. He didn’t like the sight of you hurt, and he hated the idea of a hurt lasting so long. He knew what happened to monster who fell behind and suffered from injuries. 

Back there…. back in his underground, if you had suffered in his world and been rendered blind by an enemy, no one would have helped you. The guard would take one look at you and decide you were better off as a meat shield. He had seen it done before. People who formed attachments on the weak were cut down for it. It had been dangerous enough for Red to have his brother. 

For not the first time Red thanked the bastard you called Raven for bringing him and his brother out of that hell pit and into the light. They were on the surface, they were together, and most importantly, there was you and Ma and Mini and people he could afford to care about. He would probably wanna maim that kid if their paths ever crossed again, but for his lot, Red was thankful. 

“You’re not the only one who’s got a case of the wandering feet. Some of us know that better than others,” Red sighed, keeping his voice quiet as he dragged himself out of his own thoughts. 

“I know.” You answer with the cutest little smile that looks like it holds back a secret just for you. It’s one of Red’s favorite sights. 

“Oh do you now? And how would that be?” 

“If I wake up in the middle of the night, the three most likely to be out of their bed and sleeping or at least laying somewhere else are you, Sans, and Stretch. Considering that you are all iterations of one another, it makes sense if you all shared a trait like that. Your natures are near identical, but the nurture part of your development…ah, that’s all on you.” 

“Oh really?” Red chuckled. “And you just happened to wake up and notice this early on or what?” 

You reached up to tap at your forehead, right above the bandages. “No, I see it on the map. Your dots are always the most active at night, blinking out to places I sometimes can’t even find. Once or twice I’m sure Sans has blinked back to Grillby’s for the food, but I couldn’t be sure since my map wouldn’t stretch that far.”

“Wouldn’t…as in, past tense?” Red echoed. 

You shrugged with your free hand over the bandages covering our eyes. “It’s a skill that’s only become more developed since this happened. Without my sight, the things left in its place have all had to work extra hard to make up for it.”

“Well, I guess that’s a silver lining if you want to believe in things like that.” 

You shifted in your seat, sitting up a bit more and facing Red more purposefully. It made him think you had something to say to him. It was hard to tell without your eyes, but Red was getting real good at reading human body language; or more specifically your body’s language. You had all these quirks and tells that he was cataloging as he noticed them. 

“Hey,” you whispered across the space to him. Red smirked at the conspiratorial tone in your voice.  “Did you know that this actually happened to one of my favorite story characters?” 

“They lost their robot eye in a fight with their long lost but less attractive brat of a brother?” 

Almost . But I was thinking about it recently and talking to Blue and Stretch about it earlier because they both like comic books. One of my favorite runs is for a superhero duo named Cloak and Dagger. Cloak has a magical cloak-”

“You don’t say?”

“Shut up,” you chastise Red with a laugh. “His cloak lets him open portals kinda like you and your shortcuts. He can teleport himself and those around him across great distances for a burger or for, you know, scary revenge tactics. His counterpart is this girl named Dagger and she’s pretty awesome.”

Red listened, less interested in the content and more entrapped by the life in your voice. You were blind, tired, and restless in your own skin even though you took great pains to hide it, but here you were in the middle of the night, sitting up in a bus with a guy like him, gushing about something you loved. 

It lit you up inside and made Red feel something buoyant in his soul. It was disorienting if he thought about it, and most days he didn’t, but at night he couldn’t help but let his mind wander.  You had always been an attractive figure he was drawn to, and he was afraid to admit how strong that initial pull was. By the time he had realized it, feeling your magic, learning you quirks, and hearing your - goddamnaweful- scream, it had been too late to turn back or put on the breaks. There was nothing but the decent left for him now. Maybe he wasn’t completely lost to you yet, but he knew better than to think it wasn’t anything but a matter of time. 

You bit the edge of your lip and chuckled about something and it was enough to spur him to movement. He wanted to cross the distance between you both and cuddle you up the way Papyrus or Blue would at night when you felt ill and needed their healing touch to stabilize. 

Watching another skeleton entangle himself around you and then duck his head to listen to your breathing, Red had never wished for the green magic his brother could sometimes summon more in his life. That first night when you had left to get bandaged with Blue, they had all heard you get sick and both Papyrus and Blue had cuddled up on either side of you, making a tag team out of it. 

It would have been nice if that had been him and his brother, but he was useless at anything other than the ‘angry’ magics and his brother’s healing touch was…. unreliable to put it mildly. They wouldn’t have been good nurses, but they could have been comforters in their own ways. You’d feel safe with them, and then Red could fall asleep and wake up seeing his favorite human face each day. 

“And-Red, you went quiet.” 

“I’m listening, doll face. You were talking about the ballerina with the light daggers who goes blind just like you,” Red answers seamlessly. 

“Yeah, I remember reading about her struggles to deal with this new disability and it was a major theme of the series that was painstakingly illustrated in an action type of comic, which I thought was interesting. All the other comic books my brother read were a bit more fierce and less… soft I guess? In the comics they did a lot to show off some of the coping techniques used by blind people, and there are whole pages just dedicated to that. Later on Dagger gets some of her confidence back and her sense of spatial relations is so much more precise for when she recovers her vision.” 

“And that’s totally gonna be you, sweetheart. You’re gonna be just fine and once you get those bandages off you’ll be fiercer than ever. You’ll be a-a bigger better version of this dagger gal. No one’s gonna wanna mess with you then,” Red encouraged. 

The cabin is dimly lit and the stars don’t give off much more light than the half moon in the sky, but Red can see enough to see the way a light dusting of pink colors your cheeks. He hopes its because of him and his words. He wants to see you open like a flower, turning towards him at the sound of his praises and soaking them up light sunlight from the sun. 

“I hope so.” You picked at the edge of your seat and duck your head again. “It wasn’t easy to get a hold of those comic books but when we could they were precious to us. There was a Spiderman series that Cloak and Dagger showed up in as side characters, and it was out of order but it was the first time I had ever heard about these characters and…and I read it and I knew she was gonna be my favorite. She was strong, yeah, and she had powers like me, but she was… she was good . And fighting wasn’t her first option. And for a kid being raised on nightmares each night that tell you ‘you have to be fiercer than these nightmares’ it was a forbidden hope of mine to be like her-be someone who could look at their enemy and try to help them before she hurt them.” 

Red missed the sight of your eyes. He wanted to see them, if only to catch the way they would look far off and glisten with the emotion that lived inside your voice. He wanted to ask more details about that story, about what made you sound like that, but he kept his voice in his throat and drank in the sight of you. Even with your eyes bandaged your face was made out of peace and he couldn’t understand it after all the pain and that- goddamnaweful- scream. 

When Ma and Mini talked about peace and forgiveness and freedom he had possessed no frame of mind suitable for understanding it. But looking at you, hearing your voice, maybe Red could dare to understand the unfathomable. 

“You got any other favorites, sweetheart? You make me want to crack open a book and give that whole reading bit another go.”

From your seat you snort and he soaks that up too. “Please, like I don’t know you’re already a genius mechanical engineer. You can like burgers and beer and still know how to build a custom engine on a motorcycle that’s missing half its parts.”

“Blue’s bike was only missing one thing. I just enhanced the other bits. He deserves something nice and it wasn’t any skin off my back.”   

“Thanks for looking out for him. That’s kind of you.” 

“Hey, out of all of us, Blue is probably the one with the most besties. It’s hard to not like that guy. He’s just kinda cute at first, but damned if he ain’t resilient in other ways. Plus, it’s easy to like a guy that’s all over you and your brother’s style. Who doesn't love a fan?”

“Respect.” 

The pair of you sat in silence for a little longer before Red decided to move. He blinked out and was gone without an explanation or an excuse. A few minutes later he was back with a couple of mugs in his hands. The scent was hard to miss. 

“That ... tea?” you ask, sniffing at the air. 

“You got a nose like a lesser dog’s, I’ll give it to you. Yeah, I went out to make us a couple and came back with em. This way no one wakes up from my clowning around in the kitchen.” 

You tilt the mug back and sip at the warm liquid before pulling back to blow. Red doesn’t wait, having far less sensitivity to these things. He had a little of monster-made famous sea tea, but for you he had made up a cup of relaxing chamomile, hearing it was a good enough tea for sleepless nights. Ma had plenty of those and Red had learned from them.

“Hey, if there’s something else, something keeping you awake that you haven’t mentioned, you know…you know you can share that with me if you want to. I got a couple of shoulder bones you can lean on and I’m pretty decent at listening too, even if the lack of ears makes you think otherwise. And hey, if not, my shoulder bones are good enough for just leaning on.”

“…Were you worried about me, Red?” you ask, lips still hovering over your tea. Your breath makes the surface ripple. 

In another life Red would have lied, said no as loud as possible, and run for the hills. 

“Yeah, I wanna worry about you. Let me?” 

You sipped at your tea and then when it didn’t scald your tongue you drank it down until it was half gone. “I’m not going to ever stop you. Worry all you want, but just let me return the favor when it’s my turn.” You take another sip and then mumble into the mug. “But thank you.” 

“No problem, sweetheart.” 

He downed the rest of his monster tea and blinked out just long enough to return the mug before he was back, like he had never left. When you finish your tea he takes it for you and then he’s back just as fast. 

Leaning against the dashboard, no longer interested in the passenger’s side seat. He asked you some more questions about your thoughts on the events leading up to that last encounter, and then segwayed into questions about the Embassy and Hightower, a boogie man like figure he had only heard about but never seen or met himself. Even if Blue and Stretch claimed he wasn’t as terrible as Sans suspected him of being, Red didn’t like the idea of entangling himself with such a person. 

The more he heard about this skunk from you the more justified he felt. 

After the whole mission was over, after they somehow tracked down your brother Raven and stop him from summoning any more boss monsters, like the other Grillby or another set of skeleton brothers, he asked what you wanted to do.

And then you ask him what he wants to do before you ever get to your answer. 

“Don’t know? Settle down somewhere with a house I can come home to, or live somewhere I can get a couple lazy jobs on the side? What else could a monster ask for? I’m not fighting for my life every morning. Me and my brother are safe. Maybe I’ll live somewhere close to Ma and Mini, though I expect they’d appreciate their own space.” He kicked at your foot with his. “Now it’s your turn, doll face.”

“I like your idea. Imma steal it. That’s it for me too.” 

“You can’t do that. You gotta come up with your own,” he complains even as his brain hyper fixates on the idea of sharing the same house, of coming home at the same time, or one before the other, and building a life together in simple, modest ways. It’s all his soul wanted. 

“I’ve not thought about it enough, don’t bully me. I never thought I’d get this far. Maybe…maybe just learn to work something with my hands for a job. I like doing that sort of stuff and I don’t get burned-I feel it-but I don’t actually burn, so that might be a good avenue to explore.” You shrug and shift around in the oversized seat that’s big enough to curl up in and still have room to spare. “This mission is too much of a pain not to think about though.”

“Whacha mean?”

You shift in your seat again and he thinks you might be tired. “I don’t know. It’s just…I don’t know where I’m going two days from now, much less two months or two years from now.” 

“You against company that far off?”

“No,” you answer simply and easily before you can even think about it and Red trusts the honesty in it. 

“Then don’t worry about it. One step at a time. Whatever you decide it’s all good,” he says just as easily and honestly. 

Silence stretches between the two of you and Red smirks at the small yawn and muffled murmuring you let slip as you readjust yourself on the chair, not unlike a cat seeking the perfect comfort in her bed. 

“I ... wasn't planning on falling asleep…” you mumble into the chair. 

“Is out here not comfortable? I could blink you back into bed no problem, doll.”   

You fidget in the chair. “No, it’s not that. It’s all the same to me but…I, um…”

The blush was back and Red was worried it was something you couldn’t talk about that made you hot under the collar. Was he overstepping?

 “Sweetheart? There something I can do?” 

You sift some more but reach out with one hand for him. “Don’t laugh, but I-I-um would you just hold my hand until I fell asleep. Itssostupid ,” you slur, turning away. “I’m not a baby but I just-no, forget it.” 

Red took the hand before you could retract it and held it with both of his. You were much smaller than him and when he looked at where you were connected it wasn’t more obvious. Your hand and fingers almost all fit in his palm. 

“It’s not stupid. We all feel a little alone from time to time. You okay with me?” 

“Yeah. You’re safe. Thank you.” 

You squeeze his hand in response and Red nearly feels his soul burst in his chest. He’s not sure if he’s literally taken damage for it, but he’s nearly overcome with the thrill of adoration he feels for you. 

“Then-here, hang on,” he says before moving.

You make a soft sound of surprise as he pulls you up into his arms and then turns around so he’s the one falling back into the driver’s chair. Unlike you, a smidge of a thing, he fills up the whole thing. You’re small enough to fold up in his arms so that’s what he does. He pulls you close and closes his arms around you, caging you in. 

You…don’t fight it. Instead you pull up your legs and arms and fold into him, burying your face in the crook of his shoulder right under his neck. You tug at the corner of his jacket and he helps you pull it up over you, folding you flush against his shirt and ribcage. If he wanted to he could connect both ends of his jacket around you and zip you up to keep you close to him, close to his soul.  

“Red?”

“Hmmm?”

“....Thanks.”

His soul sang and he knew he was done for. 

“Anytime, sweetheart.”

But that was okay. There were worse things in life than happiness. 

You’re warm and so is he but on a cool night it’s exactly the sort of thing that’s pleasant enough to lull one into a sleep too soft and peaceful to be filled with dreams. 

Notes:

Disclaimer:I love all the skeletons and I have no favorites.

Red is a soft boi, a cuddle boi, a big boi, a sweet boi.
I'm so pleased with this chapter and how soft the characters are for a change. It doesn't add much to the plot but dang if this wasn't one of the most fun ones to write. I love skeleton cuddles the most. It's my personal brand of crack.
If this was interesting I might make a few more POV chapters for the other guys or I'll just stick with standards second person pov.

The comic book series mentioned in this chapter is Cloak and Dagger (October, 1983), a true old school Marvel classic that's my personal fav.

Also, as a side not if it wasn't clear earlier, like the little corner maps you see in many video games- reader can mentally manifest that and see where people are if she's met them before. It's magic and happens in her mind so she doesn't need eyes for it to work.

Chapter 22: Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea 11

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Nah, that’s why I’m asking you if you have a way to track her?” Sans asked into the phone, watching the other person shift nervously. Hightower wasn’t a man subject to many tells, but Sans had been angry and irritated enough to rattle the official. 

“That’s not something we are at liberty to divulge, Mr. Sans. After last night we’ve no data or knowledge as to where SevenA could have gone off to.”

“Well it’s been a whole day since your damn stalker GPS heard her last, so I wouldn’t be surprised if you had a bug on her person,” Sans snapped.

“Her phone-”

“Oh this one?” Sans held up the phone and shook it. “The one you gave her, yeah we have it. She left it behind when she went off. I don’t think she’s stupid. What else you got?”

“We’ll be scanning social media channels for any sightings and reaching out to her previous contacts for any developing information. When we know something we will let you know.”

“That’s not good enough, Hightower. How are we supposed to do anything when our one human, our map , goes AWOL without a word of warning.” Sans kept his voice even and level but that was a challenge. “You went far enough to bug her freaking eye, why wouldn’t you have something dirtier up your sleeve?” 

Hightower didn’t respond to that and Sans didn’t care. He already knew the answer to his own question. Why would you bug the same person thrice? Even if her phone was bugged it could be discarded, but an eyeball that was connected so intricately to the person’s body? There was no reason to take any other measure beyond that.  

Until now. 

“We will report what we find. Until then we will consider SevenA a possible colluder with the renegades. Unfortunately not even spitfires are immune to sentiment.”

“Great, but what does that do for us? We’re sitting on the side of the road without even a direction to follow,” Sans said. 

“As per the contract this will be the completion of your mission to the ‘ best of your abilities .’ If SevenA does not return within twenty-four hours the bus’ AI will auto update with directions to bring you back to the city. Once here we can-”

“I have my own life, Hightower. Me and my brother have been living independently for years. We don’t need you to hold our hands.”

“Then the others-”

“Also good on that front. We’ll keep an eye on Blue and Stretch but Edge and Red had humans back in the Heritage Village where they want to go back to. They’re leaving in the morning and there ain’t a contact we can stop them with.”

“They haven’t been vetted.”

“They got their IDs and they’re registered. They passed their citizenship exams so if you wanna talk to King Asgore or the Queen about keeping those two against their will then go ahead. It’s too much of a bother for me to get involved in,” Sans groaned. 

Honestly, this was too much of a bother for him. He wasn’t used to talking so much with so little creativity. He felt like he was feeding lines to a machine. Hightower wasn’t his favorite person to have to call. 

After a brief pause Hightower spoke up. “…Where are you staying now?” 

“You can read credit card statements, can’t you? The name of the hotel is there.”

“And you’ll depart separate from the bus tomorrow? All of you?” Hightower asked. 

In San’s phone he could see the way Hightower looked off to the side as if reading from a separate screen. No doubt it was a screen with all the information concerning the recent credit card charges. In twenty-four hours the card would be dead, cut off as per the agreements of the contract. 

“That’s the plan unless you have some other agent in your back pocket that can tell us where the hell to go next. You got one of those?”

Like the asshole he was, Hightower ignored the question along with the jab and instead plowed on, facial expressions betraying little apart from his own irritation. No doubt with the recent developments he would have to scramble to salvage what he could of the effort. 

“We will be in contact shortly. Until then, please enjoy your night.” 

And then the video call went dead. 

Sans scowled but turned over the phone and tugged off the back. The innermost components spilled out and he dropped them all into a plastic baggy that he carried through his shortcut to the end of the laundry chute. He stuffed it inside some poor sap’s spare jeans and then blinked back to his room. 

Papyrus was out of the room, checking out the gym downstairs but the light from the bathroom was still on. Sans heard the toilet flush and the water run on and off. A second later you open the door and step out. 

“Coast clear?” you ask.

Sans didn’t want to say he felt giddy, but…

“Like a beach,” he quipped back. 

You make a gesture like you’re rolling your eyes and poke at his nasal ridge, pushing him back with your finger on the last tip of bone before emptiness. He staggers less from the strength and more from the abruptness of it. He was still getting used to how handsy you had grown since the accident. 

You were going to try removing your bandages tonight and he wasn’t the only one nervous about that. But before you could do that, the two of them had to put some pieces into play.

“You think he bought it?” you ask, dropping onto the edge of the bed and flopping backwards. “He’s a hard egg to crack.”

“He looked fractured.”

“Really?” that made you sit up and turn towards Sans. “No way. He must be so pissed off right now. Serves him right.”

Sans shuffled around you and your bed-the one Papyrus said he would share with you- and sat on the edge of his mattress. You turned in his direction but your face wasn’t turned around enough to be pointed in his exact direction. Still, Sans knew you were listening. 

“I heard something from a friend back in the city, she’s a monster working closely with the Embassy as well as several other organizations,” Sans said. “They’re looking for new workers to fill in a couple of the roles left behind by the last batch of renegades.”

“That's…yeah I can see why that would rattle a guy like him. It’s a development he can’t manipulate to his advantage. So many of his pawns are leaving out from under him.

“Like rats on a sinking ship,” he mused aloud.   

“More like horses out of the gate.” When he made a sound of confusion your clarified. “I think there were a lot more kids scared to leave than those just loyal to that man and his cause. Without a threat or a reason for all we went through, it was harder for them to control us.” 

Before Sans can say anything else there is a knocking at the door.

“Knock knock,” Stretch lazily drawls from on the other side. 

“Who’s there?” Sans calls back.

“A broken pencil.”

“A broken pencil who?”

“Never mind. It’s pointless.”

You snort and Sans opens the door. Stretch turns his pockets inside out as he steps into the room and smiles when he sees you on the bed. 

“That joke Stretch…it was a little dull,” you snicker.

“Oh darn, I’ll try and sharpen my wits for the next one.”

Behind you, Sans chuckles at the door, more entertained by the cycle of jokes than any one single comment. “So good of you to lead us your time, Stretch, but we’re not all meeting in here.”

Stretch shrugged and sank down onto the mattress next to you, bumping his shoulder up against yours. “That’s okay. Blue is out and I got nowhere else to be. I thought I’d just crash and get the download early.”

“And make me have to repeat myself?” Sans scoffed, turning over and curling up on the bed, content to laze about instead of entertain his friend. 

Stretch called your name. “What about you?”

“Hmmmm, what about me?” you hummed with a near conspiratorial smile that flavored the sound of your voice. 

“The pair of you are insufferable.” Stretch flopped backwards onto the bed and draped one arm over his eye sockets. “Fine, don’t tell me anything.” 

 “The pair of you are quite a sight ,” you joke.

San’s huddled form convulses on a wheeze born out of an unexpected chuckle. 

“Eye am not sure what you mean,” Stretch replied around a yawn. He lifted his arm a moment later enough to peer out with one eye light. “But all joking aside, how well can you make us out on the map now?” 

It was the same sort of question Sans had asked the night before when you had put into motion the first steps of your plan. You were using your map near constantly to scan for nearby threats, but he had doubted it being any use on someplace as compact and small as the bus. 

“I can’t see your expressions or much detail, it’s all devoid of color and shade, but I know where you are in this room, especially if you’re laying or standing or crouching between the roof beams.” 

“That’s nifty.” 

You just shrugged. 

“Can you see if I’m about to touch you?”

 You hear Stretch roll over and push up off the bed. 

You smile but Stretch doesn’t give you the chance to respond before he falls onto you from behind, wrapping you up in his arms and pulling you backwards onto the bed. You struggle with half hearted attempts to break his hold but his grip is surprisingly ironclad. The best you can manage is to twist around in his arms so you faced his chest. When you tried to crawl out he let you get away enough so that his head was at your shoulders before trapping you again-pulling you close enough to bend his head to.

“What are you doing?” you huff in exasperation.

“…Trying to decide if that’s your lungs or your heartbeat I’m hearing,” he answered after another long moment. 

From his bed you could hear Sans turn around. On the map you could feel his face turned your way, watching. You couldn’t tell if he was upset or amused or something else but it was Stretch who’s behavior baffled you more. 

“You know, it’s probably just my stomach you’re hearing. It’s the loudest thing considering it’s almost time for dinner food,” you joke, casually.

You thought he might accept that and let you go, but Stretch turned his skull to press the side of it up against your chest and listen. You can’t tell what sort of look is on his face but you can feel the intent behind his grip as he doesn’t slacken. His breathing, something that is optional for skeletons, grows and swells until it matches yours and then his eyes shut. Along with the rest of his body, his head goes slack against you and he seems to fall asleep. 

When you move to pull out his voice stops you. “Your heart. It’s so small.” 

“Yeah, it’s just a part of me. You could probably hold it in your hand and have room to spare.”

Stretch made a sound into the side of your chest, rustling the fabric of your pullover. “I probably could, but you couldn’t live without it. It’s scary. Doesn’t that ever…frighten you?”

You can’t see it, but you know Sans’ eyes are on you. 

Stretch’s question gives you pause. It was almost silly, but you had to consider the fact that he was a monster made out of magic with no need for lungs or a heart or anything internal aside from the pit that was a void for his mouth and stomach. In comparison, humans were so terribly more complex with so many different parts that were necessary for life. 

You thought back to your nights beside Papyrus or Blue using their magic to heal you and finding more frustration than satisfaction when the end results were so poor. Their magic was designed to heal the soul, the magical essence of a monster, not a physical body. Your HP was at max and your soul was healthy, but your flesh was still torn and your eye was still gone. Their magic numbed you and accelerate your body’s natural healing, but compared to how fast monsters healed, you knew you had rattled a few of them with the lingering effects of your injury. 

They were too polite about it, but you were sure you had grossed at least one of them out. 

You hummed and reached up to stroke the back of Stretch’s skull. Your touch was soft and slow, like with petting a sleeping cat. “Nah. I’ve always been like this. I don’t know any other way to be. Why? Does it scare you?”

“It terrifies me.” 

Sans stood up from the bed and you heard his feet on the floor. He shuffled over in his slippers and just stood within arm’s reach, hands stuffed into his pockets. He didn’t try to hide his presence or announce it, but you could tell he was hyper aware of everything that was said and went on in the room that you shared with him and Papyrus. 

You pat Stretch’s skull once more and then pushed away, pulling yourself up into a sitting position. This time he let you go but followed you up. 

“Will, you be ready for dinner?” Sans asked. “We’re having it on the roof.” 

“Always ready,” you answered easily.

Unlike the last hotel you had all stayed at, this hotel did not have a cafe or lounge area on its roof. But plenty of the members of your party had shortcuts so it was a simple thing to blink in and out of rooms before meeting up on the roof in time to catch the last half hour of sunlight and see the sun sink into a blazing glow of red, orange and gold. Then the stars came out and it was no less delightful. 

Blue and Red had ordered a ton of food and brought it up together, but Stretch still went back to order more and carry it up on his own once he saw how quickly you devoured the garlic bread. Sans disappeared and then later reappeared with four different full bottles of wine before going back for the glasses. 

It was fun to hear the boys enjoy themselves for a brief moment in time before the food was nearly all gone. Everyone was too full for dessert, but Red still ordered a whole cake and came back with new plates. Everyone refused, saying they were too full, but somehow the cake still ended up half gone. 

“It’s the last day with the bottomless credit card, use it up,” you cheer when Papyrus starts to chastise Sans for even offering to make a late night bakery run. “Anything you want, get it now. I’m sure that guy is going to cut the strings soon.” 

“You know, my brother and I are already, financially endowed,” Papyrus huffs. “There’s no need to be excessive.” 

“It’s less about buying things for yourself and more about draining his resources out of spite. I spent far too many years living paycheck to paycheck, sacrificing and penny pinching to not wanna indulge,” you say while reaching for your wine glass. Feeling it empty you set it back down but Blue hastens to fill it up for you and you thank him. 

“Don’t worry about that, sweetheart.” Red interjected. “We had fun on the town. I’m surprised we didn’t hit a limit. Some of those places were pricey.”

“But even without the card, the gold we had on us was worth so much,” Blue added. “I’m not sure if it would be enough for a house though.”  

“Oh, that what you want now, bro?” Stretch asks with a teasing tone.

Blue sputtered and you couldn’t see his blush even though you suspected there was one. You knew him well enough for that. 

“What did you buy?” you ask.

Red laughed and Blue sputtered some more before squeaking out, ’stuff-lots of stuff’ that made Sans and Stretch laugh along with Red. 

You couldn’t hear Edge but you knew where he was. He sat nearly across from you but he was the quietest by far out of all the boys. Since your accident you had been aware of him hovering at the edges of your senses, sitting just outside a room or around a corner, watching out for you, but still keeping his distance. When you talked to him he spoke to you like normal, but there was something new between you, something less sturdy than a wall but solid enough to keep you out. You were content to let him keep his boundaries, but you were eager to see them come down. Hopefully, in time, they would. 

“Speaking of which,” you say, drawing the group’s attention away from another conversation about ‘revealing Blue’s secret porn stash’ or something equally embarrassing that the others were coming up with in an effort to get him to talk about what he had bought with Red. 

You felt the group shift towards you and the side chatter died off when you move your hands to your face and undid the clasp that held your bandages together. The first loop fell away but then you had to purposefully unwind it the rest of the way until there was only the last layer. You hesitated and braced yourself but slowly dropped the last of the bandages and opened your good eye. 

Your brain panicked for a hot second but then it went back to focusing and you could feel the difference. You were looking at a world without filters or enhancements. Your natural vision wasn’t terrible but compared to what you were used to it would be a step down. Yet, thanks to the bandages and the temporary blindness now you could see…

“You’re all really beautiful,” you admit with a smile. “Glad to see you all so well.” 

“That is my favorite pun ever!” Papyrus exclaimed, reaching over his brother to fall on top of you in a hug that rattled with his excited laughter. 

Sans ended up squished against your side but then Blue was jumping in as well, along with Stretch and Red and yeah, even Edge. You ended up toppling backwards and complained loudly of needing space. 

All the cellphones had been left down in their rooms but Papyrus had brought a small compact for you to look into. You studied the absence in your empty socket, able to tell there was an eye missing underneath the lid, but only because you were looking for it. You combed your hair down with your fingers so that it fell over that half of your face and that was good enough.  You weren’t going to be winning any beauty contests on your own, but you felt like that didn’t matter when Blue hugged you again from behind. 

“That’s step one down,” you exhale in relief. You shut the compact and return it to Papyrus before facing the others. “Now step two. Thank you all again for being willing, for doing this for me. It’s a huge inconvenience but-”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Edge interjected. With your sight back you could see him watching you and know that the curtain between you was quickly crumbling. It made you feel light. 

“And it’s, frankly, a dream come true,” Sans interjected in a tone that was nearly giddy-something you had thought impossible for the guy. Looking him over, the same excitement in his voice was in his eyes. 

“You’ve dreamed about going AWOL and hunting renegades off the grid with your own agenda?” you scoffed playfully in disbelief.

“To be fair, I’m sure that was a MTT spy drama, and Sans was always fond of those,” Papyrus said. 

“Well, you won’t have the bus tomorrow. Blue and I will be on his bike but the rest of you will need to follow up on your own. Oh, the new cell phones, Red, did you get those?” 

“Yup,” he answered with a thumbs up. “Boss got his blinged out and everything too.” 

“I wasn’t one of the ones who needed a replacement, you fool,” Edge grumbled. 

“Yeah, well it’s important when we make contact with this other Sans or Papyrus iteration that we not do anything to broadcast it, even accidentally, to social media, otherwise the Embassy will know where to look for us,” you say. 

“And our plan for first contact?” Stretch asks.

You swallow and think it over before answering. “Well, it depends on a few factors but I’ll run down the basics of it real quick.” 

And for the rest of the night you and the other boys conversed with one another about the plan you and Sans had come up with for making contact with the new skeletons. 

You needed to make sure they were okay and safe enough that Raven and his weird gang of renegades couldn’t make trouble with them, even though you doubted that was really your brother’s soul intention at this point. There was more going on between your brother and the others, including that freaky Winn guy, that you just didn’t understand. 

You retired to your rooms later in the night and ended up snuggled alongside Papyrus in his bed, seeing him for the first time since he had offered to sleep next to you following your accident. It was a bit more intimate but not so much so that it made you uncomfortable. You had been cuddling into his warmth for days now, and you weren’t about to stop until someone told you otherwise. 

Your nightmares hadn’t stopped. 

Another function your false eye served was in blocking or inhibiting such dreams while you slept. You’d rest and achieve REM states of sleeping, but your implant filtered out your dreams and didn’t let you experience them. Dealing with that old trouble was a challenge. There were only so many nights you could stay awake and then drown yourself in cheap booze to stave off the damn dreams.

But in Papyrus’ arms.

Safe

And like all the times before, you woke up rested and in one piece. When you looked up Papyrus was already awake, watching you with a soft smile on his face as one hand lazily dragged through the ends of your hair from the back of your skull. It had grown longer and this hadn’t been the first time you caught him with his fingers tangled in your hair. 

‘There’s more of it!’

‘Yeah that’s how human hair works. It just keeps growing on its own, like it or not.’

‘You don’t have to do anything for it?” Papyrus asked in hushed delight.

‘No, but I’ll cut it again when it gets too long,’ you say. Papyrus doesn’t respond but you notice how his shoulders droop and his demeanor dims. It’s not hard to guess why. ‘But I might grow it out again, so that won’t be for a long while.’

‘Can I touch it?” he asked. The brightness was back in his smile and you couldn’t find it in you to deny him anything.

‘Sure. Anytime.’

“Morning,” he greeted simply when he saw he had your attention. 

“You know you can get up and go jogging if you want to. You don’t have to stay with me until I wake up,” you sigh, turning just enough to bury your face in the mattress out of sight.

“This is better than a workout. I wouldn’t want to miss this.” 

He flushed only a little bit and you wondered if that was because of how often you had done this or because he wasn’t embarrassed by his own words. 

You felt your own face head up and buried it deeper into the mattress so he wouldn’t be able to see the color. You almost missed the bandages for no other reason than the protection they provided. 

“I need to get up.” 

With your weak excuse Papyrus lets you go but you can feel him watch you all the way into the bathroom. When you’re done he is sitting on San’s bed talking to his brother’s back. Sans groaned when he heard the door shut but didn’t get up.

“I’m going to head out now. Blue should be set up by now,” you called out.

“I’ve already texted him and he is in position. We’ll take your things with us and meet up with you later,” Papyrus answered. He stood and reached for you, pulling you into a goodbye hug that was both familiar and warm. When he let you go he turned to his brother and reached for the nearest pillow to toss at Sans. “Say a paper goodby, Sans.” 

“Not’a goodby,” Sans slurred.

“Inexcusable,” Papyrus snapped. 

Sans rolled over on the bed and raised one of his hands up. “ See ya later.” And then he made one of his eye lights wink out. 

Papyrus gasped but you just laughed. It was an awful pun but they didn’t annoy you as much anymore. They reminded you too much of Raven as a kid, before he got too cool for them.    

“Not goodbye then, just, until later.” 

Behind you there is a knock on the door and when you check you see Blue and Stretch. When you open the door, he's happy to bounce in and check the room before turning to you and asking if you’re ready to leave. 

Sans gives you another little wave and you nod back before taking Blue’s hand who’s holding Stretch’s hand. The next minute you’re a shortcut away, feeling dizzy and seeing stars as you pitch sideways. Blue catches you and Stretch groans, hands on his knees.

“Stretch?” Blue calls out, sounding worried. 

“Fine,” Stretch coughed. “Just surprised how heavy of a ride that was.” Then Stretch calls your name.

“Fine too,” you cough and hold up a thumbs up and shut your eye. You’ve taken shortcuts before, but after losing your eye it was harder for you to come out of it still feeling balanced.     

But in another minute you’re telling the truth and the wave of dizziness is gone and you can follow the boys into the trees where they hid the bike last night. Blue is as eager as a beaver to don his helmet and leather riding jacket with the safety padding. You chuckle when he pulls out a jacket just for you that also matches your helmet. There are kitty patches on the shoulders and elbows while the helmet has air draft vents on the top that looked like cat ears.  

“Didn’t you say you had a bike of your own before? You can ride and borrow mine from now on. You just need the right equipment.” He dissolves into chuckles when you accept the jacket and slip it effortlessly over your turtleneck.

“Fits like a glove,” you say, turning around to strike a pose for Blue and Stretch. Blue’s eyes spin into stars and he nearly vibrates with excitement. Its enough to make Stretch laugh and push his brother towards you.

“Enough fooling around you goofs. Saddle up already,” Stretch chastises. He watches as Blue hops on first and you slide on after him. With a smirk he leaned forward to add, “Both of you look bone to be wild. Be good.”

“No promises,” you called over Blue’s shoulder. “You know I have a tendon-cy to not do what I’m told.” 

Blue revs the engine loud enough to drown out anything Stretch might say in response but his smug smirk never left as he watched the pair of you tear out together, taking a backroad north with no hesitation. 

You held on tight to Blue’s back as he navigated a path for both of you up the road. Before long when you looked backwards you couldn’t see anything of the hotel or the bus parked outside. You weren’t sure why your heart hurt or your chest felt tight because you were all going to meet up later. 

As if he could sense your unease Blue reached down to pat at one of your arms around his waist. It was enough to comfort you and you turned your head around and leaned with him into the ride. 

Five ...ten...twenty…thirty five miles north and then forty five miles later and the landscape changed. Your were higher up, but so far from the city and all the suburbs the lands stretched out longer and longer without interruption. You could see a couple of farms set far back away from the roads, and even further back were the scattered woods interrupted by the occasional pond or stream. 

You could smell it in the air, how the larkspur and golden rods were blooming in shades of vibrant gold and deeper purple. There were lazy trees looking as ancient as trees are allowed to look when they stand in a field all on their own. 

You travel for another half hour before Blue is forced to decelerate and tackle the windy roads at safer speeds. The dots on your map don’t move much and haven’t traveled out since you first noticed them. You’re close and you tap Blue to let him know. 

He stops on the side of the road at an old pull out where the gravel kicks up dust from the slightest disturbance. 

“How close?” Blue asks, flipping his visor. 

“Close enough. One is the woodlands over there and the other is further up the road. You pulled out the paper map from the saddlebag and unfold it enough for Blue to see. It’s not perfect, but you use it to mark where the stationary ‘Papyrus’ is while the one marked ’Sans’ wanders the woodlands. 

“I’m not biased, but this Sans is closer. Let’s start there,” Blueberry says. 

The two of you lead the bike off the road into the woods and hide it behind a tree before turning around and heading deeper into the woods.  It’s quiet between you but occasionally Blue will brush his knuckles up against yours and you’ll brush back. You don’t miss his quiet smiles even if he thinks he hides them well. 

You pause and he freezes like you, waiting for a signal. You used your hands to communicate.  You had the hand signs so that you wouldn’t need to whisper and be overheard. Your last hand gesture had been a four meaning ‘ estimated forty meters out .’ Sans looked at your face with a question in his eyes. 

After double checking you exhaled and stood back. “He blinked out. He’s not there anymore. I’m looking for where he went, hold on. Can you just…watch me?”

Blue holds onto you hand and turns, scanning your surroundings while you get lost looking through the map. You spot him and then he’s gone, somewhere else, and then he pops up somewhere new, far away before blip-and he’s gone again.

“He’s bouncing, I can’t pin him down.” You pull out of the map and squeeze Blue’s hand to get his attention. “I don’t know when that’ll stop. You think we should go after the stationary one?” 

“If he's anything like us, then only one of them can use shortcuts. We won’t have that problem with the Papyrus,” Blue admits. He shakes your hand and you look down to see he’s still holding it. “But we’re in no rush, right?”

You wanted to get to them before Raven, but you didn’t have a reason to suspect your brother was actively targeting the brothers or even interested in them anymore, if he was ever aware of them at all. You weren’t in a rush but…

“What did you have in mind?”

Blue shrugged but then he swung your hand back and forth idly. “We could just take our time getting there. We don’t have to hurry off.” His phalanges brushed over your fingers absently. “It’s been a long time since we were just off on our own. You’re always surrounded by others.”

It was true and the way he looked up at you made your heart beat a little louder in your chest. You brushed on of your thumbs back over his and he jerked a bit at the touch. 

“Sure,” you agree, feeling too good to deny him something simple. “We can…take our time this way.” You turn towards the Papyrus dot and tugged him along. Blue is only too happy to comply, walking hand in hand with him. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked after a while of blissful silence, scented with goldenrod and filled with warm sunlight through the treetops. “With your eye,” he clarified. 

“Not perfect, but better than before. Leaving the bandages was the right call. My brain is still sort of a mess but there’s no fixing that. You guys really took care of me, and I appreciate it. Without you I wouldn’t have done so well.”

“We didn’t do a lot. We couldn’t even fix your body. Our magic was pretty useless.”

“That’s not the most important thing. My body will heal itself in time. It was more like the bandaid over a real old wound was ripped off and I had to deal with something all over again.  What’s the worst part about recovery is how long it is and what it does to your psyche.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“Whenever I heal long term I feel terrible and it’s not a physical pain. I’m just so scared and miserable and on edge, waiting for something to take advantage of me. You took that away from me. You took care of me. I felt safe and knew you were going to be there for me when I woke up in the morning.”  

“Of course,” Blue gasped, tugging you hard enough to pull you back. “I’ll always be there for you, and I trust you too. It goes both ways. I-”

Blue trips on his words as his soul thumps loudly and yours is nearly tugged out. Blue gasps and tries to pull away from you, in order to save you from an accidental encounter but you don’t let his hand go. His eyes are wide but yours aren’t. He realizes what this means a moment later and lets his soul go, setting it free to seek out yours. 

You go first and use your magic to rush over him, feeling the sensation of being in a meadow all over again. Blue is s soft and kind and gentle, his soul is pure and rich rolling green feeling. Kind.  

And then it's his turn and you feel your soul exposed to his. For a moment you think you can almost see it too, a heart set on fire and burning with red determination that wants to keep everyone warm and safe. The way his magic is there, washing over it, makes you believe in it a little more. 

Blue makes a sound and you’re almost too dizzy to hear it, but it’s one of wonder and breathless surprise as he sees you without any of your defenses. You’re as exposed to him as you can be and so is he but you’ve never felt more safe. 

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered as the world fades back in. 

Then he staggers into you and holds you tight, hitching his breath with the emotion he can’t put into words. A single trail of tears runs down your cheek and you turn towards him, comforted by his touch too much for words. You’re a bit breathless yourself. 

But a new voice behind you cuts the moment short. You turn together and see something small in between the trees, crouched behind a bush that’s too see through to provide the cover she sought. It was…a child. 

When she saw that she had been discovered she bolted up and screamed. Before you could stop her or explain she was running through the woods and you weren’t sure why. You saw the dirt on her elbows and a pair of braids barely in their knots, coming undone more on one side than the other and polka dots on a shift dress. 

“What?” Blue choked, still a bit dazed. “Who was that?”

“Just a kid,” you answer, taking a few steps in that direction. “No one I’d met before.” 

Your mouth fills up with the taste of sour.

Before Blue can say anything more you both go taunt at the thrum of new magic before bones are flying towards both of you, nearly too much to dodge. The attack is ruthless, giving you no chance to catch your breath before run out of room to maneuver. 

You’re pushed back too far and step onto something that clicks. Something drags at your ankle and you’re stuck in a net with Blue calling your name, distracted enough to end up pinned to a tree. You don’t tell him not to worry-you can burn through a net- you’re too distracted by the new figure striding forward with cold fury in his eyes. 

“TRESPASSES ON MY PROPERTY! YOU SHOULD HAVE KNOWN BETTER THAN TO TANGLE WITH THE MALEVOLENT SANS, CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD, AND ALL HIS GREAT AND HORRIBLE DEFENSES! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Notes:

We meet a new boi, a new addition to the family and I couldn't be any more excited for what comes next. (How many of you saw the SF brothers coming?)
It's a new year and that means a new arc in the story, so farewell Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea and hello~ whatever comes next.

Also, Blue's moment at the end was way too much fun to get to. If you're wondering something along the lines of 'is that a metaphor for...' the answer is yes. Encounters are always a metaphor. Monsters can't get more vulnerable.

Chapter 23: Bishop Knife Trick 1

Summary:

You meet the new Sans and Papyrus... and their extended family.

Notes:

I got a feeling inside that I can't domesticate
It doesn't wanna live in a cage
A feeling that I can't housebreak
And I'm yours
'Til the earth starts to crumble and the heavens roll away
I'm struggling to exist with you and without you, yeah Bishop Knife Trick
FOB

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Sans, who wasn’t your Sans, but a different Sans, stood stiffly in place, bone sword raised with his heels together in perfect form. He was half a head taller than blue, from what you could tell, with the same slender frame. He was dressed in dark black pants, red boots, and a military style jacket with brass buttons winking in the sunlight to complement the trailing crimson scarf. It was a nice look, professional and clean cut with plenty of style.

 Being trapped in a rope net hadn’t stopped you from admiring the newest skeleton who knew how to dress himself. Even if he ended up attacking you and starting another fight, he still looked plenty cool.

His eye lights were narrowed and flickered with purple tinted magic that went back from pearl colored to dark purple, then scarlet red. Maybe it was the light or maybe it was his magic, but you were having trouble seeing the true color of his eye lights. All you could tell was that he seemed pissed off. 

Blue struggled loudly, tugging out the bones keeping him pinned in place. Once free he summoned a wall of his own bone attacks to prevent the newest barrage headed his way. You heard the smack of shattering bone as the two forces met and canceled one another out.

“I CAN SEE YOU’VE COME LOOKING FOR A FIGHT THEN, FELLOW MONSTER? GIVE UP NOW AND YOUR DEATH WILL BE SWIFT!” 

You felt some of your admiration for the sharp dressed skeleton flutter from the threat. With a huff you heated your hands, burning your fingernails black again. You started to burn away at the ropes under you, careful about which ones you burned through and which ones you left intact. 

“We-WE DIDN’T COME LOOKING FOR A FIGHT!” Blue shouted back, infusing his voice with magic to help deter further fighting.  

“YOU ARE LUCKY THEN TO HAVE FOUND ONE WITHOUT THE EFFORT.” 

He laughed again and it sounded like the laugh of an old super villain from a childish cartoon. You couldn’t take it seriously, but then the bone attacks came out again you nearly suffered a heart attack watching Blue move to avoid the bones with all the skills of a captain of the royal guard. He was skilled but this new guy was ruthless. Suddenly, there was a garden of fear blooming in your heart as you thought about Blue getting hurt while you were still trapped in a net, unable to help. 

You burned through most of the bottom strands and slipped free, landing in a crouch. Your legs still stung a bit and you knew that was a longer fall than first anticipated, but the sting wouldn’t slow you down. 

You crunched enough foliage and debris under you to draw the Sans’ attention and he nearly let loose another barrage of bones in your direction but faltered at the last second, seeing your face. The bones went wide, hitting the trees behind you and biting the dirt as they skid to a stop.

“A HUMAN!”

For whatever reason he seemed hesitant to attack you so you used it to your advantage and ran to stand in front of Blue and spread your arms wide. This seemed to confuse the new Sans even more. You held your palms up in a show of surrender and stood your ground.

“We didn’t come here looking for a fight, Sans. That part wasn’t a hoax. We didn’t know you had traps in this area either,” you say in your most soothing voice, grateful for how it didn’t rattle. 

“AND ATTACKING WITHOUT AN ENCOUNTER IS UNDERHANDED! THERE WOULD BE NO POINT TO IT IF YOU COULDN’T PULL OUT MY SOUL,” Blue argued, stopping his foot from behind you and fisting his hands over his hips. 

Military Sans sniffed at the comment and turned up his chin. “CRACKING OPEN AN EGG WOULD YIELD MORE EFFORT ON MY PART, BUT IT’S ALL THE SAME SOUL NO MATTER HOW YOU GET TO THE YOKE OF IT.”  

“THA-THAT’S BARBARIC!” Blue gasped. 

“And unnecessary,” you hastily added. “Because no one wants to fight out here in the woods on such a nice day.”

The other Sans glanced around and twirled the bone sword over his hand before grabbing at the hilt and preparing it. “THEN CALL BACK YOUR HIDDEN FRIEND AND HAVE HIM APPEAR BEFORE ME WITH HIS HANDS RAISED OR I WON’T HOLD BACK. I AM NO FOOL. I SENSED TWO DIFFERENT MAGICS  THAT WERE NOT MY OWN. WHERE IS YOUR THIRD COMPANION?” 

“That other signature was me. I’m the other one with the magic,” you say.

“A HUMAN?” He asked with a sneer. “I MAY BE NEW TO THE SURFACE CUSTOMS AND SOCIAL NICETIES BUT I AM NO FOOL.”

“Never said you were, but I’m sort of an oddball. You okay letting me prove it here?” you asked, keeping your hands up. 

The Sans readied his sword once more and lowered his stance. His magic rolled off him in waves of warning while his eyes flashed with red and purple lights. “I WILL NOT BE CAUGHT UNAWARE. I AM READY FOR YOUR TO EXPOSE YOUR COMPANION.” 

You shut your eyes, ignoring the way Blue makes a sound of protest just past your shoulder. Instead you focus on your own magic and pull it up, raw and unfiltered, before setting it free to wash over the world around you, primarily the Sans in front of you.  

When your magic touched him he jerked, nearly falling out of his stance but it was when your hands turned black like coal and sent up twin flames from each of your upturned palms that he stood at attention. You opened your eyes and let flames trail out of the empty socket while the simple presence of your magic rolled over Military Sans. 

Unlike his clean cut appearance, there was a battered and near broken texture to his soul that echoed in his magic. His soul didn’t have a color you could see so easily, but you felt the echo of it in your own way. 

You recognize the color that matched what you felt, even though it was different from when you experienced the same trait with Papyrus; Integrity . For Military Sans, his soul might have been the same color but it wasn’t the same exact feeling. He was a new person, a unique individual, and his soul echoed that. 

His soul was intense, not like how Papyrus’ soul was. There was a mania almost to how protective and strong the sensation was that washed back over you. It was protective and caring, but also heavy and intimate. It made you think this person was the type to let few get close enough to ever benefit from his most honest gestures of integrity. 

Your belly felt warm like after a hot meal and you were almost seduced into a new feeling of safety before the magic washed out and you remember where you were.  

You pulled away and the fires went out, leaving your palms black and cracked as the charcoal like texture flaked off on its own. You sighed, hopeful for the end of your fight, but Military Sans recovered before you and didn’t go as peacefully as you would have hoped. 

As soon as you were back and mentally aware he was in front of you, using his magic to pull out your soul in a forced encounter. 

Blue screamed and tried to interfere but a barrage of bones kept him pinned behind you. 

“What is this for?” you ask, using your turn to talk. 

Power shifted back around to Military Sans and he was predictable enough to check you, the same way others had checked you before for…friendlier encounters.

Only a few minutes ago you had been in an encounter with Blue that had been built up for weeks and weeks. Within ten minutes of knowing you this guy had dragged you into something just as intimate. 

He finished with his turn, finding something that must have satisfied him. You weren’t sure what that was but you were starting to feel too tired to care. The turn came back to you and you tried to flee, to pull out of the encounter and pull your soul back into your chest, but it seemed he wasn’t ready to spare you. 

There wasn’t enough mercy to save you.

“You’ve had a look at me, you should have seen I’m not a threat and that I don’t mean you any harm at the very least. What are you still doing?” You snapped at him.

But the answer didn’t come from Military Sans, even though his mouth looked open and poised for a reply. 

Instead it was the girl in pigtails and polka dots that came barreling back into the clearing, crying with her arms out in front of her. You watched as Military Sans’ eyes went wide and the encounter fell apart in time for him to catch her in his arms, just after she flung herself at him. 

“Don’t fight with them Mr. Blackberry!” the child wailed, squeezing him around his neck and burying her face there. 

All the tension seemed to drain out of the air as Blue dashed to your side and reached for you, tugging your waist against his. He didn’t take his eyes off the other Sans, but you had been his first concern. 

“SS-SHH, I TOLD YOU MY NAME WAS SANS AND IF YOU WEREN'T GOING TO USE IT THEN TO STICK TO BLACK . I’M NOT A DARN FRUIT YOU PEBBLE TOED HALF PINT. NOW GET OFF ME. I CAN’T BREATH WITH YOU AROUND MY NECK.”

The girl gasped and pulled her arms away, stretching them up over her head as if burned. “S-S-Sorry Mr. Black, King, Sir. I d-didn’t want you fighting no more,” she sniffed. ”It’s bad for you.”  

Like a man caught with a dirty secret Sans glanced between the girl in his arms and you, before his eye lights finally settled back on they girl he tried to disentangle from. “YES BUT WHAT IS WORSE FOR SOMEONE LIKE ME TO SUFFER THROUGH IS INSUBORDINATION. YOU HAD CLEAR ORDERS TO RUN FOR SAFETY AFTER SEEING MAGIC OR MONSTERS BUT DID YOU DO THAT?”

“Yes!”

“NO YOU DID NOT!” He hollered with almost a foot stomp. 

“You’re the safest thing I could run to,” the girl admitted unabashedly. 

There wasn’t a hint of a blush on her face or stutter in her voice. But the same couldn’t be said for Mr. Blackberry King . The kid was adorable and had just said the cutest thing and in response Sans’ face had colored an indigo purple hue. 

You almost laughed. 

Sans peeled the girl off his person and stiffly placed her down on the ground in front of him before straightening and folding his arms behind his back in military fashion.

“TH-THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT AND YOU KNOW BETTER. HOME! HOME, GO NOW. DO NOT MAKE ME COUNT.”

“B-but…”

“FIVE…. FOUR…. THREE….”

The girl squeaked and flailed a bit before turning on her heel and speeding off into the woods, darting between the trees so that her braids bounced against her back. 

“TWO ...!” The Sans called Black shouted loudly. After a longer period he finally shouted ‘ONE’ into the air but there was no one close enough to hear him so he didn’t move to make good on his threat. 

“Oh my stars.” 

He flinched at the sound of your voice, as if having forgotten about you. The blush was still there on his skull but his eyes were narrowed and fierce. 

“You’re a ...dad?!”

“THERE IS NO SUCH THING, HUMAN! HOW DARE YOU MAKE SUCH INCENDIARY COMMENTS ABOUT SOMEONE YOU DON’T KNOW. YOUR SMEAR CAMPAIGN WILL EARN YOU NO FOOTHOLDS IN THIS SITUATION.”

“I mean, I think I know you a little bit considering we were just having a heart to heart moment there before you daughter interrupted us.”

“SHE IS NOT MY DAUGHTER YOU VILE SLANDERER!”

“Sure, she can identify as anything she wants to, but I feel confident enough to say she seems to like you enough. That must mean you’re not so terrible a guy.” 

Blue squeezed at you elbow, pulling you back to whisper urgently in your ear. “His LoVe was super high though! Didn’t you see it?” 

“Oh, sorry, I must have missed that. Still, that’s just what Mr. Blackberry,” Hearing his name the skeleton in question sputtered angrily, “ is capable of? There are plenty of dangerous people who don’t have any inclination towards violence unless it’s absolutely necessary. Not to say I think he’s one of them, but he’s worth talking to.” 

“I HAVE A GREAT CAPACITY FOR VIOLENCE AND I AM NOT SOMEONE WHO WOULD SHY AWAY FROM ADMITTING THAT LIKE SOME COWARD! NOW, ANSWER ME HONESTLY OR SUFFER MY UNFILTERED WRATH ONCE MORE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” 

“Came to see you Mr. Blackberry!” you called out, smiling wide and waving. 

The blush came back but so did the dedicated glare. Blue squeezed your elbow but you weren’t worried. You had felt his soul and he had seen yours. He could be reasoned with if you played it cool. 

“YOU ARE A CHARLATAN OR AN ASSASSIN. NO ONE COMES TO SEE ME HERE. NO ONE KNOWS I AM EVEN HERE. I WILL NOT GIVE YOU ANY MORE CHANCES. THE TRUTH, VIXEN!”

Blue sputtered at the name but it just made you smile. “ I knew. I also know that there is a person named Papyrus in a property half a mile that way,” you say pointing, “and that the two of you aren’t even from this world’s underground. I’m not sure how long you’ve been topside, but I know you didn’t come from the same place most of my monster neighbors came from. I also know why that is if you’re willing to listen.” 

Blackberry held onto his glare but the blush was gone and some of the rigid lines of his form softened. He dismissed his bone sword and shifted stances to appear more open. “VERY WELL THEN. EXPLAIN YOURSELVES.” 

“Here?” you asked, pointing to the trees around you. “You don’t want to go somewhere more comfortable and sit down and talk? Maybe over some sea tea?”

“WE WILL HAVE YOUR CONFESSIONS HERE AND NOW. DO NOT DEVIATE FROM THE TRUTH AND DO NOT DELAY. MY MALEVOLENCE WILL NOT BE MADE TO WAIT.”

“What a drama queen,” Blue sighed.

“There was a person, a human like me, who brought you and your brother here. You weren’t the only ones. This is Blue, short for Blueberry, but that’s just a nickname because his real name is Sans.” 

“UNLIKELY! SANS IS NOT SO COMMON A NAME.”

“Yeah, in his world he was the only one too,” you chuckle. Beside you Blue steps out further and grabs for your hand to give you courage.  “But that world isn’t this one. Here there are four different sets of brothers pulled over and they’re all either Sans or Papyrus before the nicknames. It’s been sort of my job to find you and make sure you’re not… ripping the souls out of children or making trouble.”

“WHAT GOOD WOULD THAT DO? THERE IS NO NEED FOR SUCH MEASURES WITH THE BARRIER ALREADY DESTROYED. YOUR JOB IS A POINTLESS ONE UNLESS THE OTHERS ARE IDIOTS.”

“Well there’s more to it than that. There’s a whole bunch of new laws to help monsters and humans integrate into society peacefully. We’ve been doing this for over five years now and there is still the occasional kink. One of those rules is no encounters with a human without explicit consent,” you explained. 

Black's sharp fangs shifted in what you thought was the skeleton's equivalent of a sneer without lips. “WHAT SORT OF HOGWASH RULE WOULD THAT BE? DO YOU ASK A CHARGING BULL TO RESPECT THE CONSENT OF A  PINECONE? ENCOUNTERS ARE HOW MONSTERS DEFEND THEIR OWN.” 

“You can do that just fine without the encounter, trust me, I’ve seen it firsthand. But I’m just saying, most humans find it incredibly unsettling, especially the older ones, so there is a law there to protect the peace.”

YOUR PEACE PERHAPS.”

“I don’t wanna do this whole posturing peacock dance with you, but I’ll just say it’s vital to all monster kind and the peace that exists between them and humans." You tried to find a balance between placating and stern in your tone. "I don’t like fighting but that is sometimes unavoidable. Don’t force my hand.” 

Black huffed loudly and tilted up his chin as if the thought of you putting up a fight was enough to turn his nose up at.  “I AM NOT THE AGGRESSOR IN THIS SITUATION. YOU WERE THE ONES TRESPASSING. I WAS DEFENDING MY HOME.”

“YOU DON’T THINK THAT WAS A LITTLE EXCESSIVE FOR TRESPASSING?” Blue called out, using magic in his voice to make a point. He wouldn’t be seen as lesser to this alternative version of himself. “YOU COULD HAVE REALLY HURT SOMEONE LIKE THAT.”

“OF COURSE, YOU UTTER CHILD. HOW ELSE SHOULD ONE DETER CRIMINALS?”

“WHAT IF THEY WEREN’T CRIMINALS LIKE US, JUST SOME LOST PEOPLE? YOU STOP TO THINK ABOUT THAT, HUH?”

“I TOOK NO SUCH ACTION BLINDLY. I KNEW YOU WERE A THREAT AND A WORTHY ONE TOO. YOUR MAGICAL SIGNATURES WERE NOT CLEVERLY DISGUISED ENOUGH TO PASS AS SIMPLE ‘LOST PEOPLE’ TO SOMEONE AS CLEVER AS I.”

“Yeah and plus we scared his daughter, so of course he’d react,” you add in a calm monotone. 

It’s enough to get Blue to snicker and Black to sputter in a new bout of rage as the blush returned to his face. He looked ready to verbally rip you a new one when the shuffling of bushes just past his shoulder made him freeze. He half turns so that you’re still in his line of sight, but it was enough to address the new pair picking their way over to you guys.

The skeleton is without a doubt, Black’s Papyrus. He is tall and thin enough, but he walks with a sleepy hunch that doesn’t subtract from his impressive height. His clothing is just as baggy and lazy as him, aside from the long fur collar duster with the hood pulled up over his skull. You noticed the gleam of color and see a gold tooth replacing one of his canines.

Then your eye is pulled down to the cuddly looking boy with dark skin and darker curls that clung to Papyrus’ front chest with all the dexterity of a baby sloth. When he looked back over his shoulder his smile remained you of a cat’s. 

Black holds back his sputtering rage well enough, but no one is convinced he’s not upset by the sight of his brother and another human turning up. 

“here you were, it wasn’t too hard to find you,” the new Papyrus absently commented with an easy smile. His arms hung down at his sides, limp and unused while the boy continued to cling to his front. 

“YOU INSUFFERABLE MUTT! WHAT IN STARS’ SAKE ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE WHEN YOU KNOW I AM DEALING WITH SOMETHING?”

“eh, phil here said it would be a good idea to get you for lunch, but that was before wendy came back crying.” 

Papyrus pat the back of the boy clinging to his front the same way someone would pet a dog, seeming to indicate that the ‘Phil’ from his statement was the one clinging to him. You assumed Wendy was the girl with braids. 

What were these two brothers doing with human children? Were they staying with another family the way Red and Edge had been? Were the kids neighbors or just locals that liked hanging out with the only two monsters in town?  

This far north in such a rural county the monster population was a far cry from what it was in the more metropolitan areas. You wouldn’t be surprised if you found the town completely devoid of monsters apart from these two. Maybe that was one of the reasons they had decided to settle in this location. No wonder the Embassy didn't notice them.

“I AM BUSY WITH URGENT MATTERS. RETURN TO THE HOUSE AT ONCE AND PREPARE MEALS IN MY ABSENCE.”

“awww, don’t you wanna invite your guests over? i made sandwiches and lemonade.”

“NO, I DO NOT WANT TO INVITE TWO STRANGERS OVER TO MY HOUSE FOR LUNCH, MUTT!”

The Papyrus called Mutt turned towards you both and waved. “hey there, i’m papyrus, the kids call me mutt, puppy, or russ so whatever is easier for ya. and you all are?” 

Blue jumped first, raising a hand and striking a pose. “I am The Magnificent Blue, and this is my human,” he said before sharing your name. 

Russ nodded along with the same easy smile on his face. “cool, cool, cool, nice we aren’t strangers no more. now you can come and join us for lunch, right m’lord.”    

It wasn’t really a question since he turned around and started heading back towards the house without waiting for a response. Black sputtered and looked near ready to pitch a hissy fit when Russ called back over his shoulder. 

“wendy is still in her room so you’ll have to call her down and explain to her why you’re really not angry with her.”

Something in Black’s demeanor went slack and the anger leaked out of him. He recovered a second later and turned back to face the both of you, hands folded behind his back and heels together.

“YOU WILL BE JOINING MY  BROTHER AND I FOR LUNCH IT APPEARS. UNDER MY ROOF I WILL REFRAIN FROM ALL FORMS OF VIOLENCE SAVE FOR RETALIATIONARY VIOLENCE SHOULD IT BECOME NECESSARY. WHEN YOU ARE FINISHED YOU CAN LEAVE.”

“Never wanted to fight in the first place so that sounds good to me.” You looked back over at Blue and he nodded back. “Lead the way, King Blackberry.”

“THAT! IS NOT MY NAME!”

You followed behind Black as he forged his way through a familiar stretch of the woods until you were out and under the sun again, standing at the edge of the treelike staring out at a healthy roll of green pasture next to Blueberry. 

There’s a small water hole not too far off, where a handful of absent cows graze and drink their full, having wandered over a break in the fence that divided one property from the next. A handful of apple trees dot the field on the far side of the watering hole, low and wide enough to shade some other animals. 

Your eye catches a scattering of gold and purple colors peppered through the grass and weeds. The golden rod is wild along with the sprawling larkspur flowers.

Set way back from the road there was a winding gravel driveway, and a partially dilapidated farmhouse with sagging sides, exposed framework, and a brand new cherry red door. It looked like something lost to the ages that someone had attempted to renovate or was in the process of renovating currently.  Somewhere further back there was a barn that used to be red but was stuck peeling with a caved in silo and sliding doors that had slid all the way off their tracks. 

 It wasn’t a perfect picture, but you have to stop for a moment and just take it all in. The world is open and wide. The sky looks so close you could reach out and touch it if only your fingers could just trench a little further. The clouds were fuller and thicker with white over the grass fields.

“This place reminds me of you,” you blurt out to Blue before you can stop yourself. 

“E-eh, me? How so?” He stops alongside you while Black stomps off, ignoring your presence or lack there of behind him as he makes a beeline for the house. 

“It’s so ...peaceful here. I could fall asleep in the grass or sit under those trees eating wild fruit or make a daisy crown and not care one iota for how time passes. It’s…when my magic comes into contact with you, this is what I feel.” 

You don’t know how weird it sounds, but it was the truth and you don’t regret admitting it. 

You feel him take your hand again but don’t acknowledge it as you study the landscape a little longer. You hear the buzz of a bumble bees’ wings as they flit past to get to the nectar of the wild flowers, and see the flash of color as light bounces off a dragonfly’s body. 

It was dreamlike and you couldn’t be sure you weren’t asleep. This was the sort of thing you found on oil paintings and novelty puzzles from the craft store. An idyllic little farm where one could just hide away? 

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE LOOKING LIKE A PAIR OF PLASTIC LAWN ORNAMENTS. WE WILL NOT BE DELAYING AN ALREADY LATE LUNCH ANY LATER FOR YOUR SAKE!” Black bellowed from further down the field, nearly at the house. 

Blue hummed beside you but he doesn’t face you so you can’t see what sort of odd shape his eyes have made this time. “Come on. Let’s not keep his majesty waiting.” 

“Yeah,” you numbly nod. 

CENTER

Notes:

Guys, I seriously enjoyed writing the SF bois from this point on. It's so hard to have so many favorites. I only have two hands!
Just like Red and Edge, the SF bois clicked with some humans along the way and thus-we get nicknames out of it. These brothers were super intimidating to start writing though but I really enjoyed them the more I wrote.

Children names are: Wendy (the girl who adores Black) and Phil (taken from The Promised Neverland because I'm so unoriginal when it comes to names).

Chapter 24: Bishop Knife Trick 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Black’s Papyrus stood in the doorway with the same loopy smile, holding it open with the back of his foot. Black’s outburst didn’t seem to rattle him any and you suspected he was used to this sort of behavior from his brother. 

“Watch your step around here and don’t step in any gopher holes,” Blue suggested, tugging at your hand again. You almost stumble but trailed behind him, careful of your footing in the tall grasses. 

Shadows from the clouds dotted the field of space that seperated you and Blue from the house, but they passed lazily with the gentle wind, making the grasses rustle and hiss .

You skip down the path and arrive at the door in time to see Black disappear inside, sparring you both one last glare in warning until he turned out of sight.

‘Rus’ waited at the door for both of you with Phil still stuck to his front. 

“welcome to our castle,” he chuckled with a voice that echoed his good nature. “it may be crumbling but it’s home. wipe your feet please and come on in, we probably have a lot to talk about.”

You wiped your boots off on the watermelon shaped welcome mat and followed Blue inside. There was a small entryway where shoes were scattered in a corner and a short flight of stairs that led up to the right. You followed them up to the main hallway that fed into the kitchen. 

There were signs of distress all throughout the house you could see, but there was also a lot of evidence of restoration. The appliances were all sparkly and new stainless steel with a regular fridge and a monster issued hot fridge. The table in the middle of the room was big with a mismatch of different placemats, but in the center of the table was a platter of finger sandwiches and a tray with cups stacked next to a pitcher of lemonade. 

Rus sighed loudly and then tickled Phil under his arms until the boy let go on a laugh, hanging only by his legs. Rus plucked Phil off the rest of the way and set him into a seat with arms that trapped him at the table. Phil, who looked no older than four, if that, smiled mischievously over the edge of his plate and his expression reminded you once more of a cat. 

“lunch, this time for real!” Rus called out before pulling out a chair for himself at the head of the table. There was a bench seat he gestured to you and Blue to help yourselves to. 

Before you were seated the rest of the way a pair of children, older than Phil and Wendy, tumbled into the room. One was a boy and the other, you thought was probably a boy too but you weren’t sure. The pair of them stopped dead at the sight of you but didn’t seem too phased by Blue, another skeleton monster, sitting at their table. 

The older one had dark straight hair cut unevenly and darker eyes. The one next to him was shorter and had dirty red hair that stuck out at odd angles and a smear of dirt across one side of their nose. 

Rus pointed to the older one and then the younger one. “we got tron and next to ‘em peter and then on the other side of the table is blueberry or blue, whatever he wants, and Y/N. now sit down before the lunch goes bad.”

“Family?” Tron asks, pointing to Blue and then Rus. 

“sure, let’s go with that,” Rus answers with a shrug.

You notice the younger one is wearing an old and faded, likely secondhand, Thundercats shirt and as they climb up into their seat you comment on it. “I like your shirt. You ever see the cartoons?” 

The child hesitated before grinning wide and nodding before spilling into a flurry of commentary about the original cartoon leading up to the reboot from over a dozen years ago that still aired on some of the old kid channels. 

It was…familiar, and you realized after another moment of rushed explanations why. Not just Raven, but all the kids that came after you, sounded like this at one point. It was something you had been pretty explicit about seeking out while you still were growing up. If the kids didn’t have something they loved and could gush about it was harder to deal with other things. 

That passion had been something an older girl taught you to look for and something you passed on to those after you, looking out for those who followed in your broken footsteps. 

Your eyes snuck a look at the elder boy, Tron, who was watching you and Blue enough, but focused the bulk of his attention on Rus, mimicking the taller skeleton in little ways. That was a good clue. 

“alright, enough chatter from you,” Rus interrupted. “now you eat or else no friendship burritos from the lord tonight with dinner.” 

You shared a small smile with Blue and mouthed ‘friendship tacos?’

Peter, the redhead, pouted but grabbed for his sandwich and shoved all of it into his mouth, filling up his cheeks like a squirrel. Blue almost sputtered out in laughter alongside you at the sight while Rus just raised his brow bones. Beside him, Tron rolled his eyes and poured another glass of lemonade. 

“You have a nice house here. It’s got so much character,” you say, direction your attention to Rus at the head of the table. “Are you and your brother fixing it up?”

“something like that, it was easier to get something broken and fix it ourselves. our gold isn’t going to last forever.” 

From their seats the two kids smirked or snickered and Rus chuckled too, like it was some inside joke they were all in on. If this set of brothers was anything like Blue and Stretch they were more than just loaded.

Apparently the captain of the guards position paid real well. 

With their sandwiches finished, Rus told the kids they could leave their dishes behind and go play as long as they took Phil with them. Tron and Peter shared a look between them and hurried off, carrying Phil in spite of his wiggling to get back to ‘puppy.’

You feel Rus shift in his seat and the aura in the whole room shifts with him. Blue noticed it too. 

“i think this is the first time we’ve had unanticipated guests over and something tells me you anticipated us plenty.” 

“Yeah,” Blue answered. “That’s the whole reason we were out here, looking for the two of you. How much did you overhear from when we talked to your brother?” 

At Rus’ blank look you and Blue recounted the same simple story. Rus took it a whole lot better, nodding along and then seemingly accepting everything at face value. When you and Blue were done his only response was a absent sounding ‘huh’ and nothing more. 

“Is…don’t you have any other questions?” Blue asked. “When me and Pappy came over we-ah, no that was just me, I had so many questions and it took days to answer everything.”

Rus scratched at the back of his skull. “yeah, well, we’ve been here for two months, maybe more and we’ve been reading and listening ta' enough media to get a good idea of how things go. plus, the kids keep us informed.”

“Then if you know so much, did your brother attack us because he wanted to break the rules or was he careless in remembering them? Going after me is one thing but he attacked Y/N too,” Blue asked, not exactly sounding hostile, but still coming off as miffed.

Rus didn’t appear to take offense or be bothered by Blue’s new tone. He was still the same chill guy from minutes earlier. “sans is…acclimating to this world at his own pace. some things are a little harder for him to let go of, like much of his military training. sorry for that, he probably just sensed your encounter and went with his gut.”

Blue flushed darkly at the mention of his earlier encounter and you leaned across the table, hoping to ease some of his misplaced embarrassment by saying something. “It sounds like your world was a pretty cutthroat sort of place. Two of the others, we call them Red and Edge, came from a place like that too. Funny enough, they also found some humans to stay with who helped them adapt.” 

Rus laughed at your comment but it was two parts nervous energy and one part honest humor.  “ ooh-yeah, uh, um this place is a cakewalk in comparison,” he swallowed and glanced away for a minute before returning his gaze back to you. “i won’t deny it, but that just makes it all the harder to believe in. it doesn’t feel like anything bad could happen here, but we know that's impossible.”

You think back to first seeing the meadow once you and Blue stepped out from the woods. You understood what Rus was saying too well. It was like they were living in a protected little paradise set aside from the rest of the world.  

“Yeah, I was thinking I could help answer some of those questions," you said. "I can promise you that neither the kids nor any news station broadcast would be able to get you my information.”

His eye lights blinked on and off and then dilated. You suspected that meant he was taking another good look at you, based on what you had picked up from the body language of your other skeleton friends.  

“hnnn, y-y eah, i was thinking there had to be some humans with magic around here somewhere, even if the kids said there was no such thing. i mean, someone had to set up that barrier in the first place, right?” his eye lights wavered a bit in their sockets as he seemed to burrow further into his hood. You noticed him playing with the edges of his duster under the table. “’ts my first time seeing a mage in person though, thought you were all like, old and wrinkly.”

“Ha, maybe one day, but fingers crossed, that’s a long way off,” you laughed playfully. “But I guess the title of mage is sort of outdated. We’re just a bunch of brat kids with magic who aren’t kids anymore. There’s not a lot of demand for our skills though in peacetimes, just a few peacekeeping missions.” 

“…even if, uh, even if you’re not attached to any higher power?” There was a weight to Rus’ stare this time around, and you could tell that he was still nervous around you both, but that didn’t keep him from his due vigilance. He wasn’t his brother, but he also wasn’t one to trust blindly.

Good.

If they were taking care of kids he would need that. 

“The only higher power I need to answer to is my own convictions. I’d say you’re better for the long run keeping off the radar. Not that I think you’re in any immediate danger, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.”

“Speaking of keeping safe,” Blue interjected, sliding closer to you on the bench to cut into Rus’ line of sight. “You’re housing small children but is that safe? What about their parents and families?” 

Rus dropped his hands and his nervous twiddling. “eh, none of those around for any of them. they were here squatting on the property when we purchased it and refused to leave. it wasn’t that much more trouble to keep them. ”

“There should be some sort of service in place for humans without families. Didn’t you say you there were orphanages like the one you came from, that could help out?” Blue asked, turning to face you. 

You wrinkled your nose at the thought and leaned back enough to cross your arms over your chest in an effort to sort through your feelings. With your experiences being in the system and landing at an orphanage (once you were no longer infant sized and cute enough for potential parents), it would be the last place you’d wish on another kid older than four. 

Of the kids you had seen so far, Phil, Tron, Peter, and Wendy, they all seemed well adjusted and close with their skeletal caretakers. If they had been squatting on their own before being discovered it was likely they were runaways and prone to running away again if the environment wasn’t right for them. Yeah, the responsible thing to do would be to contact the authorities but… that move didn’t feel good to you at all. 

 “There are child protective services that you can always get in contact with, but… I really wouldn’t recommend the place I came from considering where I finally ended up," you said. "Plus, they seem safe here. But I’ll admit I’m the wrong person to ask for advice on this sort of thing seeing as how I’m biased against the whole system itself.”

“they’re very safe here,” Rus interjected, eye sockets wide with the first real fear since meeting you both. “an-nd even if it wasn’t something we cared about too much a-at first, now we couldn’t imagine this place without them here. They-uh, oh um-we, we make sure they have all three meals a day of human food and gave them each a bed with blankets and books and movies they didn’t have before.” 

You spotted a bead of colored sweat collecting at the base of his skull and knew what it was there for. 

“I’m not gonna do anything to risk their well being and I believe they’re best off with people who care about them, not just people who can buy them stuff.” Rus started to fidget more openly as his nerves mounted and you raised your palms to soothe some of his fears. “But I see that they’re getting that here. The boys seem to really adore you and if a little girl is willing to throw herself in the middle of an encounter to save her ‘Mr. Blackberry King,’ I think your brother checks out too.”

 “you-yu-your not gonna call someone?”  

You shook your head. “No, I’m not going to do that. You should feel flattered though. Runaways don’t trust lightly or easily.”

Rus deflated in relief, hanging his head low enough that it hit the edge of the table with a dull ‘thunk’ sound. 

Unconsciously your magic leaked out like some agitated animal that had finally caught sight of something it wanted to play with and you only barely managed to trap it back before it could come into contact with Rus. Blue reached for you, grabbing the edge of your long sleeve and giving it a small tug to let you know he was there. 

“Rus,” you call his name and he picks his head up only enough to see you with one eye light. “You don’t have to worry about me or your kids. Do you believe me?”

“i... guess so?” But there was still something nervous in the way he watched you. 

You were distracted from saying more when you heard the heavy stomping of someone new entering the kitchen. Military Sans, or as you were calling him in your head, Black, swept into the room and ignored everyone at the table in favor of pulling human ingredients out of the fridge and assembling them on the counter to prepare. 

“wendy still mad at her king, m’lord?” Rus chuckled with a fond look in his eye lights. 

“SILENCE, MUTT. I DON’T REQUIRE YOU NEEDLESS COMMENTARY TO MATTERS THAT DON’T CONCERN YOU. CANOODLE WITH THE TRESPASSERS AND LEAVE MY AFFAIRS TO ME.” 

“sure thing your majesty.” 

For a while the three of you watched in silence as Black diced vegetables and cooked a small section of ground meat in a pan on the stove. You recognized the ingredients once you saw the soft tortilla shell. He finished with the meat and fed it into the fold of the soft shell, adding his vegetables and a dollop of sour cream to make it picture perfect before wrapping it up. 

Black huffed in satisfactory seeing his creation on a plate decorated along the edges with cute cartoonish bears and rabbits. He took the plate, paused to spare you and Blue a withering glare in spite of the colorful blush high on his cheeks.

You smiled back and spared him a playful wink, suspecting it would only annoy him further. As expected he blustered and hurried out of the room with his peace offering. 

“She’s got him wrapped around her finger,” you laughed. Blue and Rus added their chuckles to yours and the three of you shared your 'beef' moment of enjoyment together. 

You offered to help Rus clean up, even though he flustered bright lilac at the thought of letting you help, but you ignored his pleas to ‘please sit’ while he washed the used plates off in the sink and passed them over to Blue to dry. 

Eventually Rus gave up on dissuading you and packed up the rest of the unused sandwiches before saving them in the fridge. When you were done he had an apple pie out, and though you both insisted you couldn’t stomach another bite, Rus fussed with plating you each a slice you couldn’t refuse. 

“i- in exchange you could, um, talk a bit more about yourself? we don’t get many guests and fewer who can make conversation so openly,” Rus explained.

Blue and you fielded a few of his questions together, though most of them were about you and the Embassy you left behind as well as work you occupy yourself with. In turn you heard about Rus’ interest in computer programing and his efforts to set up some sort of home office where he could write programs and sell them to potential buyers instead of the simple website designing he had started out with. 

He invited you out to the garden on the side of the house and brought more of the lemonade with him for you both to drink and enjoy while the conversation flowed.  

When Black showed up outside with a scowl cut deep into his expression you realized how late it had grown. 

“I’VE ALREADY SET THE TABLE FOR EXTRAS SEEING AS HOW YOU WERE OTHERWISE TOO OCCUPIED TO COOK OR SET THE TABLE. IF YOU ARE DONE CANOODLING WITH THE HUMAN AND HER LOVER WOULD YOU KINDLY CALL THE OTHERS DOWN TO DINNER BEFORE WE ALL DUST FROM AGE?”

You felt your eyebrows raise while Blue behind you sputtered and choked on nothing but air while his face flared with a dangerous blush. You recovered first and laughed at Black’s scowl and Rus’ look of concern.

“You’re a little too presumptuous, your grace. Blue and I are just friends,” you answer while reaching back to rub a circle into his back and help calm him down. 

Your words made the shorter skeleton flush a dark shade of purple high on his cheek bones as he pulled on the bottom part of his uniform and stood up straighter. “HUMPH, PROMISCUOUS MINX. YOU LEAD OTHERS TO MAKE SUCH ASSUMPTIONS ALL ON YOUR OWN. WHAT ELSE IS ONE TO THINK AFTER YOU SO BLATANTLY SHOWED OFF YOUR SOULS TO ONE ANOTHER LIKE A COUPLE OF CANOODLING TEENAGERS?” 

Canoodling what?”

“YOU HEARD ME SUFFICIENTLY, HUMAN.”  

“Sure, but, I mean, maybe you’re not the best person to make that sorta call considering you pulled me into an encounter right after that and got a good eyeful of my soul too. At least Blue asked for permission first.” At your words Black went stiff and flushed an even darker purple while Rus stared up at his brother in surprise. “Plus, how could you tell we had shared an encounter? You didn’t show up until after.” 

“sans?” Rus called, his voice soft as he watched his brother. 

“I HAVE MY SOURCES! DINNER! IS IN FIVE MINUTES!” And then, not bothering with walking, Black took a shortcut out. 

In his absence Rus turned away from where Black once stood and eyed you and Blue anew. Your almost blushed when you realized that Rus had made the same assumption about the two of you. Blue and you were super close, and a lot of the things you did could easily be misinterpreted by outsiders who didn’t know you better. 

Rus smiled over at you and Blue, his eye lights brighter. “…so ...dinner?”  

 

Lunch with the kids prepared you for dinner with them and Sans. The only other addition to the group was their lone female, Wendy, who hadn’t looked away from you once since seeing you at her table. Immediately to her right Black sat, cutting up the chicken for her and then chastising her for not using her napkin to wipe her face with. You thought it was adorable how Black blustered over her more so than the others. 

Once dinner had wrapped up you and Blue moved to wash and dry the dishes just like at dinner, something the boys cheered for since it was their chore you had ‘saved’ them from. 

“You’re gonna stay the night, right?” Peter asked, hanging off of Blue’s arm while the skeleton wiped down each fork and knife with the dish cloth. 

“We were actually going to-”

“NONSENSE,” Black interrupted, causing you to turn. He and his brother stood side by side, a united front. “ALLIES OR ENEMIES, I’D RATHER HAVE YOU UNDER MY ROOF WHERE I CAN KEEP MY EYE ON YOU INSTEAD OF LOOSE IN THE WORLD AND VULNERABLE TO ITS DANGERS.”

“Umm, that’s not…” Blue hesitated, glancing nervously over at you and then back at the brothers. “We shouldn’t impose upon you.”

“I INSIST!” And then Black blinked away with another shortcut making Peter and Wendy gasp and giggle while Phil just clapped his hands.  

It seemed like there would be no arguing with Black, and your original plan to stay at the bed and breakfast a few miles south was shot. Good thing you never made those reservations. 

Outside the night began to roll in and Rus set up a spare room for each of you in the renovated wing of the house. Blue mumbled something about being able to share a room and you rubbed his hand with your thumb, holding it. 

“I’ll be fine for one night, and besides, my eye doesn’t even hurt anymore,” you say.

“You were still in a fight today,” Blue worried before adding in a mumble, “I shouldn’t be away from you.”

“I’m one door away and I know to knock if I need you.” 

“Yo-you don’t even have to knock,” Blue muttered, flushing with color and looking down at his hands as he mumbled out his words to you. 

“I appreciate the gesture, but I think I’ll be fine,” you say, turning your voice soft just for him. His kindness for you was something that humbled you, and still took you by surprise every so often. He never seemed to run out of compassion. “But I promise I’ll come to you if I get lonely.”

“…Okay then.”

With great reluctance Blue let you go and shuffled over to his room, making a face that begged for pity all the way. He hesitated on the threshold, watching you for a moment longer before heading inside. 

With your saddlebags from the motorcycle still somewhere out in the woods, you made do with a spare toothbrush and the innermost layer of your clothes for Pjs. Eventually the house, filled with the noise of scurrying feet and whines for one more bedtime story settled and the stars came out, winking into their glory. 

The bed was nice and the room was neat, but you opened your window and sat on the edge of it, dangling one bare leg over the side and letting the cold air chill your warm skin. The hours rolled by and you stayed awake, knowing too well how bad it would be if you had another night terror and woke a house full of children

That was the last thing you wanted. 

It was after midnight when you heard the door to your room creak open on well oiled hinges. You startled, suspecting Blue, but surprised to see the only other girl crouched on the threshold. When she saw your eyes in the dark she squeaked and froze where she was. 

“Wendy?” you softly called. You stretched out your hand and curled your fingers. “What are you doing up so late?”

She didn’t answer, but she took a couple of steps towards you, leaving the door open ajar. Each step was slow and measured, but eventually she made it to your windowsill and reached for you. You recognized the gesture too well and fondly picked her up, turning her around to cradle in your arms atop you lap.

“Were you having trouble sleeping?” you ask.

“…Were you?” she answered. Wendy leaned back and looked up at your face as she sat sideways on your lap, cradled against your one arm. 

“Something like that. I was just watching the stars and getting a cool breath of air. It’s so nice out here in the country,” you explained honestly. “I sometimes have bad dreams, the stars help.”

“What are your bad dreams about?”  Wendy asked, fidgeting in your lap.

“That’s a big question,” you say, but you don’t leave her unanswered. “I dream about things that I’m scared of and there are plenty of things that make me afraid.” 

“Like what?” Wendy pressed.

Of course she would want to ask the hard questions. “Do you mind if I tell you some other time, maybe when I’m not trying to forget about them?” you chuckle weakly.

“Oh,” Wendy said before glancing down at your chest before poking at it. You didn’t flinch when she got close to your scars. “What about your heart? Where did it go?”

“My…heart?”

“It was soooo pretty,” Wendy breathed while staring up at you with big brown eyes. “It was red like a lollipop and it was on fire. I saw it when you were with the other skeleton. He was looking at it too. I… I thought he might have taken it from you.”

“Oh, you mean my soul. I forgot you kids can see those things. No, he didn’t take it, I still have it inside of me. I can’t pull it out on my own to show you without help, otherwise I would.”    

“Why was it on fire?” 

You held up your free hand and concentrated on the palm, turning it black as charcoal before it cracked open with a small flickering flame. Wendy gasped as you made the fire dance into shapes she might recognize, a ballerina, a swan, a girl dressed as pretty as a princess…And then you let the fire go out. 

“I can do things like that. Maybe that’s why my heart looked like it was on fire to you.” When Wendy reaches for your hand you let her take it. You don’t miss the way she breathes out in awe when she feels how smooth your palm had turned. 

“Any other burning questions?” you joked, getting her to chuckle. 

It felt familiar to have a child in your arms again. You had always been one of the mentor figures to the newest recruits while at the Embassy. So many of them sought you out in the middle of the night and talked to you until they fell asleep or just sought out a story or song to slip off to. And even thought they had come to you for help, when you comforted them, it was always easier to find your sanity the next morning. 

“You ready to head back to bed now?” you asked after a while. It was late and you could stay up, but you didn’t doubt she needed her sleep far more than you.

“…Don’t wanna sleep yet.”

She cuddled closer and you pulled her in to keep her from falling out of your arms. “What if I told you a story…or sang you a song?” 

“…You sing?”

It was a song she wanted? You could work with that. “Let me think of something,” you say while staring out at the night sky lit up with a mess of twinkling stars. 

You brushed back a loose string of her hair and started to rock back and forth, humming a melody she could feel through the vibrations of your body. 

“And the planets of the universe... go their way. Not astounded by the sun or the moon, or by the day,” you sang, pitching your voice low and soft.  “You and I will simply disappear out of sight…. But I'm afraid ... soon there'll be… no light.” 

When you sang you remembered a different history. You didn’t have the best vocals and no one would be tripping over themselves to get you on a record label, but it was a voice suited to soothing and lullabies, a voice that weighed something.

Raven had complained about your singing, but he asked for your songs more than anyone else. 

That memory felt like a lifetime ago, like it belonged to someone else more than it did you.

“Now…. I know, ooooh, I was wrong to live for a dream. If I’d had…. my life to live over, I would never dream, no ohhh, I will never dream, no….” 

Wendy felt slack in your arms so you stood with her, still rocking and humming as you made your way out into the hallway and spotting the only room with the door left open. Inside was a room fit for a princess, painted pink with a canopy bed and plenty of stuffed animals and toys. Some still had their tags left on them.

You hummed as you lowered her into bed, pulling the comforter back.

With your back to the door you felt eyes on you, but when you turned around there was no one there. You hummed one last note that lasted and lasted before getting up and closing the door behind you. The hallway was empty as you made your way back to your room, only to pause outside of Blue’s door. 

You thought about it, knowing you shouldn’t be a bother, but ultimately turned towards it and eased it open enough to sneak in. Blue was asleep in his bed, lightly snoring through his nasal ridge as he had turned onto his back.  

You pulled back the covers and slid in beside him. As soon as the bed dipped with your weight he moved in his sleep towards you, rolling onto his side and reaching for you. Like all the other nights you slept in his arms. He buried his face in your hair and held you close, entwining one leg with yours. 

Safe in his arms, you let yourself fall asleep, knowing you would be safe from dreams one night more. 

Notes:

Guys! I got fanart for this fic, something I'm over the moon for! And it's Blue and reader cuddling. I'm so freaking ecstatic for it and ya'll should check it out: Blue & Reader
I promise there will be way more skeleton bed sharing and cuddles in the future. They're my favorite thing to write and of course this chapter ended with Blue getting some sleep cuddles-more of that next chapter!

Kids ordered via age:
Tron
Peter
Wendy
Phil

Song Used at the end: Planets of the Universe

Chapter 25: Bishop Knife Trick 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sans had opinions.

Without you and Blue, the group dynamic was less than stellar. Stretch was noticeably more agitated without his brother by his side, and no amount of confirmation texts could put the doubt out of his skull. 

Edge and Red, monsters who had been more than civil the entire time on the road, started to fray a bit emotionally. It looked like, to Sans, their true personalities were coming up to the surface in the absence of some civilizing element; namely you. Without their humans around to reinforce their learned behaviors, some of their bad habits started to reappear.  

Papyrus… he was doing okay. He had been sad to see you go and that sadness still weighed on him, but anyone who didn’t know him as well as Sans did wouldn’t be able to tell. At least he was still talking with his brother. Sans would have been far more forlorn if things had been the way they were before this trip started. Drifting apart from his brother because he felt ‘replaced’ by all of Papyrus’ adoring fans had been a stupid decesion. 

“last call for ai express,” Stretch called out, breaking Sans free from his thoughts. 

Papyrus and Stretch watched from the window as the massive tour sized bus turned on, empty of inhabitants, and began to pull out. Knowing it had been bugged and tapped to high heaven, Sans wasn’t sad to see it go, but he was surprised when the tail lights blinked out behind a far off building, now gone from view, and his soul throbbed. Maybe he did feel a bit attached to the stupid bus, considering it had been a space he shared with you and the others. He hadn’t hated his time on the road with you...all…

“ONE MORE NIGHT HERE AND THEN WE CAN RETURN TO BUSINESS,” Papyrus sighed, sounding relieved. “WE CAN DO THAT.”

“...the sooner the better,” Stretch added. His phone was out and the message app was lit up as he scrolled through his communications with ‘Sans’ Blue. 

That had been the plan. They would spend one more night and then wake in the morning. They’de go separate ways at first, before meeting at a pre-identified checkpoint and restarting their journey up to the town of Blackberry where you were hiding out with Blue and two other iterations of the brothers.

Sans took one more look around and sighed when he saw that neither Edge nor Red was present. He knew it would be the responsible thing to do, and he was trying to be better, but he still didn’t feel like pulling himself up to track down the pair.

He took a shortcut into their room and scowled when he found it empty. The gym was empty too but the bar wasn’t. Red sat at a table by himself, a small blacknotebook open by his drink. A couple other empty bottles collected on the table from past mixes and straight up shots.

It wasn’t even five yet. 

Sans cursed at himself for being stupid, but ambled over, sitting down directly across from his counterpart. 

“hey.”

Red looked up and shrugged. “Hey yourself.”

Unlike the others, Red and Edge seemed to keep their magic out of their voices even when there were no humans around. It had been like that when he and Edge last spoke in the hallway of the last hotel they stayed at. 

Between the two brothers, Sans found Red a lot more approachable, even if he looked like he got dressed in a garbage dump blindfolded. 

“I take it, the reason you’re here now is because the AI took our bus away?” Red guessed. 

“smart guy. whacha writing about?” Sans asked, making his own guesses based on what he knew of himself. He had a brain for science and jokes, but one of those things benefited from getting written down and studied while the other just needed to be voiced. 

“Journaling. Helps me so I don’t end up venting to bro all the time.” Red answered without looking up. He reached for his drink to finish it off. “He’s got enough on his mind right now. He don’t need me messing it up any more.” 

“don’t you call back home for stuff like that?” Sans asked. 

Red smirked a little at the thought of Ma and Mini’s place being home. “Yeah, sometimes we do, but the ladies have their own life to live and we’re supposed to be more independent than that. We don’t call home every time something comes up, otherwise we’d never get off the phone.” 

“...so,” Sans began after a beat of silence, “what are you writing about this time?”

The pen went still and Red let it drop into his journal. “Nothing so important. We’ve already talked about this, but I’m getting the feeling that there is more to this mission than what we briefed.”

“yeah, there is, that’s why we’re splitting from the embassy.” San frowned. “what do you think it is?”

Red tapped his phalanges to the clip of his pen and then reached for his empty glass, cradling it absently. “I don’t think you would have been able to tell, but have you ever noticed anything... weird about the shortcuts you use here?”

That was not what Sans thought Red would say. “nah, same as always, why?”

Red twitched. “I don’t like it. I know danger when I feel it and I feel it every time I use one. It’s the same void, but it feels different here and it shouldn’t . The void is the void. It shouldn’t be different from one corner of reality to the next.”

“different how?” Sans asked. 

Red shrugged. “Can’t say for sure yet, I just feel it for now. I’ve tried to stretch out my shortcuts and stay in the void longer to try and notice it, but nothing has turned up so far. I’m not sure if it’s just me being paranoid or if there really is something to get worried about. Alternatively, if all us iterations are here in one place maybe that’s done something.” 

Sans nodded, thinking along and listening. He had been expecting Red to be moping about you leaving or sappy about how Edge was going off on his own more and more, but in actuality he was using his mind to be productive...or paranoid. 

Sans wasn’t the best judge of what was healthy skepticism and what was paranoia.

“And here I thought you were down here journaling about your feelings, drinking by yourself cause you missed her,” Sans chuckled. 

“Ah, no, I did that first. Once I got through a few pages I started on this theory,” Red answered honestly, face completely blank. Then it shifted and he was glaring down at his book. “I know he’s more Papyrus than Sans, but Blue has grabby fingers and is old enough to know how to use ‘em.” 

Sans didn’t like that thought but tried his best to keep his tone civil when speaking about someone in their absence. “blue is harmless, you know he’d respect boundaries.”   

“If he can recognize those boundaries. I like the kid plenty, don’t get me wrong, but he’s not just a kid. He’s a Sans. He ain’t stupid. None of them are. He’s just the best at fooling you,” Red sighed, sagging in his seat and kicking at the table. “And now I’m depressed again. Fuck. How long we gotta wait before we can go after them?” 

“we’ll leave tomorrow after checkout.”

Red groaned and flipped his notebook shut, snapping the elastic cord that kept it all together. “That’s great . I guess I’ll dick around in the void for a bit and hopefully get my brain back.” 

And then Red was gone. 

A moment later Sans realized that he had been left with the tab.  

 


 His hands were still around you, tangled in your hair and wrapped around your waist when he roused at first light. Always an early riser, Blue wasn’t surprised to find himself awake before you considering how late you stayed up. 

He had been asleep for most of the night but remembered rousing just enough to hear your voice from outside his window, lulling the night itself into a softer darkness. It had been the first time he heard it but he knew the singer had been you right away, no matter how different or deeper it slipped.  

The mornings were for running and training and the day was for working, but as he had all the other times you slept next to him, Blue found an excuse to stay in with you. He didn’t want you to have to wake up alone and be worried. 

Plenty of people  misunderstood him at first glance and wrote him off as childish, but Blue wasn’t dense. He understood enough to realize there was a pattern to your sleeping habits.

If you snuggled with one of them it was all good. If you slept on your own, you’d get out of bed eventually to sit up the rest of the night, sipping energy drinks or listening to audiobooks on your phone to stay awake. Once he had woken and notice you absent from the bus completely, leaving the roof hatch open behind you. If you didn’t seclude yourself or stay up you drank when you thought no one else would notice and slept yourself straight into a hangover. 

It didn’t take Blue long to put the pieces together after that. 

After the accident you were afraid to sleep, or more specifically, you were afraid to dream. Had the encounter reignited some old trauma that haunted you into your sleep? It appeared so, but you had never mentioned anything about it and Blue hadn’t felt confident enough in his assumptions to confront you about it. Maybe he should have. 

In your sleep you let out a thin breath, shuffling slightly. Blue waited a moment more to see if you would wake up, but when you didn’t he tugged himself back, closer to your side. You moved so rarely in your sleep it had unsettled him more than once when he roused in the middle of the night. He’d wake and see you still in his arms and wait until he heard your breathing before relaxing again. 

The hand he cradled your head with reached up to tangle with your hair and brush it back. Papyrus had commented on it the other day, excited by its new length and anticipating how long it would grow in the future. Blue hadn’t thought he had a preference, but with his hands tangled in your silky strands, he thought it might not be too bad if you really did decide to grow it out. Maybe you would be willing to let him try braiding it back for morning training? He was sure with enough research and practice he would be able to make something you would like. 

Outside the sun was still low on the horizon, new and bleeding red and gold against the clouds, but there was enough sunlight to filter into their room and fall across the pillows. You looked beautiful under the sunlight. He could watch you for ages and still never get over the awe his soul throbbed with. 

The house seemed to sleep on with the occasional creak or groan of the old frame settling. One of the kids was awake somewhere, scrambling around on the ground and making soft thuds with his or her feet against the bare wood. There weren’t any whispers or words and after another minute the footsteps ceased. 

It was a good day to stay in bed and rest. 

And think. 

Thinking about yesterday, or more specifically, your encounter with him, made Blue almost melt into the bedsheets. He had been plenty confident before that, but then after seeing, feeling, and hearing your soul in their shared space, he had all the assurance he needed. 

He knew what he felt. 

The fact that he had almost tripped into an accidental encounter with you because his soul longed for yours had been strong evidence all on its own. Someone with his level of control still managed to slip up, and there was a reason for it. 

Blue remembered the soft touch of your magic and then your soul, so warm and bright. The memory forced Blue to bury his face in the mattress. It was nearly enough to make him dizzy. 

How’d he get so lucky? Your soul was…you were ...your soul…He couldn’t make the words work even in his thoughts. 

If Soul Mates were ever a thing he would have thought that’s what it felt like to just…click onto the same wavelength as another person. In all the gushiest most romantic monster stories, there was usually a bit about the hero and his or her lady connecting in a way that was so extraordinary people had to call it something different. Humans didn’t have an equivalent for it in their cultures or customs, but someone had said it sounded like ‘love at first sight.’ That didn’t feel right to Blue and he didn’t want to cheapen what he felt with half truths. 

He wished there could be a mark or a sign he could point to. It would make showing others what he felt a bit easier. Alas, magic didn’t work like that and all he had were his feelings. But maybe it was better without a mark. He wasn’t sure how he’d feel if he had to see your mark on someone else. He didn’t dream very much, but he day dreamed often and his worst sort of dream was one where he lost you, either to a fight he couldn’t win, or when you ran off into the sunset with someone else. 

He pulled you closer in his arms and lifted his face from the mattress to nestle against your forehead. His teeth brushed just above your eye and he tried to kiss you, but he couldn’t be like the humans in the movies, so without lips he touched his teeth to your skin as softly as he could. 

You shifted slightly, likely in response to his own movements, but you settled right back down and returned to your easy, even breathing. Safe, you were safe in his arms. The fact that you hadn’t thrashed from a nightmare or woken up crying was proof enough that you believed it too. 

You were plenty strong all on your own, and Blue knew that you could handle yourself. He did! You had done fantastically yesterday, talking down that ego inflated knock off version of himself that thought he was just so malevolent . And apart from your diplomatic angles, you had a mean set of fire hands and enough know-how to use them dangerously. 

Still…

It was probably horrible of him to worry about you as much as he did. He knew you were strong! It was just… it mattered what happened to you. It mattered more than it should. It mattered more than anyone else’s safety, and that scared him. Hearing about your fight with Sans, about the bruises he had given you that went ignored and brushed aside, churned something angry up inside his gut. To you it wasn’t a big deal but any wound or injury to your person was just something that disgusted him.

What a mess he was. 

Blue held onto you as long as he could, but eventually the house began to wake, first the footsteps, and then the whispers, and then came the doors. A few came close and then rushed by, leaving the hallway quiet once more. 

You stirred more in response to the sounds, extra sensitive to them. 

Knowing you were close to waking Blue started to unwind his fingers from your hair, his hand from your waist, and his legs from out between yours. He slipped out of the bed and peeked out to check the coast before dipping back into your room to collect your clothes from yesterday, the ones you left discarded on the floor. Until they had access to their saddlebags you would have to make do in your old things. 

He made it back to the room unnoticed and eased the door shut behind his back, watching you roll over in bed and flail around, searching for something on the nearby pillows. You covered one half of your head with your hand and then sat up, hiding the scarred side of your face behind your fingers. Your good eye landed on Blue and the things he carried in his hands. 

“Shoot, Blue, I’m sorry,” you yawned. You stretched out your arms, reaching for the edge of the bed and imitating a cat that just came up out of its nap. “I forgot to grab those.”

He wanted to say something along the lines of ‘I noticed’ because he had . Your legs, from mid thigh to ankle were bare and smooth. There was no way he wouldn’t have noticed that after cuddling through the night. 

 “It’s no trouble. Don’t apologize to me for something so simple.” He playfully chastised, playing off his bashful embarrassment. “You say that too much. Don’t you know I like doing things for you?” 

He sat down on the edge of the bed and handed over the black leggings and extra layers you had shed for sleep.  

“You’re too sweet to me.”

“Not nearly sweet enough!” he chirped back.

“At least let me thank you for letting me crash next to you last night. I know I said I wouldn’t, that I didn’t need to, but I guess I changed my mind in the middle of the night.”

“What made you change your mind?” And what could he say or do to convince you to fall asleep in his arms all the other nights? 

You had pulled the comforter over your head and by the way it moved, Blue suspected you were wriggling into your leggings and adding the other layers under it. Stars, even the way the comforter wriggled was cute. 

When you finally emerge your hair is a far worse mess but, even that!, makes Blue think of you as all the more adorable. He wanted to hold you again and just keep holding you, never letting go. He had found his happiness and he wanted to take as much of it into his arms as he could each day.

“I don’t know. I guess I was just feeling a little lonely. The girl from yesterday, Wendy, she snuck into my bedroom last night. Turns out she was the one that ratted on us to Black. She saw my soul at least.”

“Oh!” 

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that. He wanted to jump on the topic and talk all about the bond you had forged? Formed? Awakened? during your encounter, but he also wanted to hear the rest of you recollection. 

You nod along, crawling over to the edge of the bed and sitting with your legs crossed. “Yeah, she was a real chatterbox. I remember back when I was a teenager, there were always kids younger than me and I stayed up with so many of them, reading to them or singing until they fell asleep. I didn’t mind it. I was… nice. Familiar even.” 

“Was that you singing last night?” Blue asked, not caring if his smile was teasing. When he got you to flush it was all worth it. “I thought I might have imagined it when I woke up a little, but I heard someone outside singing.”

“Shoot, Blue, I’m sorry. I hadn’t meant to wake you.”

“I’m glad you did! It was like listening to a…a, an angel!”

Your blush spread and you made a sound in your throat that almost set him off. It was an embarrassed little moan. It took all of Blue’s legendary self control to keep from pouncing on you and snuggling into your side once more.

“Don’t! Pretend you didn’t hear it. I haven’t done that since forever ago.”

“I’m sure Wendy appreciated it. She’s so lucky, getting to stay up talking with you, even getting a song? I’m jealous!” Blue laughed. 

There was still color on the tips of your ears but Blue didn’t push it anymore, content to only fluster you a little bit. He wasn’t his brother. If Stretch had been given the opportunity he would have teased and teased until the other person ( you ) was begging for mercy. 

“We should probably get up and see if they need any help. I feel bad that we just crashed in on them without warning like this. We ate their food and took up their beds.”

“Yeah, but the Blackberry attacked both of us so it’s an even trade,” Blue pouted. 

“Still, I feel bad,” you say, already up and standing next to the door with your hand on the handle. “Maybe we offer to help with food?”

You were…so SWEET and so GOOD! Blue’s soul throbbed a little bit in want. 

You must have seen something in his face because you paused, hand hovering, jaw hanging in an expression of surprise. “Blue, your eye lights!” 

He blinked and shook his head, likely dismissing the stars his eye lights were prone to make. When he looked up again you were smiling and the surprise was gone. 

“Is something wrong with my eye lights?” Blue asked, hands hovering over the sockets in mild concern.

“Nah…just, shapes is all. Come on, let’s not have them think we’re lazy bones.”

CUTE!

He followed you out and down the stairs, smelling breakfast before they were even in the kitchen. Only one of the kids, the smallest boy named Phil, was sitting at the table, and at the opposite end with a newspaper and coffee mug at hand, The Blackberry king himself sat.

Rus turned around, revealing an electric skillet with several pancakes flipped onto their golden brown sides. Another glass dish sat half filled with already made pancakes. 

“morning,” Rus greeted. 

“Good morning,” you said first. “Sorry we weren’t up earlier. I hope there’s something we can do to help.”     

“you can sit at the table and get comfortable. these will be done in just a minute.” Rus turned the spatula over in his hand and then turned back to the pancakes. 

Blue narrowed his eye lights at the scene, paying extra close attention to the differences. Blackberry had a coffee and a paper but wasn’t interacting with either of them, instead he watched his brother with a narrowed look of disbelief that pinched his face, as if the sight he disbelieved in was equally distasteful. 

The other difference was Rus himself. Yesterday he had been dressed in baggy clothes, stained sneakers, and a dirty duster. This time around Rus was wearing…nice shoes? Fitted slacks? A light blue long sleeve button down with the sleeves rolled up?

Black watched his brother mutely, ignoring the both of you as well as Phil in his seat. 

“oh, y/n, are you allergic to anything? we have a lot of fruit we use and some of the pancakes have blueberries already in them,” Rus called back, glancing back over his shoulder at you. 

“I can eat anything. Thank you so much for the rooms last night and all this food. It’s so generous,” you gush, earnestly. 

Rus chuckled and it sounded a bit too much like Stretch’s chuckle that for a moment, Blue was almost stunned. Stretch wasn’t anything like Edge or Papyrus aside from the physical aspects, but Rus seemed like he had more in common with Stretch than he did with the other Papyrus versions. And… somehow…that made it a little easier to accept his kindness and not feel so on-guard against it. Still…. 

“WE HAVE AN ABUNDANCE OF BOTH. YOUR GRATITUDE IS ACKNOWLEDGED THOUGH ULTIMATELY UNNECESSARY,” Black answered, still watching his brother oddly. 

“and its nice to have guests for a change.”

“WE ENTERTAIN A NUMBER OF DIVERSE AND DISTINGUISHED GUESTS ON OCCASION,” Black quipped back, directing his comment at his brother and ignoring the pair of you seemingly altogether.

Rus sighed over his pancakes. “mrs. tatcher and the pallacos are our neighbors and they’ve only visited once each.” Rus then muttered under his breath, “and i doubt they’ll be returning anytime soon.” 

“VETTING PROCESSES ARE TYPICALLY THIS THOROUGH. ONE MUST NOT SKIMP ON THE DETAILS LEAST THEY INVITE A FOX INTO THEIR HENHOUSE. AS CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD WE HAD UNCOVERED SEVERAL NEFARIOUS VILLAINS OF SUCH A NATURE DURING THE LAST LEG OF THEIR INVESTIGATION.” Black then whirled his attention from his brother to you and Blue. “THAT IS NOT TO SAY EITHER OF YOU HAVE BEEN CLEARED OR MET THE STANDARDS OF ACCEPTANCE FOR MY HOME.” 

You don’t flinch from his words or seem to take any offense at them, but you do lean a little further across the table and put your face directly in his line of sight. That makes him stiffen and wrinkle the edges of where his phalanges gripped the newspaper. Blue can hear the crinkle it makes.

 You don’t say anything, but the color across Black’s face continues to darken. 

“That’s,” you say after a heartbeat more of silence, “too bad, but I don’t blame you for being wary. When the stakes are as high as they are it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

“AND WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?”

Overhead something went thud and then there was very vocal laughter followed by a cry of complaint, and then the sound of rushed footsteps as a couple of tiny bodies chased one another upstairs. 

“You’re pretty strong all on your own and you have enough LoVe to prove that you’re not above doing what needs to be done to keep you and your own in one piece. I don’t know anything about where you came from, or what you experienced but I doubt it was a walk in the park.” 

As if to illustrate your point you tap at your eyebrow and make a gesture with those fingers to indicate getting sliced there. It mirrored the scar that cut through the bone of Black’s one eye socket.  

“You both strike me as the types that know how to survive, but survival is easy when all you have to worry about is yourself. It’s so much harder when you have things to lose and things to protect, or at least it feels that way.”

Black doesn’t reply and Rus doesn’t turn around. And for a minute there is quiet in the kitchen, unbroken even by Phil who was busy coloring on his placemat. Before words can interrupt the silence Wendy ran into the kitchen giggling fiercely while Peter ran after her, waving a long sock over his head like it was some sort of whip. Wendy darted towards the table and jumped up into Black’s lap, turning around with her arms on his shoulders to stick her tongue out at Peter who had to skid to a halt. 

“Not fair!” Peter complained, stomping his foot in frustration. “You didn’t call base.”

“You woke me up with your stupid smelly socks again so you don’t get to use the rules,” Wendy sassed back.

Carefully Black set aside the half finished mug of coffee he had skillfully managed to keep from spilling in light of the jostling. He didn’t snap at Wendy to get down or chastise Peter for running in the house, but watched the pair carefully. Apparently that was all it took to break Peter off from his teasings and send him to his seat at the table. 

Phil looked up from his coloring and snickered at Peter.

“You want a sniff?” Peter asked, holding up his single, soiled sock.

Blue watched on in mild mortification as Phil cheered and reached for the sock, only to have Peter lob it at his face. Phil didn’t seem to care as he collected the sock and wore it around his shoulders like a scarf, much to Wendy’s horror and Peter’s delight. 

Hadn’t the human ambassador Frisk been a child when they freed the monsters from the underground? Blue was having a hard time picturing it while he watched the children play with the smelly sock.

Blue poked you in the side and leaned in to ask, “Is this…normal? I thought kids were all like that Frisk we saw videos about.” 

You didn’t seem anything but amused at the sight. “Frisk was a small twelve year old who was very determined and a bit exceptional. Hey, Peter, how old did you say you were?”

Peter perked up at being called on. “Imma be eight soon! I’m seven and three quarters.”

“Wow, you’re really tall for your age. I bet you’re gonna be bigger than me one day,” you say, smiling brightly at the boy who inflates with the praise and sits up straighter. 

“pancakes are up, peter, you wanna call tron down or let him sleep in?” Rus asked, coming over with the glass dish stacked high with pancakes. 

Peter’s smile turned mischievous and he was gone in a flash. Before Rus could start serving you grabbed for Wendy’s plate and took over, plating pancakes for everyone else at the table and even those absent.

For eating Black had picked up Wendy and tried depositing her in the same seat as last night but instead she wriggled free and snuck under the table to pop back up on the bench between you and Black. He seemed exasperated with her but moved her plate over to the opposite side without comment. 

“Hey,” Wendy chirped up at you, playing with the end of her dress. 

“Hey,” you chirped back, imitating her playful tone. 

Peter came back into the room with a very tired and ruffled looking Tron who ate his pancakes mechanically, still only half away in a way that reminded Blue of Stretch when he had been a baby bones. 

You complimented Rus on his pancakes and he flushed, laughed like Stretch would, and deflected until the attention was off of him. 

You were all almost through breakfast before Wendy spoke up again, loud enough for the whole table to hear her words to you. 

“Can you show me your heart today?”

Rus choked on his food and Black went almost as still as Blue. 

“You mean my soul?” you clarify without missing a beat. You spear another piece of pancake with your fork and run it through the blueberry syrup before tasting it. 

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. You said you couldn’t show it on your own but Mr. Blackberry can do it again, can’t he?” Wendy asked, turning around enough to glance back and forth between you and Black. 

“That’s…” Blue can’t finish his sentence out loud as his skull heats up.

“Yeah, but it might make someone else uncomfortable so I wouldn’t want to do that if it’s considered rude,” you answer easily. “It might not seem like much to us but we’re a little different than our monster friends, and to them is a little scarier.” 

“Mr. Blackberry doesn’t get scared,” Wendy answers honestly. 

“w-wendy, honey, its still c-considered ah, um, it’s still not a thing adults do in front of others,” Rus tried to explain. 

“But you did it yesterday, and there were people there.” She looked back up at Blackberry and pouted cutely in a way that likely got her whatever she wanted any other time. That’s how it looked to Blue at least. 

You looked at Black who wore a mask of expression that hid the panic Blue could smell rolling off him in waves. You threw up your hands and shrugged. “I mean, honestly, I don’t mind, but I hear it’s a sensitive topic for monsters. I know everyone’s different about it.”

“I wanna see it too!” Peter exclaimed standing up in his chair. “Is it magic?” 

In his chair Phil bobbed along too.

Tron didn’t say anything but he looked more awake than before. 

Seeing the faces of each of the kids must have made something in your head shift. You reached for Blue and tugged on his gloved hand. “Hey, you could do it, couldn’t you? Not a whole encounter but just pulling it out, right?” 

Rus watched with wide eyes and a mute expression.  

“THAT-” Black looked to his brother and then down at Wendy and the kids before looking back at you. “THAT IS NOT NECESSARY. TO INDULGE THE YOUTH WOULD ONLY SPOIL THEM FURTHER.”

“But I don’t mind and you said you still didn’t trust me. I don’t expect you to, but I’d be willing to do this if it helped my case. Just, only if you’re not too uncomfortable with it.” You glanced to Rus and then to Black. “Because that’s my only reservation.” 

“YOU-”

The kids started to cheer and Rus stayed silent while Black physically deflated, sinking into his seat and covering one half of his face with his hand. 

“DO AS YOU WISH!”

 The kids all cheered and you checked with Rus one more time to get his head nod of approval, even though his eye lights were pointedly elsewhere. Then you turned to Blue and smiled. 

“Ready?”

You trusted him to pull your soul out and hold it. Yesterday had been the first time he ever saw it and now he was able to hold it for you. He might have blustered a bit more if there weren’t so many eyes on him. 

“Yeah,” he whispered, glancing down to where your hand touched his. 

It was an easy enough task to complete. He found your soul, held it with his magic, and pulled it forward. It seeped through your physical body, warm and flickering with crimson gold light, but couldn’t be tugged much further. Your magic prevented it from fully detaching the way it would with other humans. It was heavier than he thought a soul should be, but maybe that's because you were a human? Or maybe it was because it was you ? Or maybe it was the magic.

You couldn’t see it but everyone else in the room could. It turned the walls a warm shade of red and made shadows behind everyone. He heard a fireplace crackle and everywhere else felt too cold and too wrong. You were so warm. 

 Like before, your soul was a beautiful flickering flame of red, spilling off the edges and burning like a candle that distorted the traditional heart shape. Blue shivered at the touch, feeling like he was handling something too precious to ever play with.  

“So pretty,” Wendy breathed, climbing up to stand on the bench and see better. No one else seemed able to speak out loud. 

 She reached for it before anyone could stop her and you jerked at the feel, making Blue panic. He almost moved to stop Wendy, but your hand squeezed his before he could move. That was enough for him to know you were okay. He calmed down and held himself back. 

Wendy removed her hand, unburned, and stared down at it before her eyes went back to your soul. No one else said anything and Blue felt that was as good a sign as ever to push your soul back into your chest. You couldn’t see it, but you felt when it clicked back into place and you breathed a little deeper. 

You looked fine. But he didn’t miss the extra beads of sweat on the back of your neck. 

“Well,” you breathed, voice light and thin. “That was fun.” You reached over and bopped Wendy on her nose. “Now you have to help clean up.” 

Wendy giggled and followed after you like a baby duckling while you collected the empty dishes. Blue moved to help and without asking Peter and Tron also pitched in a little. 

Rus had excused himself for a minute and Black sat at the table, unmoving, staring into the dark black of his coffee, glaring at it like it was responsible for something unforgivable. 

 

Notes:

I got a freaking piece of fanart that everyone should check out because I'm freaking excited about it: Blue & Reader
Isn't it interest how Red had concerns about Blue's grabby fingers, concerns Sans shrugged off, only for the next scene to be all about Blue's cuddle session? Hmmm? Red isn't dumb here-not in my house.

Chapter 26: Bishop Knife Trick 4

Summary:

Getting closer with the new brothers, an unexpected offer, and a twist in your plans!

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

After breakfast Wendy was stuck to your side. 

You went with Blue to retrieve the motorcycle and walked her back while Blue split to drive the bike back all on his own. By the time the two of you made it back to the house Blue had insisted on making friendship tacos for all the kids and Russ, but begrudgingly offered to make one for Black as well.

“NOT NECESSARY!” Black snapped before excusing himself to go to work on one unfinished end of the house. 

Blue just needed to call his brother first and talk to the rest of the boys about the progress that had been made with Sans’ plan. Last night the bus should have left on its own and in the morning their plan was to either buy, rent, or ‘shortcut’ their owned vehicles to the hotel and drive those up. Both Black and Rus insisted on meeting the ’OTHER COPIES’ but you had a feeling Rus was the only one actually looking forward to hosting.  

Later on in the day you tracked Rus down with Wendy still stuck to your hip and asked him what you could do to help out. When he tried to excuse you again you told him you’d just start doing the kid’s chores with them if he didn’t say anything. 

“then you can help me with some of the picking and gathering,” he finally sighed. 

The kids ran out ahead of you, all except Phil who stayed behind, each one outfitted with a basket to carry their goods back in. They led you out across the grassy fields, through a patch of woods, and up to a stream that trickled thin in places and thicker in others. There were bushes heavy with blackberries lining the stream, and Rus pointed out several other bushes blooming with fruit, but there were more blackberries than all the others combined.

“It’s why they named the town that,” Peter explained. 

You paused in your picking and caught Rus’ eye lights. “Wait, is that why…Black’s nickname is…?” 

“Yeah,” Wendy piped up. “Cause he’s the king of all the town so he’s the Blackberry King.”

That made a lot more sense and you couldn’t help but laugh out loud with the revelation. “Really? That’s good to know. Should I also call him m’lord or his majesty ?”

Rus snickered and then it turned into the familiar Nyeh heh heh that made your heart warm.

“nahh, I don’t think he minds too much either way, but the kids can get carried away with the act. just black or sans is fine, but that must get confusing with your sans in the house too.” 

“I guess so, but Blue has gone by ‘Blue’ since I met him, so it’s fine. The original or Sans from this universe keeps his name and he has enough media presence and clout in the political spheres here that it made sense for him to not adopt a new nickname? If we had all felt differently I think we would have forced him and his brother to take on nicknames, but it all worked out so we can avoid confusion and hurt feelings.”

“none of the other iterations were attached to their names?” Rus asked, stopping next to you, his basket was half filled while yours was still on the sparse side. 

“The other two came after Blue and those brothers already had nicknames when we ran into them. They had been given new names by a couple that found them soon after their topside arrival. Funny, huh?”

“funny,” he agreed, moving down to the next bush and then waiting for you to join him. “do you think you could tell me about the other brothers, the ones you and blue were traveling with?”

You spend a good twenty to twenty five minutes giving a crash course summery on each of the other five skeletons. Rus patiently listened, nodding along and watching you with his dim eye lights as you moved further up the stream to where the bushes weren’t so picked over. He didn’t interrupt you or ask questions until you were finished even though the kids interrupted plenty.   

“you seem close.”

“Oh yeah, for sure. We’ve been living together in close quarters for so long, almost two months now. I know that doesn’t seem like a lot, but it feels like it’s been forever on some days.”

“forever in a good way, or forever in a bad way?”

“A good way, like I’ve known them so much longer than sixty something days. Is that something that’s common to monsters you think?” 

Rus shook his head, picking blackberries that he dropped into your basket instead of his. He had filled up a while back and was hardly picking at all anymore while mostly listening.

 “nah, that’s not a monster thing, it’s just you. but it might be something easier for monsters if you’ve shown off your soul to them like you did at-uh, um the-that what you did at the table,” Russ flustered. His eyes flickered with colored light and then his cheeks were dusted a soft lilac color like his magic. 

Something in your gut twisted. You recognized that look but wished you hadn’t. Rus looked guilty even though he hadn’t done anything.

You stopped on the bank while he moved on, causing him to pause and glance back. The blush was still there on his face making you feel worse.

“Shoot, did I-were you uncomfortable with that, Rus?” you asked, mild panic making your voice thin. “I’m so sorry. I-sh-shoot. I shouldn’t have said that. I-I put you on the spot. I’m so sorry.” 

In the shade from the foliage you saw the purple lights in his sockets flicker bright and then he turned around to face you more fully, blush darker than before. His sockets were wide with expression. 

“no, that’s not it at all-d-don’t apologize i’m not-ugh-um,uh!?” he looked even more panicked than before. His words were a mess just like your insides. “you have the wrong idea, it’s not about what you did, don’t think that!”

“Papyrus,” you say his true name hoping that might help but he only flushed darker. “I’m really sorry if I said or did something you weren’t comfortable with.”

“you didn’t, it was go-ah, it was fine, really fine, it was just a little bit of a lot of-oh i’m not making sense here.” He took a deep breath that seemed to help him calm down if the blush lessening was anything to go by. “i was really honored by your trust and what you did, even if, um i don’t feel like I earned it or deserved it. to you it was something easy, but for us it was a lot. thank you.”

“You’re not mad?” 

He looked at you like you had grown a second head. “mad? why would i be mad?”

You shuffled awkwardly. “I-I feel like even if it wasn’t a bad thing I stepped over a line, but if you’re really okay with it, then I guess it’s fine.” 

Rus rubbed at the back of his skull, glancing down. “you can trust me, it’s really not a bad thing.  it was… nice.”    

The quiet of his voice made you grin. “If you say so, I’m gonna have to take your word for it. After I hit a certain age I lost my ability to see souls so I have no idea what mine looks like anymore. I was actually the only one in that room who couldn’t see.”

“did ‘ja feel left out?” he asked, tone a bit more playful. 

“A bit!” you admitted with a laugh. 

Rus approached you and poured out some of his blackberries into your bucket, leveling it off so it was even with his. “if no one’s ever told you this, then you should know it’s probably tha’ prettiest soul i’ve ever seen, just don’t tell any of the kids, they get jealous even when they shouldn’t.” He started to laugh again, that familiar Nyeh heh heh cheering you up even more. “At least they have souls with traits that are colorful.”

“You don’t think you do?”

He shook his head. “nah, monsters don’t have any variety to them, all our souls look the same, boring and colorless.”

This hadn’t been the first time you heard about monsters souls being uniform and colorless. All this came out after you lost your ability to see, though, so you could only take the words of the young. However, if your two weeks of blindness had taught you anything, it was that there was more to the world than what you saw of it.

“I’ve heard that before but I have a hard time believing it. I think you’re just unable to see your own colors or traits from your souls or whatever. Like, the same way I’m unable to see my own soul you can’t see yours.” 

“I’ve seen mine before,” Rus laughed, “and it’s just like my brother’s, basic and boring like every other monster’s ever before.” 

You wrinkled your nose and thought back to all the different encounters you’ve had before and how each one felt different. You might not be able to see a monster’s soul and prove it had a color, but you could feel it. Each trait felt different to you and no two monsters felt the same, even if their souls were the same color. Papyrus was different from Black, after all, but they both had the same ‘integrity’ soul trait. 

 You wondered if it would be helpful to tell Rus. 

The kids were a little further up the stream, staining their fingers and their faces with freshly washed blackberry samples. They seemed to be enjoying their time outside all on their own. 

“Hey Rus,” you called. He looked up at the sound of his name. “You remember what I told you yesterday about how I have magic and where it was I got it from?”

“kinda hard to forget hearing about an organization that trained monster hunters out of children, but yeah,” he answered with an easy grin. 

“I remember being able to see souls when I was younger but then I partially lost that ability. Instead of being able to see souls I can use my magic like an extra sense and…feel, or read souls for the prominent trait like how you monsters CHECK a soul. It’s not a super skill but I’ve used it enough times on enough monsters to know none of you have boring copy souls. Every single soul is unique, colorful, and different, you just can’t see it.”  

“…thats…um, oh, okay,” Rus said. 

You weren’t sure if he believed you and was trying to be polite or if he truly didn’t understand how what you were telling him could be true. 

“Yeah, your brother has a dark blue, almost purple soul of integrity. It’s unique and really strong or hard. It felt heavy and I got this feeling that your brother is the sort of person who lives by his word and abides by his own code, even if it’s not what the law of the land might be. He’s not a bad guy, even if he’s a little scary.”

“you could tell that because of your encounter?” 

“Not... exactly. Like you know how I can’t pull my own soul out, I also can’t start an encounter or check another monster. It’s just something I don’t know how to do while having magic. I can’t check anyone but I can use my magic outside of an encounter to get a feel for them as a person.” You swallowed and shuffled from one foot to the next, nervous for what you were about to say next. “If you wanted to know what color your soul is ...I could… it wouldn’t hurt, and it’d be a quick little painless thing.” Your breath cracked and you tried to laugh off your nervousness. “Ah, shoot, is that weird to ask?” 

“…to…ask…” he repeated, words slow and measured, like he was unsure of what you were asking. He didn’t look offended or embarrassed at least.

“Can I use my magic to…h, no, never mind. I’m sosorryIshouldn’thave even asked,” you sputtered, flushing from embarrassment. 

You had just got done telling Wendy that sharing souls was something important to monsters and here you were asking to feel Rus’ soul like some pervert?

 You were the worst. It would be better if a hole in the earth appeared and swallowed you up to save you for having to look up at your host who had been nothing but unfailingly generous and kind.  

You turned back to the blackberry bushes and thrust your hand in carelessly, scratching the skin as you ripped a couple berries free to drop into your bucket. You reached again but Rus’ hand stopped yours before you could plunge it back into the thorns. 

“…you’ll hurt yourself that way, careful.”

“Sorry.”

He didn’t let go of your hand. You waited for him, noticing the conflicted expression as his eye lights, dim in his sockets, flickered with indecision before he finally looked up and faced you fully. 

“…i’m probably not the most decent guy to get to know. back underground sans was the one who did all the hard work and kept us safe while i helped as much as i could, it wasn’t much at all, most of the time i was just a mess he had to pick up after.”

Rus let go of your hand and reached up to the collar of his shirt, undoing the first button and tugging something out. It looked like a worn, old dog collar. You didn’t ask your question with words, but your eyes must have.

“you remember when I introduced myself as mutt when we first met? i was the runt of the canine unit and their biggest disappointment because i couldn’t do half of what my brother could. as part of the uniform we all had to wear these but sans gave me his personal tag, see the gold bit here, so all the others who saw it would know who i belonged to and leave me alone, even if i was easy pickings. bro had to make a few examples before it clicked with the others.”

He tucked the collar back into his shirt and buttoned up to hide it away. 

“That sounds terrible. Is there a reason you’re still wearing it?”

He shrugged and it was an easy roll of his boney shoulders. “habit? i kinda grew fond of it over time and didn’t want to let it go when we came topside, but maybe that’s not true since i did hide it.”

“You didn’t have to tell me all that, but thank you. I’m glad you did, even if it was hard for you.”

He chuckled lightly. “nah, that’s not the worst of it, but this still doesn’t come close to what you shared with us. if you used your magic to read my soul i don’t think you’d see anything too flattering. bro is a different story, since he’s pretty much the best, but me…” 

You felt a little bit crushed to hear how little of an opinion Rus had for himself. He was such a kind guy and the kids all loved him, mimicking him in little ways at the dinner table and following him around as they did. It was so terrible he couldn’t see that.

“You’re a pretty cool guy too, Papyrus.” 

“…just ‘rus is okay, ya’know.” He avoided your eyes.

You grabbed his hand this time and spoke even when he wouldn’t look at you. “Please, I don’t want to overstep or make you uncomfortable, but please let me have a chance to prove you wrong. You’re not something second-class or a mutt.” 

“...you’re awfully nice for someone who’s known me for two whole days,” he chuckled weakly. 

You nodded to Wendy and Peter who were a little ways up. “They know you though, and they trust you. Let me say something as a former orphan myself, you’re probably their whole world, you and your brother. Taking them in, caring for them, showing them a bit of love every day? Not anyone can do that. They’re lucky they have you and they know it, that’s why they stayed.” 

 He looked up and you pressed on. 

“Please let me have a chance to prove you wrong.”

He smiled but it was weak. “knock yourself out, but don’t be too disappointed when you don’t see anything good.”

“Not possible,” you say even as you let your magic free to wash over him. You know you probably pressured him into it and felt a little bad about that, but you wanted him to have something good, something you could give him.

You magic mingled with his and you felt the texture of his soul like the first ray of sunlight won after a long hike up to the summit of some great peek. You were there, in the morning seeing something beautiful because you had persevered to the end. His soul felt like watching something rare and beautiful with a warm dog at your side; a great big shaggy Irish wolfhound. That dog…huh, it was a touch of patience to echo his perseverance. 

“Purple,” you breath. “Your soul, I can feel it. Here,” and before he could protest you dropped the memory into his mind. 

“-oh” he breathed, grabbing for you shoulder and leaning into you as the memory washed over him. He saw the sunrise, felt the satisfaction, knew the dog was there to share in the picture perfect scene. It was such a lovely picture and now he would be able to see it.

He stood stunned for a moment more and then you felt the first lilac colored tear on your shoulder. 

“Papyrus?”

“…just…rus is fine,” he breathed, sounding thin and far off. He reached up and rubbed at his face, smearing the tears. “sorry, ‘m sorry ya had-oh, wow… that was it, huh?” He finally looked up and you could see the bright color of his eye lights shining strong in his sockets as he looked at you. His smile grew, wider and wider and more tears spilled. “wow.”

“I told you, you were wrong.”

He rubbed at his face again and then cursed softly under his breath. “…you don’t know what you just did for me. i’ve been chasing a sense of that for years into different beds and bad habits and it was all for nothing. you and these kids...oh...”  

You hesitated, but reached up and pat his shoulder. “I think you’re pretty cool. You have a big, beautiful soul. Thank you for letting me see it.” 

Rus laughed and more tears came, but you gave him a few minutes to collect himself before calling for the kids and heading back. 

Along the way his hand would brush up against yours and when you looked his way the same soft face would still be looking your way.

Blue had ‘friendship tacos’ for all the kids and you to eat and you were delighted to see Rus and Blue click. The two of them seemed like a good pair for each other, almost like Blue and his brother Stretch.

Black didn’t eat with you, but busied himself with renovations all through the morning and up until lunch time when he excused himself to run a couple light errands. He didn’t come back until after you had all finished eating and were done cleaning up. You noticed him first standing awkwardly in the doorway but didn’t say anything about it as Rus was already up, greeting his brother and taking the bags of groceries to put away.

You spent a couple of hours with Wendy and other other kids, but it was clear that Wendy was more attached to you than Blue and you had a suspicion why. Wendy wanted to play dress up, where she put on different princess gowns and costumes and got complemented by you, followed by a very elaborate tea party where half of the guests were plotting passionate murder because of jilted feelings, cheating, and a cult that didn’t believe in flossing.

Little girls were weird and you loved it.

The two of you looked up when someone knocked on her door. You saw Black standing awkwardly with his arms folded behind his back. 

“The king, the king,” Wendy cheered, making one of her dolls wave. “Did you come to play tea party with us?”

“N-NOT TODAY, UNFORTUNATELY AS RULING MONARCHS OFTEN ARE, I AM QUITE BUSY AND NEED TO SPEAK WITH Y/N FOR A FEW MINUTES BEFORE RETURNING HER TO YOU.” 

You tugged the play tiara off and returned it to Wendy, promising to be back soon. You stood and followed Black out into the hallway, noticing how his eye lights stayed fixed on Wendy playing even after you were beside him. 

“You had something to talk about?” you asked in a whisper. 

He startled and then, realizing it was you who had said something, nodded. He waved you down the hall into a study that was richly furnished. He gestured to a chesterfield couch and some chairs set up across from it. You took the couch, crossing one leg over the other and stretching one arm back.

“THANK YOU FOR SEEING ME.”

“Of course. I haven’t forgotten this is still your home and you’ve been more than gracious in inviting us to stay as long as you have.” 

Black fidgeted with his hands still crossed behind his back before nodding stiffly. He didn’t sit but stood across from you, heels together. “THEN LET ME PROCEED WITH MY APOLOGY.” He cleared his throat purposefully. “I ACTED IN WHAT I BELIEVED TO BE THE BEST INTERESTS OF THIS HOUSE AND MY…FAMILY. THAT RESULTED IN THE VIOLATION OF YOUR AGENCY AND PRIVACY. I WILL BEG YOUR PARDON FOR THESE GRIEVANCES.” 

“Oh, it’s…wow, thank you. I don’t hold any ill feelings towards you for that, you know. I was a bit annoyed with you in the moment but I understand where you were coming from. I said as much at breakfast, but I know why you were so cautious. The kids are treasures and you were looking out for them.” 

“I WAS!”

You nodded along. “Honestly, I wished I had someone care about me when I was that age. I don’t blame you so you can consider your apology accepted.”

“VERY GOOD, NOW I MAY PROCEED TO MAKE RECOMPENSE. PLEASE ACCEPT THIS AS A TOKEN OF MY GOOD WILL GOING FORWARD AS I SEEK TO MAKE AMENDS WITH YOU.” 

He produced from the breast pocket of his uniform a small red box and offered it to you. You turned it over and froze at the large hunk of raw red stone attached to the end of a gold chain. It wasn’t polished or the refined sort of jewelry that you would see in an outlet, but it was something you would wear. You weren’t a fancy sort of person. You were too poor to have taste. 

But you weren't blind.

“Is this…for me?” you asked slowly. 

“AS INDICATED, YES, THIS IS FOR YOU,” Black answered in his no nonsense tone of voice that only made you feel more out of place. It didn’t look like a fake stone but if it wasn’t that meant…

“Black, what am I looking at?” you asked in a voice that was two steps short of scared. 

“A 16” ROPE CHAIN IN 14K GOLD ADORNED WITH AN ENCRUSTED RAW RUBY FROM MY PERSONAL COLLECTION,” he answered professionally. 

“Why…though?” 

“I CAN SEE YOU ARE ASKING YOUR QUESTION FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ONE OVERWHELMED WITH THE NATURE OF THE GIFT AND NOT OF IGNORANCE. NEVERTHELESS, LET ME CLARIFY ONCE MORE FOR YOUR SAKE THAT THIS IS MY TOKEN OF APOLOGY AND GOOD WILL. I SELECTED THIS STONE AS IT CAME THE CLOSEST TO COMPLEMENTING THE HUE OF YOUR SOUL COLOR, THOUGH I WILL ADMIT IT DOES NOT DO JUSTICE TO THE ORIGINAL. I AM CONFIDENT IN MY SELECTION. DOES IT NOT MEET YOUR STANDARDS FOR ACCEPTANCE?”

“Black, it’s-oh wow, it’s kinda too nice for someone like me. We, er, I told you about what I do right and all of that stuff about me? I can’t.”

“I FAIL TO SEE THE LOGIC IN YOUR REASONINGS. YOU ARE A HUMAN WHO LIVES AND FEELS AND THAT IN YOUR HAND IS A COLD HUNK OF ROCK THAT DOESN’T HELP ANYONE ON ITS OWN. YOU ARE NOT TOO NICE FOR SOMETHING THAT CAN FIT IN THE PALM OF MY HAND.”

“It-it just looks really expensive, even if you said you took it from your personal collection.”

Black scoffed. “MY BROTHER AND I ARE QUITE WELL OFF. IN ADDITIONS TO RARE GEMS AND THE GOLD WE BROUGHT WITH US OUT OF THE UNDERGROUND, WE ARE BOTH SKILLED TRADESMEN WHO COULD MAKE OUR FORTUNES SEVERAL TIMES OVER SHOULD IT EVER COME TO THAT. MONEY IS NOT A CONCERN YOU SHOULD HAVE WHEN ACCEPTING GIFTS FROM ME. UNDERSTAND I AM APOLOGIZING WITH THIS. PLEASE DO ME THE HONOR OF ACCEPTING IT.” 

You didn’t want to. You really didn’t want to, but you also really, really wanted to. It was pretty and so well suited to your dark style. It was something you would never be able to afford on your own, and Black had put so much thought into it. Beyond just the price tag, he had picked the color for you because of what he saw of your soul and that…made you feel strangely attached to the item. You didn’t understand it, but it already felt like yours. 

You thought back to the first days free, sitting on the bare floor of your studio apartment, with only a mattress in the middle of the floor, eating ramen out of the cup again while watching ‘TV’ news on your phone. You remembered thinking, ‘ how long can I go without eating this time?

Even before the days of freedom, you had lived humbly but that wasn’t so much of a choice as it was the decision of the Embassy. Comfort in excess made you weak so of course you had never been the sort of person to have nice things.

You…didn’t suit something so nice but you wished you did.  

The silence must have stretched on for too long for Black. He stepped closer to you and at his proximity you looked up to see him staring down at you with an expression of conflict. He reached for your hand around the stone and covered your fingers with his. 

“PLEASE, ACCEPT THIS. THINK OF IT AS A KINDNESS TO ME. I AM TRYING TO DO BETTER AND I KNOW YOUR FORGIVENESS IS NOT SOMETHING THAT ONE CAN PURCHASE.”

“I don’t, I’ve never had anything as nice as this,” you admit after a moment more. His hands stayed on yours.

“I SURMISED AS MUCH. I WOULD VENTURE TO GUESS YOU DID NOT HAVE ANYONE TO PROVIDE FOR YOUR WANTS OR INDULGE YOU GROWING UP IF YOU ARE HAVING THIS MUCH TROUBLE ACCEPTING SUCH A PITIFUL TRINKET.”

“It’s not a trinket,” you laughed. “This could pay my rent for a good ten months if not more.”

“WOULD YOU PREFER THAT?”

Your eye almost boggled out of its socket. “No! No, no, no, no I’m not a sugar baby no thank you,” you nervously laughed. You had a feeling things could get dangerous if you didn’t accept his gift, and it was a thoughtful gift too, so with a frustrated groan you tugged you hand closer to your chest. “But thank you for this. I’ll accept this, but this isn’t the reason I’m forgiving you.”

“I UNDERSTAND!” 

He folded his arms behind his back and grinned, showing off the sharp ends of his teeth. You got the sense that he seemed far too pleased when he gave out gifts, which was probably the reason Wendy’s room was choked with new toys.  

Sugar daddy type. 

You could feel bad about accepting his gift in the morning, and what a blow it was to your integrity. You weren’t a bought girl , but hell if you didn’t like getting treated well for once in your damn life.

“AHEM, THEN IF THAT IS SORTED APPROPRIATELY, PLEASE INDULGE ME WITH A BIT MORE OF YOUR TIME. THERE IS A SITUATION I AM ILL EQUIPPED TO HANDLE THAT I SEEK YOUR ASSISTANCE WITH, CONDITIONALLY OF COURSE. I WOULD NOT WANT TO ADD ANY MORE STRESS TO YOUR LIFE THAN I ALREADY HAVE.”

“It sounds like you’re asking for a favor, Black.” You eyed him wearily and suddenly had a new wave of suspicion regarding the gift in your hands. 

“IT IS! BUT IT IS NOT A FAVOR FOR MYSELF, THOUGH I AM THE ONE ASKING IT. YOU ARE…VERY GOOD WITH CHILDREN.” You relaxed a little, feeling more comfortable with the direction of this conversation. “AND I AM DOING MY PART TO LEARN, BUT I MUST ACKNOWLEDGE MY INADEQUACIES WHERE THEY EXIST. I HAVE DONE WHAT I CAN TO PROVIDE BUT STILL FIND MYSELF LACKING WHAT MONEY CAN NOT BUY.”

“Okay, and what is that?” you asked. He seemed more nervous, but it was hard to tell.

“MY CHARGE, WENDY, AS YOU HAVE NOTICED IS A VERY VIBRANT CHILD WITH TASTES. SHE HAS LATCHED ONTO YOU AND IT HAS NOT ESCAPED ME THAT SHE LACKS A FEMININE INFLUENCE WHILE HERE WITH MY BROTHER AND I. WE DO WHAT WE CAN BUT I CAN NOT IGNORE THE BENEFIT WE WOULD BE FORGOING IF WE DIDN’T …INVITE YOU TO STAY WITH US MORE LONG TERM.”

You blinked and felt how wide your eyes went. “You mean live with you?!”

“FOR THE CHILDREN , YES!”

“For the kids?”

“YES, FOR THE KIDS. THEY WOULD BENEFIT MORE FROM HAVING YOU HERE, BUT THEY WOULD NOT BE THE ONLY ONES. MAYBE THEN PAPYRUS WOULD BE SATISFIED BY HAVING SOMEONE HE COULD SOCIALIZE WITH.”

Did he miss the part where you had told him about being raised to kill monsters? Or the part where you had confessed to being little better than ‘on the run’ from a nebulous shadow organization operating under the umbrella of a large scale facility? He wanted you to nanny knowing you could make fire with your hands? 

Yeah, you thought you were pretty decent with kids thanks to experience, but there was a lot more to being a nanny figure than just…being liked by the kids. What about the risks and dangers you brought into their home? You didn’t want to stay long term with them in case Hightower and the Embassy found out where you were, or Raven and that Winn guy.

“You’re flattering me here, Black, but I don’t think I would be the best person for the job. There are plenty of others more suited to that line of work and I know Pa-er, Rus knows how to use the internet to put in an add for exactly what you want.”

“WHAT I WANT IS EXACTLY YOU. I DON’T TRUST ANYONE ELSE.”

“I mean, okay, I see your point there Mr. Paranoia, but I’m more risk than worth it. I still have a fugitive to track down and get answers out of, and... other things.”

“AND HOW LONG WILL THAT TAKE YOU?”

“No way of knowing that. Weeks, months, years? I’ve been on the road with the others nearly two months already and only had one…sorta disastrous encounter.” You want to rub at where your eye used to be, but the lid is always heavy and hard to lift without a concentrated effort. You know rubbing wouldn’t help it any. You stop your hand before it can get more than halfway to your face and make it a fist instead. 

“AND WHAT WOULD IT TAKE FOR YOU TO BE FINISHED AND FREE?” he asked, looking like he was ready to take anything but ‘no’ for an answer. You got the sense he wasn’t used to being denied. 

 Still, it was a good question. You lived too much of your life day by day. What would it look like to finally be done with this chapter?

 First, you would have to find Raven again and squeeze out of him the truth. You didn’t believe Hightower’s story anymore, and you felt terrible about what that meant. You had no idea what your brother was doing by bringing boss monsters over from their own dimensions.Whatever his answer was, it would change your plans for what to do next. 

Would it be something you could walk away from so easily? 

You doubted it.   

“I don’t know,” you answered honestly. “It’s the nature of the job. I don’t know enough right now to give you an answer. I’m sorry I can’t be more clear with you, but this is all I can say.”

“I WILL RESPECT THE HONESTY OF THAT ANSWER. LIFE IS TERRIBLY UNPREDICTABLE AND WE DO WHAT WE CAN DAY BY DAY TO GET AHEAD WHILE WE CAN. FOR MYSELF, I WILL LEAVE MY OFFER ON THE TABLE FOR AS LONG AS IT NEED BE THERE FOR. SHOULD YOU FIND YOURSELF FREE AND IN NEED OF STABLE EMPLOYMENT WITH GENEROUS BENEFITS,-” He stopped suddenly and you watched as his eye sockets widened before he reached into his uniform to retrieve a sleek smartphone. “YOU MAY CONTACT ME. OR NOT! I AM ALSO AVAILABLE FOR COUNSEL ON A VARIETY OF TOPICS.”

“Or you know, just to talk,” you joked, taking his phone and adding your new number before handing the phone back over to him. “If you text that number I’ll save it in my phone and know it’s you.”

“THAT! IS VERY GOOD.” 

He turned the phone around and you were amazed by how fast he was at typing out a reply. A moment later he sent off the message and it buzzed in your pocket. You laughed when you saw how long it was. Black had added all his titles and then a greeting that was just as long.  

“That’s perfect, I’ll know it’s you now.”

You shot back a quick reply before adding his contact info into your phone. You watched as the message sent and resulted in a heartbeat sounding vibration. Black stiffly glanced down at his phone but read the emoji heavy message before sighing and pocketing the device. 

“THAT WILL SUFFICE, HUMAN. OUR BUSINESS IS CONCLUDED.”

“Cool, and hey, if you have any questions about kid stuff or just want someone to vent to, cause I know it can get to be a bit much at times, feel free to drop me a line.” You stood with a shrug and saw yourself out, leaving before Black could form a reply. 

Wendy was having her tea party still and you found yourself entertained until the evening when Blue called for you. There was a car on the road and he recognized the person driving it. You ran down to make it outside in time to see Papyrus pull his cherry red convertible into the car lot and jump out, posing for the flare of it. Sans and Stretch ambled out next, looking like the ride had been cramped. 

You didn’t wait for words but launched yourself at Papyrus first, laughing as he spun you until Stretch reached for you, pulling you free from one hug and into another. Then you stumbled free to see Sans watching you, a small sort of private smile on his face. He didn’t expect the hug, if his shock was any indicator, but you didn’t care. He still got one. 

All the boys did. 

“Hey, where are Red and Edge?” you asked. 

Sans rubbed at the back of his skull, trying to fight the blush of color high on his cheeks. “They said something about a short detour and we figured with Papyrus driving we’d beat them here by a lot. They should be right behind us.”

That was good enough for you. You turned around to introduce the boys to Black and Russ before the rest of the kids introduced themselves and were off running to the convertible. Papyrus was more than happy to show it off and let the kids play in it while he held the keys behind his back. 

Rus seemed nervous but excited to see so many new faces and you were proud of him. Black was prickly but Stretch navigated the smaller skeleton supremely well, somehow able to read Black’s intentions better than Black himself. 

The meet melted into dinner and before you could worry about it, an hour had passed. It grew darker out and Papyrus assured you that Edge and Red would be along in no time, but when another two hours came and went you slipped away to have a moment to yourself. 

In the dark of the closet you closed your eyes and pulled up your map in your mind, using magic. It was small and zoomed in to show where all the Sans and Papyrus inside the house were. 

You didn’t need that. 

You zoomed out and saw more and more of the world. Papyrus Edge and Sans Red didn’t show up anywhere close to the farmhouse. You almost panicked but kept your cool with a stick of rock candy that grounded you even if there wasn’t any magic to make your mouth taste sour.  

“Come on boys,” you said to yourself like it was a prayer.

You kept zooming out and out and then you stopped. The two of them showed up, right on top of themselves. They were together and somewhere, maybe an hour away, maybe less. If your memory was good enough it looked like they were stopped at a gas station outlet. Maybe for gas, maybe for food? 

If they were in trouble they would have called, right? 

You were almost ready to dismiss the map and rejoin the others when a third dot blinked into existence, lasting only a second before it blinked out. It wasn’t a dot with a name you could read. The symbols vibrated wildly and seemed to scream at you. The same symbols that came before Winn’s arrival….

You gut was a pit of fear as your ruined eye socket throbbed. 

There was a reason neither Edge nor Red had made it up to the farmhouse. 

You risked it, dialing Edge’s phone only for it to go straight to voicemail with a message he had recorded recently. You tried Red next and the ring tones echoed, seeming to last forever. You thought you were going to get a voicemail message too, but then the phone picked up.

 

It wasn’t Red who answered it. 

 

Notes:

There were a lot of really fun moments that I enjoyed writing. I can't write a slow burn to save my life and we're already over 120K into it so might as well make these new additions quick burns. :)

I'm really tired and really late. It's only 1:30PM here but I need to sleep since I've been up since 3AM for an event and I'm finally finished. Enjoy while I nap!

Chapter 27: Bishop Knife Trick 5

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The call hadn’t lasted longer than two minutes, the screen said as much, but it took you twice as long to find your legs again and force yourself out of the closet. Like an old routine you started to move, heading towards the door to do what it was you knew you needed to do, but then you heard the voices.

 In the kitchen someone had told a terrible joke and half the room laughed for it while the other half screamed in frustration from it. The sound was like a splash of water and suddenly you remember that you’re not alone. You could hear them and see them from where you stood, your friends. The last thing you wanted to do was lean on someone else, it felt too much like cheating, but you knew better. You weren’t alone. 

You force your feet to move and re-enter the room. Sans hangs back, happy to be a lazy wallflower while his brother and some of the others took center stage. He looked your way before you were even at his side but it was only when you reached for his arm that he startled. 

“Hey, can I talk to you?” you whisper, nodding to the hallway.  

San’s eye lights wavered in their socks as he stared back at you, looking baffled. But he didn’t refuse you. Instead he set aside his drink and followed you out into the dimly lit hallway where you pulled out your phone and showed off your call history.

“Ya called Red and Edge?” he guessed.

“I called but I didn’t speak with either of them. There was someone else, someone who spoke in hands,” you said, keeping your voice low. 

Sans’ eye lights went out but you grabbed for his arm to help ground him. He didn’t flinch at the contact but slowly reached up to grab your arm back. “how’d ya know it was in hands?” he asked, forgetting to subtract his magic from his voice. 

“It’s what the guy was speaking before he ripped out my damn eye. I wouldn’t make that mistake.” 

“-no, how did ya know what the language was called?” 

“That…isn’t that what you call it?”

Sans’s eye lights were pinpricks and you knew he was waiting for your answer. Another question wouldn’t get him to let it go.

“Hightower taught us to recognize it. The other kids called it Black Speech because of how wrong the magic made all the words sound, like the evil language from Lord of the Rings. It just always creeped us out when we heard it. It’s-”

“Where did you hear it?”

You didn’t like the way his question brought back the bad memories but you didn’t let that show on your face. If you never had to suffer Hightower’s trainings, even in memory, it would be too soon.

 “I can give you short and sweet answers now or I can talk to you at length about this in all the detail you want, but right now there are more important things to bring up.” You shake your phone again. “Red and Edge. Someone else answered their phone and when I checked for them on the map-”

“was it that winn guy?” 

“I can’t be sure. It’s hard for me to read the language when the symbols won’t stay still. But the voice on the other end of the line sounded different. I don’t think it’s the same guy, but he still gave me the creeps.”

“what did they say?” 

“Just to come and hurry because my friends weren’t going anywhere. I asked if they were hurt and the voice said they were fine, just a little stuck. When I asked to speak to them to confirm the guy’s story he just laughed at me, shook up my head, and said I already knew. Then the bastard hung up on me.” 

“Sounds like a bastard. Shit, none of that sounds good,” Sans said, finally remembering to remove the magic from his words while around you.

“No duh.”

Sans glanced back into the kitchen and then up at you. “Why do I have the feeling this bastard doesn’t want you bringing the calvary?” 

“The voice said come alone or bring a friend, but too many more would ruin the party .”

“And you’re taking who?” Sans asked, still watching the others in the kitchen through the hallway.

“You.”

He startled and turned back to face you, eyes wide for not the first time since your conversation started. This time there was a blush to go along with them. “what? wh-what did you say?” 

“It’s why I tugged you out here and explained it all to you. I mean, yeah we should let the others know where we’re going and what happened, but you would be the most obvious choice, right?” you say.  

“but, why me ?”

“You and Stretch are the only two that can shortcut right now, with Red MIA. And between the two of you I know your abilities.”

“-you know they’re shit compared to yours and Hand-Job made a mess of you on the floor last time so, ergo, you’re better off with Stretch or Paps or even Blue.”

“If you wanna be self-deprecating that’s cool, but cut it out for right now because that doesn’t help. You know, objectively, you have more magic than Stretch.”

“he has more hp.”

“That doesn’t matter if he never gets hit. I tired you out last time, but I also was pretty lame at landing anything on your bony coccyx. You’ll be perfect for this and I want you. Do you think I would make a mistake about something so important?”

“-uh, if you’re picking me then maybe.”

“Sans,” you say, grabbing both of his elbows. “Shut up and listen to me. You’re not perfect and yeah, you’ve made some mistakes in the past, but you don’t get to let that keep you from doing what you need to do next. I need you for this. I can’t do this alone. I want you to help me and I need you at your best. Don’t try to support me while shooting yourself in the foot, ‘cause I’ll fall apart with you.”

Sans was stiff in your arms, rendered petrified by your touch. But then he nodded and the pin pricks of his eyes came back and the blush on his face spread free across his skull. He swallowed and nodded again, like the first head shake hadn’t been enough to free him from his stunned state.

“…okay,” he finally said, voice little better than a whisper as the words came out soft and thin. 

“You’re a tough bastard and I know I’m a badass all on my own, but you’re nothing to sniff at. Our chances are best this way,” you say again, letting him go and standing back.

You mean every word. 

Sans was stronger than his brother and the under swap brothers. Maybe Stretch could give him a run for his money, but Sans was war weary from more than one lifetime of being the underground’s Judge, Jury, and Executioner in the shadows. And for all the magic and strength you’ve seen from him so far, you know that’s not the whole of it. There was something in Sans that held him back, something you took advantage of during your fight and spar, but it was something he would need to shed for the sake of your mission. 

“We should tell the others,” you say.

 Sans agrees with you but neither of you move from your spot before Stretch eventually appears in the doorway, arms crossed expression carefully neutral. 

“Something to share with the class?” Stretch asks. 

“Sans and I are going to pick up Red and Edge,” you say first. “We should probably tell Blue and Papyrus about it too, can you call them out?”

But like the sound of their names was a magic all on its own, Blue and Papyrus appear in the doorway right behind Stretch. Further back in the room your hear Black and Russ corralling the kids and leading them off to bed. 

“Something to say?” Papyrus echos.

“Something held Red and Edge so we’re going to go and pick them up real quick. We’ll be back in a couple hours, maybe a bit longer,” Sans explains nonchalantly. His blank face is equally deceiving. 

“It…might take longer than that. They’re forty five minutes out but when I called Red someone else answered his phone and told me to come pick them up with one other person. I don’t know who they are, but we’re going to be careful.” 

“One other person?” Blue echoed, eyes wide with hurt. “O-oh, I guess it-it would make sense…”

“I could go,” Stretch interjected. “I have the same abilities as Sans. “I can cut us out of there if things get too dicy.” 

“You could…” Sans let his words trail off before his eye lights went purposefully to your frame, meaning crystal clear enough to make Stretch bristle. 

“Stay here with Blue, you’ve been apart for a while. Sans has some experience in these sorts of things so we’ll try to be as fast as possible,” you say, going to spare some of Stretch’s feelings. 

“You should be as safe as possible,” Papyrus gently corrects you. He steps out, past Stretch and Blue until he is in front of you and leans down to brush a skeleton kiss, all teeth and no lips, to your hairline. “And come back soon. You’ve been gone too long.”

Blue swallowed but nodded and flashed a thumbs up. “I’ll watch things on this end. With me on the job, this house couldn’t be safer!”

“I know you’ll do excellent,” you chuckle with fondness at Blue’s cool guy pose. Your eyes turn to Stretch who looked pointedly away. “Stretch?” 

“…Text us your location on the map apps so we know where you are. I can probably shortcut close enough if it’s by the road we came up if you need me.”

He still looks turned off by the plan but you’ll take what you can get. You pull all three of them into a hug and nuzzle the sides of their skulls before leaving with Sans. 

You don your riding gear and pass off the extra to Sans who sits behind you, touching your sides gingerly as you rev the engine. 

“Hold on a bit tighter than that, OG, I’m gonna try and save us some time.”

“O-OG?” he choked.

“Careful, it’s dark out!” Papyrus called from the porch. 

You laugh and your one good eye flashes with red white light as magic illuminates the halo of color surrounding your pupil. The dark won’t be a problem for you.

Sans found out pretty quickly that his tentative clutches at your sides weren’t going to cut it for him if he wanted to stay on, so with a quick apology he wrapped both arms around your waist and leaned into your back, turning when you turned down the winding roads. 

You pulled up the map in your mind intermittently to check and see if Red and Edge were still where they had been, and sometimes the monster with a name written with hands was there and sometimes they weren’t. You could only check a handful of times when the road went straight and empty because you didn’t want to risk splitting your focus so much from what you saw in your head and what you saw with your eyes. 

You were almost halfway there when Sans spoke up.  

“You think you can help me fill-in the blanks now?” 

“Now?” you called back, knowing you had to shout to be heard. The wind tore at your frame and with your helmet in place you could scarcely hear Sans who was right next to you. It wasn’t the best time to have a heart to heart.

Sans grumbled but seemed to consider this and nodded. You could feel the action as his head brushed against your back. 

“First chance I get, I promise,” you shout back. “I won’t run away from a talk.” 

“Didn’t think you the type ,” he chuckled. 

You weren’t sure if that was supposed to be a joke, but you were satisfied with the amicable atmosphere between the two of you so you let it go.   

You leaned more into the bike and dared to accelerate even more. In the dark it was like you were eating up the road, consuming one yellow stripe after stripe all the way down until the bends came again, forcing you to slow enough to take them without tilting. You passed a farm where the cows and pigs had been put into their outdoor pens to sleep, visible from the road.

“Hey,” Sans called into your back.

“Yeah?”

“What do you call a pig that does karate?”

You snickered at the familiar pun but asked anyway. “What?” 

“Pork Chop.”

The road was empty the closer you got and you wondered if that was because of the late hour or because of how backwards the road was in the first place. Closer to the town of blackberry there were plenty of houses left alone and empty. You saw buildings boarded up and left abandoned to crawling weeds and decay. The only things that seemed to survive were the farms and food distributors. 

Eventually the road split off and you had to slow to follow it to where Red and Edge were. Like so many of the buildings you had passed, it looked empty and derelict. It might have been a gas station from the looks of it, but the pumps had been pulled out long ago and only the shack of a convenience store remained. 

“Don’t look like they went out of their way to end up here,” you said, parking the bike and cutting the engine. On second thought you left the keys in the ignition, one turn away from reviving the bike in a hasty getaway should it come to that. 

“Yeah, the poor place is just a skeleton of its former self,” Sans joked. 

You rolled your eyes at his joke and pulled free your helmet, leaving it behind.

The door had been left open, but you still kicked it in to make sure there wasn’t anything connected to it or triggered by the space around it. You stepped in tentatively and glanced around. 

“Red! Edge!” you called.

There were several different black metal aisles turned over and several more pushed back to block one’s view of the back of the store. You felt the hair on the back of your neck stand up at the obvious set up. You would either have to approach the back from one of two sides and you weren’t sure which one would prove advantageous. What if one side was trapped? What if both sides were trapped? 

“Here,” Sans said, stepping forward. 

The aisles lit up with blue magic and were dragged apart and moved to the walls, clearing out the space in front of you. 

At the back of the store where the freezer section used to be, a figure in a gray hoodie and matching sweats sat, head bent, arms resting on his knees. On either side of him Red and Edge stood frozen with magic coloring their figures. Their faces were caught mid expression, arms extended enough to make you guess they had been in the middle of fighting back. 

“Good of you to join us, it was getting too quiet.”  

You almost stagger but catch yourself. You’re not going to be unsettled by another monster’s voice a second time. 

“What did you do to them?” you hissed, summoning enough magic to burn your nails black and let the light of a flame flicker from underneath the lashes of your empty socket. 

“I hit pause. They didn’t look like they wanted to talk.”  

The figure lifted his head and you saw the details of his skull. He was another skeleton but he was far more human looking than any of the Sans or Papyrus iterations. 

He... wasn’t the same guy as last time. 

“You’re not Winn,” you say, keeping your magic ready. “What would you want to talk about?” 

“I’m not going to fight you, and when I’m done these two won’t even know what they missed. No harm done. ” He answered breezily.

“So talk, bogeyman.” 

 “You can call me Dee. I wouldn’t expect you to know my name now,” he said, waving his skeletal hand in front of his face as if waving away the slight. 

Winn and Dee, why does this sound like something you should know? 

“Start with explaining what you want, Dee.” 

“Well, I don’t want to hurt you. Let’s start there. I hadn’t actually been planning on talking with you so soon but your friend here was sticking his metaphorical nose into our business,” Dee said, nodding to Red. 

“Business? What’s that?” you snapped. 

“Red was trying to figure out why the void felt different here as opposed to in his world,” Sans explained. “I don’t know what he was doing about that though.”  

Not what he should have been doing ,” Dee laughed. 

“That doesn’t sound anything like why your friend had to pull my eye out so roughly a few weeks back,” you groused. “Or what you really wanted.” 

“The eye thing wasn’t my call but it only benefited you to have the tracker removed. You’re welcome.” 

You let the flames from your empty socket push the lid open and flare out, angry and hot off your face. “You were expecting a thank you for that? I was blind for a week after that trauma.” 

“Yes, he was quite indelicate about that. Believe me, he got an earful for his actions.” 

Sans snickered behind you but you didn’t feel like laughing for such a pathetic joke. 

“Alright, so far you have said a grand total of zero things that matter enough to keep me from going ape ship on your boney ass this time around. You’re going to let my friends go now and you’re going to tell me what you, your buddies, and my brother are all working to pull off.”  

Dee looked surprised but sat up and leaned back, letting his arms drag  back over his legs, like they were too heavy to pick up. “I’m not your enemy, Y/N.” 

“But I can make you mine.” You snapped your fingers and a flicker of flame danced into life just above your fingertips. Behind you San’s bones materialized in a hypnotic pattern that was just as threatening. 

Dee looked from you to Sans who stood at your side and then back over at the Underfell brothers before sighing. Like it was some great chore he nodded. “Fine, if you are so inclined to set me up as your enemy I won’t doubt you. I’m sure those people fed you a story about Raven’s ambitions, wanting to find monsters he can make an enemy out of and make those years of training worth it? Not true.” 

“So what is it?” Sans asked, stepping forward. 

“Have you noticed any resets lately? ” Dee asked, looking pointedly to Sans before cutting his eye lights your way. 

“Not since we was topside,” Sans admitted. 

“You ever wonder why that is? Or maybe wonder what caused the resets in the first place? I know you have your theories and your machines. None of them have worked out for you so far .”

Sans was quiet. You weren’t sure what Dee meant about the machines or what he wanted Sans to say. Information about resets was supposed to be top secret stuff. Only a handful of the kids had figured out how to pull one off in theory and even then…

“You can’t!” 

Sans and Dee both turned to look at you after your exclamation. You almost flushed when you realized how loud you had accidentally shouted. 

“No, the resets. They can’t happen anymore. This reality is too heavy to flip.” 

Sans stared up at you with wide eye sockets and tiny pin pricks for eye lights. It made you want to fidget until his attention was off of you. “Whatcha mean by that?”

“A reset is when a period of time is reversed, and it’s like when you’re baking and you roll out the dough far enough, and then you take the end and fold it back until it becomes one piece you have to roll out again.”

“That’s a terrible analogy ,” Dee laughed, sounding condescending. “ Time is a bit of dough that never runs out?”   

“Not, literally of course,” you sighed.

“I know what a reset is, kid,” Sans chuckled, looking down and rubbing at the back of his skull. “I remember all of them.” 

“You… remember?” You glanced back at a smirking Dee and then back at your bashful friend. “You remember the resets? Wait, which ones? How could that be? That doesn’t make sense.”

 “ The actual science of it is surprisingly straightforward and not at all like baking a cake. Time resets itself, but so does the rest of the world apart from an anchor that always has to remember in order for that reset to be true. ” Dee smiled pointedly at Sans. “ But, what were to happen if a world had more than one anchor in it? Would a reset be twice as easy or twice as difficult? Turns out, the more anchors you have the more impossible a reset becomes .” 

“That’s why it’s just us and the Grillbys that are getting nabbed,” Sans said, voice low enough that you almost didn’t catch it. 

In addition to the brothers you had already met, there were reports of two other Grillby characters getting registered and setting up shop in the modern world. Someone online had claimed the two newest locations were the start of a chain. At some point you would have to touch base with your Grillby and then visit the other two, just to make sure they were settling in okay and not too messed up with the Embassy.

“That’s why you’ve been pulling boss monsters over to this world?” you scoffed. “What the hell is that all for?”  

What ? You miss your resets ?” 

“No, I—it’s not like that was something I could even do.” 

But Raven could.

Then what is the problem? We’re all against the resets, so shouldn’t we be friends? ” Dee asked. 

“Why’d ya have to be so cryptic about it, buddy?” Sans asked. “You didn’t want Hightower knowing that was what you were after? What’s that mean for him?”

“He benefits from resets.”

You feel your gut bottom out and it was almost like a memory was triggered, but it was only the sensation of that place, the deep pit in the basement of the Embassy that all the kids got dropped into… you felt cold and panicked even though the harness wasn’t on you and the air was clean and clear enough to mean you weren’t under hundreds of feet of rock. 

“How does a guy like that benefit?” Sans all but growled. His voice worked to bring you back, grounding you in the present. 

“Us.” 

Sans turned at the sound of your voice and saw the way you face, like your voice, had drained to something paler. “Kid?” 

Us , that’s how they make us, kids like me and Raven and all the others from the Embassy. I-it’s what I said I would tell you about later. It’s void magic and then it’s a reset and then it’s…us.” 

You explained as best as you could even though it makes your chest hurt and your heart race. You’re dancing on the edge of a knife and one wrong slip will send you panicking back into old nightmares. But you’re determined not to fall this time around.

 “When we come back from the reset we can use magic, but I’ve only ever known one person who was able to use that sort of magic outside of the void or the underground and it nearly kills him each time he tries it. I’m positive right now he can’t even reset the world if he tried,” you say.

    Dee huffed. “ Raven hasn’t been able to reset anything in years, and he’s tried . It’s nearly the reason he took off running in the first place .” 

“Hightower wants the kid to reset things?” Sans guessed, sounding panicked.    

Dee smiled like the cat that got the cream and you guessed this was because he was about to tell you something new or shocking. He was so smug about it too.“ That guy is the other human anchor. If this world reset he’d be able to manipulate things to his favor.”

“If he went back to the beginning there would be a lot there to manipulate,” Sans said. 

Your brain goes dizzy with the implications and you’re out of sour candies to help you stay in the moment. Before you realize you’re doing it you reach out for Sans’ hand and he doesn’t shake you off when you grab it. Instead you feel his fingers tighten their hold around yours.  

“He’d be able to have the war he wanted,” you breathed out loud. 

You remembered every word of twisted rhetoric, and every instance of indoctrination that took years of therapy to get through. Hightower had been thirsting for blood for literal years and the peace that came out of the underground took that from him. For as calm and collaborative as he looked on the outside, you knew that man a little better.  

 “Maybe. Think about this theory for a spell; He’d be able to send his own kid in through the crack in the mountain he missed and manipulate the whole story all over again. Instead of Frisk it’d be FourD or ThreeM or one of the others. And as much as Raven seemed to like the idea of that, he couldn’t go along with it in the end. He couldn’t be the villain .”  

Really? Was that true? Could you believe what this person was telling you? It almost sounded too good to be true. It felt right and it seemed to make sense, but the ideas all made you dizzy and the mention of resents just threw you off. 

“So what’s that leave the bastard with now? You know what his new plan is?”  Sans asked, referring to Hightower as the bastard. 

Dee shrugged, arms still mostly limp. “He wants Raven, we’ll keep Raven out of his hands. That’s it for now. Now that you’re not bugged maybe we’ll touch base with you for when things change.”

“When things change?” you echo.

Dee smiled and it was so human looking for a moment you forgot he was a monster. He was far more human looking and feeling than the other skeletons, and that wasn’t a negative or positive issue, it was just weird. 

For now, have yourself a break. You’ve earned it, ” Dee said. 

Comically he lifted both of his heels up off the floor and in reaction, both Red and Edge fell forward, the magic holding them in place gone. Dee tipped back into the cooler but when he slipped down it was into one of his portals and not the bottom of the broken cooling unit.   

“Shit!” Red cursed, stumbling as he turned on his heel, searching the room for where his opponent had gone. He stopped when he saw you and Sans. 

Edge exclaimed from behind you, calling your name, then he was rushing up and grabbing you by your shoulders. You’re pulled off your feet and reach out to wrap your arms around his shoulders to keep from falling. His whole frame is shaking and it’s bad enough to make you worry. 

“Hey, Edge, hey, you okay there?” you call to him, finding the back of his skull and stroking it fondly. “It’s all good here, you’re safe, you’re okay. We’re all okay here.” 

“You-whatcha doing here sweetheart?” Red sighed, deflating with relief as he approached you and his brother. He spared a single nod Sans’ way in greeting, which Sans returned. 

“We came for you guys. You got stuck.”

Edge calmed enough to let you down but he kept his arms around you, taking his time to examine you with eye lights bright with worry. “We were stopped by someone who looked like the one who attacked you. He was after Red.” 

“You?” Sans echoed, sounding surprised. “What did ya do this time?” 

Red growled in irritation. “Don’t make it sound like that. I didn’t do nothing. Freak said I was messing around with void magic is all.”

“You were,” Sans laughed. 

Red rolled his eye lights. “I was using it.” 

“Maybe we can all talk about this a little later, like when we’re not all dead on our feet in the middle of the night,” you interrupt, already sensing the verbal spar that’s brewing between the two Sans. 

Edge moved one of his hands to your face and you let him fret. You didn’t miss the way his hands went awkwardly still when they got close to the scars over your empty socket. The flames were gone and the lid was closed behind a heavy curl of hair, but that accident was one he wouldn’t forget so easily. 

“I’m fine,” you whisper into the space between you two, touching his hand.

He was staring at your ruined eye and it took another shake to make him look away.

“Hey bro, you okay there?” Red called out. 

Edge just glared.

“It looks like we’re all a little tired. You guys too,” Sans said, rubbing with the base of his palm under his eye socket. When he looked up he caught your eye and deflated even more. “I…guess we can talk about all this in the morning.”

“It’d be better to have the others present too,” you agreed, trying to hide how relieved you were to put off that conversation Sans had been so adamant about having. Explaining how you knew how to read Hands, the pit at the base of the Embassy, and all the resets…you were going to get a headache just trying to sort it all out. 

“You look tired,” Edge agreed. 

“Then that’s that,” Red cheered, clapping his hands to draw attention his way as he turned and headed towards the exit.

It was a bit of a mess since only Sans could shortcut back to the house. He went back first with Red and then popped back a handful of minutes later to take Edge. When he came back the third time you stopped him from making one more jump.

“You’re tired and I have a bike. I’ll make it the old fashioned way,” you said. 

Sans looked you over, seeing the helmet tucked under your arm and the jacket zipped all the way up. “I ain’t gonna just leave you,” he panted.

You shrugged and mounted the bike. “Then hop on. I didn’t mind the extra body.” 

And that’s how the two of you made it back to the farm house, nearly an hour later and well after everyone else had gone to bed. Along the way you weaved your way up the winding roads, under a sparkling sky with a barely there moon. At one point he nudged you and gestured upwards, towards the stars. 

“Hey, you see those there?”

“Yeah,” you answered. 

“That there…it’s the biggest waist of space in the sky, Orion’s Belt.”

You snorted and ducked your face, keeping your eyes on the road. “That’s a terrible joke, Sans, only three stars.”

You raced up the road as Sans laughs behind you so hard you can feel it through your jacket.   

 

Notes:

I was told that after this there is a need for some plot-mandated fluff for the next few chapters at least even though there was no throw down. Reader was reading to go, at least.

A new skeleton appears-or is he really a skeleton? We've got Winn and now this guy calling himself Dee. Who/what could they possibly be, take your best guess. :)

Also, what ya'll in the mood for, skeleton-wise? Who needs more attention? Who you wanna see? Who is your favorite?

Chapter 28: Bishop Knife Trick 6

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

In the morning you woke and almost panicked, not realizing where you were until the tiny body curled up to your stomach stirred. You glanced down, saw Wendy, and remembered how last night ended. 

When you had stumbled back in with Sans you realized too late that all the spare bedrooms were taken up and shared by the new guests. Your old room was where Red and Edge were staying. You thought about sneaking into Blue’s room again, sure that Stretch wouldn’t have minded sharing their already shared bed with you. At least you had your clothes with you this time, so you could dress for sleeping.

Your plans fell apart the moment you heard the stairs creak and saw the tiny human girl at the top of them. She grabbed for you, refusing to be separated, and you hummed her to sleep with another song and fell asleep in her bed. You hadn’t remembered kicking your shoes off or pulling the covers up over both of you, but you found yourself comfortably tucked into the oversized bed with too many blankets and pillows for a girl as tiny as Wendy. 

“Morning?” her voice startled you. 

You glanced down and saw her awake and staring up at you with bright, clear eyes that matched her mischievous grin. 

“Do you have problems falling asleep or am I just special?” you joked booping her on the nose. 

“Special!” Wendy laughed. “But sometimes I sneak into Blackberry’s room and he puts me to sleep cause he’s nice and he always wakes up for me.” 

“That sounds like him,” you laugh before turning over and stretching out. It’s not an early morning anymore, but it’s early enough considering how the house isn’t as loud as you know it can be with children wild and awake for the mornings. 

Wendy follows you as much as she can, even insisting on picking out your clothes for you so that you can pick out something for her to wear. You don’t have any trouble finding something. The only issue you ran into was in picking something out of the many items stuffed into her closet. 

‘Did Black buy the whole store to put in here?’

“Is this all you have?” Wendy cried.

“It is now,” you admitted, suddenly bashful. 

Wendy had pulled all your things out and scattered them across the floor. Everything was almost the same dark color and was long enough to cover you from wrist and ankle to neck. Maybe there was a thrift store you could restock at nearby, seeing as how it was unlikely you were ever going to get back to your apartment for the rest of your things.  

“Well, it’s more than what I used to have…” Wendy sighed. “But there isn’t anything pretty here. What colors do you like? What about your dresses?”

“I…don’t have any of those. I was working a lot and dresses would be too hard to work in.” 

“You should just be a princess like me and let Mr. Blackberry take care of you. Then he’ll buy you all the dresses you want even if you tell him you have enough and that you really don’t want anymore because then he thinks you’re just being modesto.”

“Modesto?”

“Yeah, like you are nice about it and aren’t asking for everything in the store.”

“Oh, you mean modest . Wow, where did you hear that word? Your vocabulary is pretty impressive for such a young princess.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty smart for a princess,” she replied absently, like it was no big deal. She went back to your duffle and attacked the side pockets, looking for anything else. 

“What are you looking for this time?” you laughed.

“What about your make up? What about your earrings? Wh-what about the girly things! Ugh, even when I was a runaway I still knew how to accessorize.”     

“A lot of my stuff got left behind when I left home for work,” you admit with a note of regret, even if you thought her priorities were hilarious. 

You didn’t have a lot to your name, but it was a little sad to think of it all as being lost now that going home wasn’t in the cards for you. You weren’t stupid. You knew you needed to stay low. Hightower probably had someone on your house or at least cameras trained to watch for your return. Going back for your books and movies and favorite pillows wouldn’t be…feasible. 

You startle when you feel Wendy’s hand on your arm. She was starting up at you with a worried look. “Did you leave something important behind? One time I left my lucky charm bracelet, the one with all the blue whales on it, and I cried to Peter about it so much but Tron went back and found it for me ‘cause he said important things are important and, and, and when you don’t have a lot you need to protect what you do have.”

You chuckle at her logic. “That sounds like some pretty good advice. Tron is a smart kid, isn’t he?” 

Wendy beamed and nodded along, agreeing with you.

You don’t take much longer to dress in dark colors that cover you from ankle to wrist. Among your things the necklace Black gave you sat nestled in its red box. You hesitate over it, knowing it’s too nice and too fine a thing for someone as shabby as you, but when Wendy sees it in the box she loudly insists that you have to wear it. You compromise by stuffing it into your shirt so that it rests right above your heart, tucked between your breasts. 

You amble into the kitchen with Wendy and hear the chaos before you see it. Sans, Red, and Edge are all still asleep and you don’t doubt they’ll be out cold for a bit longer, all things considered. 

Blue and Papyrus sat next to each other, excited to talk with Rus who nervously navigated the super charged conversation while Stretch mutely drank his coffee next to Black. Phil ate from Rus’ lap while Peter bounced in his seat, listening to Papyrus and Blue with rapt attention. At the counter, Tron was manning the iron waffle maker, looking as tired as you felt.

You and Wendy both offered your good mornings while the others in the room responded with similar greetings. Stretch perked up a bit at the sight of you while Black didn’t move other than to cast his eye light your way and pin them on you like magnets on metal. 

“Hey, sweetie,” you whispered from behind Tron, offering to take over. “Did you get your waffles yet?” 

When he shakes his head through another yawn you nudge him aside without issue. He moves in time for the iron to beep, letting you know the waffle is ready. You flip it free and plate it for the oldest boy to take to the table. He ends up sitting next to Black across from Stretch and when you glance back you almost laugh at how Stretch and Tron look so much alike with their slouched posture and sleepy stare. 

You make waffles for you and Wendy, chatting amicably with the rest of the room until you take your seat and are able to eat. 

“I TRUST YOUR EVENING EXTRACTIONS WERE FRUITFUL,” Black said, folding back his newspaper and pretending not to notice you.

“yes, you said we have two new guests?” Rus echoed. 

“Red and Edge,” Blue explained pointing at you. “They were so late last night they had to find them and bring them here.”

“Yup, they’ll be out for a while longer,” you add. “They’re all magically exhausted.” 

“But you’re not?” Papyrus asks, watching you worriedly. 

You cracked a small smile, suspecting it to be crooked by the way it stretches on your face. “Nah, I’m good to go, plenty of stamina so long as I’m fed.”

Wordlessly Wendy moves one of her waffle halves off her plate to yours, only to have it caught and redirected at the last minute by your fork. When she pouts Black moves a small dish of blueberries closer to her and, taking the hint, Wendy tips the dish so that the fruit spills onto your plate. Her smile almost matches Black’s, or it would if Black didn’t hide behind the rim of his coffee mug. 

“But you have magic, don’t you?” Tron asked, speaking up. “Doesn’t that mean you can get magically exhausted too.” 

“Of yeah, totally, but I try to counter that with a high calorie diet if I know I’ll be using my magic. The other thing that helps is sleep, but the food is still the best.” You take another bite of waffle and swallow before adding. “And to be fair, I didn’t use much of my own magic last night compared to Sans who had to shortcut the other two back here.” 

You leave out the part concerning both Edge and Red being trapped magically in a sub pocket of time that rendered them immobile. You don’t doubt they’ll be out for a while after enduring all that.  

You notice Black scooting a small dish of strawberries towards Wendy but pretend to look away as she takes the dish to dump over your waffles with private glee. When you look back at your plate you pretend at being surprised but scarf down the fruit all the same. 

“Well, in the absence of my brother and the others, I should formally extend my thanks to both of you,” Papyrus starts to say, addressing both Black and Rus, “for the generosity you’ve shown me and my own in housing and feeding us. We are not freeloaders and would like to contribute to your kindness in some way.” 

“HA, THAT WON’T BE NECESSARY, MY MALEVOLENCE DOES NOT REQUIRE COMPENSATION LIKE SOME CHEAP PENNY PINCHER. DO YOUR WORST, YOU WON’T FIND THE END OF MY HOSPITALITY SO EASILY,” Black replied, sounding almost like he was issuing a challenge to an enemy. 

“that is to say, we appreciate the company and its really no bother to have you all here so long as you get along with the kids,” Rus added a bit more gently. 

“As that may be, I’m sure that after enough time you’d want your own peace a quiet so we won’t intrude upon your kindness too much longer. We still have our own business to see to, after all,” you say. 

You looked up when you felt Blue’s eyes on you. He almost looked worried. Was it because of where you had gone last night? You hadn’t told any of them what exactly went down or who you met. That was a conversation you needed to have with the rest of the group, once the others woke up.

“you’re really welcome to stay as long as you need,” Rus said, looking from Blue to you and then back to Black with something close to panic in his eye lights, making their lilac color spark. 

You figured he was worried about having to explain your absence to the kids or maybe of going back to not having anyone else to talk to. He mentioned not having neighbors coming over to visit so pitifully the last time. You pegged him as the attention starved type. Phil wiggled in Rus’ lap, and in response Rus nuzzled the top of the boy’s head in fondness. 

Attention and touch starved, you mentally corrected yourself. 

“If you’re fine with it we can stay a little longer. What we do next is still a little unclear,” you explain.  

Without looking, you bat Wend’s fork away with your own to stop her from depositing waffles onto your plate again. You eye her critically and she just giggles. “Eat the rest of your food, missy.”

Black hides his chuckle from behind the rim of his coffee mug. 

“a few days is no problem for us,” Rus says without looking to Black to check. “feel free to stay as long as you like.” 

“It would be nice to have a break,” Papyrus said, looking to you. “We’ve been pretty busy and I feel like it’s been so long since we were able to just…relax?”

“Yeah, no more contracts, no more work, no more missions,” you sighed, staring down at the emptiness of your plate. 

A few fruit juice stains color the edges but it was blank and empty enough to warrant cleaning. You stood and took Tron’s plate with you, since he was done. Wendy started to follow but you turned her around and told her to finish all her food first. 

One of the things you wanted to do was wash up and after that you figured the others would be awake and ready to talk about recent developments. If not, maybe you could do some laundry. 

Getting clean would be nice. Stars, you probably smelled considering all the stress you've been under. 

Shower first. 



When you finished showering you stepped out and toweled dry before dressing. The bathroom that belonged to Wendy was the nicest one on the second floor, as neither Black or Rus really had much use for a toilet. Black at least insisted on having his own private shower, and the rest of the kids had access to enough bathrooms, but Wendy’s bathroom had been designed in elaborate detail to accommodate her feminine preferences

Black was such a lightweight when it came to his ‘daughter '.  

You laughed to yourself and then wiped at the mirror, finding your reflection between the steamed parts. Your hair was longer, the longest parts touching your shoulders if you didn’t pin it up or braid it back. The undercut was nearly grown out and you remembered how your hair was prone to growing faster the more you used your magic, your nails too. 

You toweled your hair dry but paused to look at the rest of your body as the steam lessened in the room, revealing more of your reflection in the mirror. You forced yourself to watch, even as your gut churned. 

When you eventually turn back around to dress. You’re dry and only a little shaken. 

Better .

When you step out with your old clothes folded over your arm you don’t expect to see Black standing there, expression just as surprised as yours. 

“O-oh!” you exclaimed. “I didn’t expect to see anyone. Uh, i-is Wendy here?”

“SHE MENTIONED THAT YOU DID NOT HAVE REPLACEMENT CLOTHING, BUT I CAN SEE NOW THAT SHE MUST HAVE MISUNDERSTOOD.”

You snickered, picturing Wendy complaining to Black in her princess voice. “No, I had stuff, she just didn’t like any of it.” You gestured to the black pants, and black long sleeve shirt covering you from ankle to wrist. “She has way more style than me.” 

Black chuckled shifting the weight of his body from one foot to the next. “THAT SHE DOES.” 

That’s when you noticed the bag in his hands. “Did you…?”

He brightens as if just remembering what he was holding. He pushed it towards you and looked away, the dullest of blushes blooming across his skull. “HERE, I HAVE NO USE FOR THESE AND IT WOULD BE CRASS TO RETURN THEM SO SUDDENLY.”

You accepted the bag and turned it over, recognizing the logo before peering inside. There was a dark maroon shirt with cute, scalloped sleeves and a peter pan collar. Beneath it was the same shirt in goldenrod yellow. At the bottom of the bag was a long black and white polkadot skirt. 

“It’s cute!” you say before you can help yourself. You weren’t sure if they would even fit you, Black must have had to guess at your sizes, but they were the sort of things you were used to admiring on other people. “Ar-did you pick these out for me?” 

The blush grew darker across his skull. “IT WAS A SPUR OF THE MOMENT RETRIEVAL. I APOLOGIZE IF THEY ARE NOT TO YOUR TASTE, BUT SEEING AS YOU ALREADY HAVE REPLACEMENT CLOTHING YOU NEEDN’T CONCERN YOURSELF WITH THEM. DISCARD THEM IF YOU DON’T APPROVE. IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE TO ME.” 

“But, you ran out and picked up clothing for me because you were worried I didn’t have anything else.”

“A SUSPICION THAT IS NOT WITHOUT ITS FOUNDATIONS. YOU DID NOT BRING ANY PROPER LUGGAGE WITH YOU.”

You didn’t feel like mentioning the fact that you could live out of a duffle bag for days was something you’d done before. To the best of your knowledge, you had never traveled with proper luggage. 

“It was a kind gesture,” you say, sparing him a smile. “Thank you for thinking of me. I can-maybe I can wear them tomorrow, if it’s not too cold.”

“IT IS THE END OF SUMMER. I DO NOT POSSESS FLESH OR NERVES SO I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF HUMAN TEMPERATURES, BUT YOU WEAR FAR MORE THAN ANY OF THE CHILDREN OR HUMAN NEIGHBORS I SEE.”

“It’s…cause of my fire magic. I’m always a little colder when I’m not using it. It’s not too big of a deal and whenever I’m uncomfortable I can just flare up but sweaters and boots are just more…cozy.”

“I WILL KEEP THAT IN MIND. PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THE INTERIOR TEMPERATURES NEED ATTENTION. THERE ARE THERMOSTATS ON EACH LEVEL NEAR THE STAIRS IF YOU NEED TO ADJUST THEM.” 

“That's kind of you.”

“IT’S NOTHING MORE THAN BEING AN ADEQUATE HOST!” Black snapped, switching back to military standing with heels together and arms folded behind his back. He lifted his chin and narrowed his gaze, the paragon of professional. “I STILL HOPE TO WIN YOUR EMPLOYMENT IN THE FUTURE, AFTER ALL. I HAVE NOT GIVEN UP ON THAT GOAL.”

His professionalism matched with the sight he strikes makes you grin. He’s clean cut and to the point but the blush hasn’t left his skull since your first ‘thank you’ and it shows no sign of abating. He was just as soft as his nick-namesake. 

“You sound like the dedicated sort of person. I had actually been thinking about that since I’m not sure I can go back home anymore and starting over again hasn’t been the most... appealing thing to consider.” 

You felt another pang of regret when you thought about having to give up all the things you had once called yours. It wasn’t a lot, but it still stung. You wish you could go back for some of your books at least or the sentimental items.  

“ARE THERE ITEMS MONEY CAN NOT REPLACE?” Black startles you by asking. 

“Th-oh, nah it’s not important. I’ll figure it out. If I make any decision it’ll be after some serious thought. Getting involved with your family, with the kids, isn’t something I’d wanna do with half hearted intentions. Whoever comes into their lives next is someone they’re gonna get attached to and if I can’t commit to being around for them as much as they need it’d be better to be upfront about that and save ‘em anymore heartache.” 

“YOU SOUND FAR MORE EXPERIENCED WITH THIS SORT OF THING THAN I WAS WHEN MY BROTHER AND I FIRST DECIDED TO KEEP THEM INSTEAD OF CHASE THEM OUT.”

“What, you didn’t have years of experience with kids underground in your world?” you teased with a soft smile.

“NO.” He shifted and the blush fell away as his attention switched to the wall behind your head. “ONLY IN DELIVERING THE ONES WHO FELL DOWN TO HELP DECONSTRUCT THE BARRIER.”  

You felt the apprehension in the air between you as his words registered. His world was not the same as yours, and his underground sounded a lot more harsh than Blue’s or Sans’. Still, there were some things consistent in each of the worlds and one of those was a barrier that kept the monsters underground. 

You knew the stories. You knew that King Asgore killed the children who fell, pulling their souls free in an attempt to break the barrier with them. When Frisk fell Sans and Papyrus had tried to keep them from the king because they knew what would likely go down. It had all turned out alright, but even to this day the fact that their king killed children was a well kept secret. 

But the universe Black came from…

He didn’t meet your stare but kept his eye lights fixed on the wall behind you. “THERE WERE ONLY FOUR, BUT THAT WAS FOUR TOO MANY. I THOUGHT THAT MAYBE IT WAS A… COINCIDENCE THAT WE FOUND THIS PLACE WITH FOUR SMALL SOULS INSIDE, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO THINK INSTEAD IT IS SOMETHING MORE PURPOSEFUL.” He forced his eye lights to fixate on you and you can see how his magic makes them turn ultra violet. “A SECOND CHANCE. I WILL NOT SQUANDER IT.” 

“I believe you,” you whisper, meeting his stare without flinching so that he knows there isn’t any judgment there. 

You don’t know the details and you don’t know exactly what or how much he was involved, but you knew what you saw. You knew that whatever his past was, Black cared about the kids he watched over now in the present day. You were never a person to judge someone by their past actions and you weren’t about to start becoming that sort of person now. 

Black took a shuddering breath, one whole unnecessary for a skeleton and then nodded stiffly. “IF YOU ARE ADEQUATELY SITUATED AND NO LONGER IN NEED OF ASSISTANCE OR SUPPLIES, I SHALL LEAVE YOU TO IT.” 

“Thank you again,” you call as he turns to leave. It’s not lost on you how he doesn’t shortcut out, but leaves through the door like anyone else would.

You put the bag away with your other things and tug out the gold chain to look down at the rough stone pendant, smiling fondly at the color before tucking it away again. You had meant to thank him again for the gift, or at least show him you were wearing it and using it. Something told you he would appreciate knowing you liked his gift even if he played at being indifferent. 

You can hear voices drifting up from somewhere outside and downstairs as different skeletons and children interact. It sounded like the kids were getting a good kick out of all the new monster house guests. Peter especially sounded over the moon to be playing with both Blue and Papyrus. Between the three of them there was probably enough energy to power a small city.

You make your way out into the hallway and stop when you see Edge standing in the middle of the hall, seemingly waiting for you. 

You can’t help the smile that takes over your face as you reach for him. He doesn’t say anything but opens up his arms and folds you up against him, seeming to sag with relief once he feels you. He smelled familiar before you could even put a name to what it was his scent reminds you of. It was pleasant and comforting enough to make you want to melt. 

“You were already awake once I got up! I can’t believe I slept in as much as I did. How unprofessional,” Edge complained before tugging you away enough to stare at your face. 

Like last night he pawed gently at your cheek, looking at your ruined eye socket. More than the others, he seemed oddly fixated on your latest injury. It must have freaked him out more than you thought, which was interesting since it was such an old, old injury and Edge looked pretty tough.

“You feeling okay? We were worried about you last night,” you say. 

  Edge laughed bitterly. “Ha, of course my enemies would incapacitate me for fear of any fair match or my great and terrible wrath. Next time I shall not be caught so unaware.”

“I’m just glad you’re safe and in one piece,” you say.

Edge’s expression falls. “That’s more than you can say.” He touches your face again.

“I’m okay, really. I lost this a long time ago and it’s just a little ugly to look at, but I’m not in pain and I’m not bugged anymore. I mean, yeah it hurt to get rid of, but I’m glad that there isn’t anyone spying on me now. It’s kinda gross to think about.” 

“You’re not gross or ugly.” Edge huffed and then bent his head down until his teeth rested against the crown of your head. It felt like a skeleton kiss but you weren’t sure.  

“Sorry,” you blurt. “I guess I worried you.”

“Yeah,” Edge whispered. “But you don’t need to apologize for that. It’s my fault.” 

You felt your body go still. “No, no it isn’t. It’s not anyone’s fault. Hey, Edge?” You pulled back again and looked up at Edge’s face to read his expression better. “Look at me, hey, it’s not your fault.” 

His eye lights were oddly bright as they waver in their sockets. “You remember when Red and I both first came aboard, what we said?” 

“...Honestly, there was a lot said.”

Edge chuckled at your tone, tugging you back into his arms so that your face was pressed into his shoulder and too close to see whatever expression he was making. “We wanted to protect you. It bugged me the hell out when Red told me you only had a LoVe of one in spite of everything else. What monster hunter has such a pathetic level? Obviously only one with a problem pulling the trigger.”

“That’s not true,” you grumble, knowing well and good that that has always been an issue for you. You could talk the talk and scare someone into shitting their pants but when it came to leveling up, something in you always balked. 

‘You lack intent, SevenA’

There had been more than one reason Hightower and you split. Insubordination was a part of it, the other part was with what you never had. 

“I can’t trust you to be okay all on your own.” 

“Yeah you can.”

You wiggle but Edge pulls you closer and you can hear the way his skeleton frame rattles…almost like he’s shivering. It makes you pause. His grip on you is ironclad. He’s not letting you go anytime soon.

“Edge…?” you call his name but the shivering doesn’t abate. You try again but when he doesn’t respond you let silence rest between you, figuring he needed it. 

 

“…I know what a human sounds like right before they die.”  

 

You’re cold and it has nothing to do with the temperature of the room. You reach up and hug Edge as best as you can being pinned down by his own hug. Something rolls in your gut as you pick up on the vibe he gives off. It was an echo of the distance he put between you all those weeks ago, after the scream, after you lost your eye, after you had to bandage yourself up and get used to being blind.

You thought you understood him a little bit better. 

 “Edge?”

He didn’t respond and you worried he was non verbal or mentally absent the way you could get with some of your worst flashbacks. Another minute passed and he hadn’t moved to let you go or respond to your calls. 

You are only beginning to worry when Red appears at your side, summoned by the sound of your calls. 

“Hey, hey,” he panted, looking between you and his brother. “You all okay here?” 

“He-he’s just not responding to me, I don’t know what set him off exactly but he was-he mentioned knowing what it sounded like when someone died.” 

Red’s grin was near manic with worry as beads of magic sweat began to collect on the sides of his skull. “Hey boss, you can hear me, can’t you. We’re all good on this end. We’re all safe. she’s safe, so is me and everybody else. You can hear me, so try and remember what Mini told us. You’re safe, come on back, boss.”

“Papyrus,” you tentatively call, hoping the sound of his old name would shake him from the nightmare he seemed trapped in. You reached up to touch the side of his face and he tilted enough to push his skull closer, seeking out your touch.  

“That’s…good,” Red encouraged. “Come on back, bro.” 

“Is there anything else I can do?” you whispered over your shoulder.

“I-I an’t ever seen him like this around someone else. He’s-like this on his own sometimes. Now it looks like he’s gone cold but it doesn’t last long. Just gotta keep talking to him, he’ll be good in another minute or two, promise sweetheart.” 

In spite of your worry you believe Red. All you can manage is to hold onto Edge with your pinned arm and keep stroking the side of his skull with your free hand. After a few tense seconds you turn to Red with an idea. 

“Can you pull out my soul or would that be too dangerous in this sort of situation?” 

Red’s eye lights seem to boggle. “Doll face?! He squeaked. “Wh-why’d ya wanna do that? You can’t get more vulnerable.”

“Yeah, and I can’t get more honest. Maybe it’ll help bring Edge back.”

“The boss ain’t ever seen your soul before, though, just felt your magic,” Red offered, a look of worry matching his tone.

You had to pause to consider that. It was true. You and Edge had never shared an encounter and out of all the boys on the bus, he was the only one who hadn’t seen your soul so far-which felt wrong! Edge wasn’t any less your friend or close companion. You cherished him and if you were going to be honest, you’d admit you were a little attracted to the guy. 

When you had a free afternoon you’d have to sit down and consider what that meant for you and face up to what that meant for your feelings towards the rest of your friends because they weren’t as clear cut as they once had been. 

Things had changed and you needed to sort out what they were.   

“It won’t be a true encounter, but please, pull my soul out so he can see it and know I’m okay. I don’t want him to worry.”

“He’ll be just fine on his own if you give him the time,” Red said, watching his brother with eye lights bright with concern. He didn’t want to sound it, but you could tell he was worried.

“I don’t want to see him like this any longer than I need to. Please, Red.” 

Red looked your way and you saw the moment when his will caved to yours.

“I can’t say anything to convince you otherwise, can I?” he asked with a sad chuckle. “You don’t know what you do ta me, darlin. Fine, it what you want, don’t fight it if it feels weird.”

“I trust you,” you say with enough confidence to make your words come out clearly. 

You shut your good eye and breathe deep. Like Blue had at the breakfast table, you felt the same sort of pull from another’s magic clamping down around your soul. It was almost like your heart was the prize in a claw machine and if you fought it you could shake him off, but you didn’t want to do that. 

Your soul was heavy with magic and wouldn’t fully detach, but it came out enough to manifest as a source of heat you could feel even if you couldn’t see it. At the touch of warmth Edge jerked and released you, snapping to attention. 

You let your soul rest atop your chest enough to still warm the skeleton brothers around you. Red was hovering over your other side while Edge moved to crouch down in front of you so that his face was near eye level with your soul. 

 When you heard Edge whisper your name you opened your eyes and saw him watching you. There were red colored tears beading in the corners of his eye sockets. “I’m sorry,” he breathed, sounding lost and small.

“You have nothing to apologize for.” 

Edge swallowed and shook his head, reaching up to hold onto your arm for support. “It’s so small. You’re so…it’s so tiny. How can it be so warm?” 

Edge called your name again and you thought he was going to ask something but he just kept repeating your name until he reached out and pushed your soul back into your chest along with Red. When he was done he let his head rest against your breast and listened to the beat of your heart. You hugged his skull to your chest and sagged a little when Red pulled the two of you into his own arms to hug.

“I’m safe, you’re safe, we’re all here together and it’s going to be okay,” you say.  

“I’m never letting you get hurt again,” Edge darkly promised before sighing and relaxing once more into your embrace. “I promise.” 

We promise,” Red corrects.

“We’ll watch out for each other,” you say.

It’s a promise you know you can’t keep, but you’re determined to do all you can to try.  

Notes:

Someone wanted more Edge and my hand slipped while trying to write fluff. More hurt/comfort this chapter but that's still good, I wanna say.
Black also muscled his way into this chapter with his sugar daddy tendencies and I might say that's mostly me projecting.
Pls someone pay off all my debt and buy me pretty things.

Chapter 29: Bishop Knife Trick 7

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Your talk happened after lunch outside with half of the boys sitting somewhere on the porch, half off. You perched in one of the lawn chairs while the boys assembled themselves as they saw fit, some on the stairs, some in the opposite chairs, some even on the railing. Black and Russ were elsewhere, seeing to their own work throughout the house. 

No one spoke up or interrupted you as you gave a quick summary of the night before. You described Dee as a new individual and then let them spitball through ideas of their own. Maybe the two weren’t versions of Sans or Papyrus from a different world, but new skeletons from a world where Sans and Papyrus didn’t exist? 

“It’s not worth getting hung up on, what matters is what do we do about it,” Stretch interrupted, sounding more morose than usual. He had another honey stick out but he hadn’t opened it yet.

“I’m not working for Hightower, or doing anything that guys says to do. I don’t care even if it is a misunderstanding, I’d rather not do the asshole’s dirty work for him,” you say.

“No love lost, eh doll face?” Red teased.

“If you don’t trust him then neither should we,” Edge added with a firm tone that left no room for argument between his brother and you. Red rolled his eye lights privately but grinned and said nothing to the contrary.

“None of our contracts hold us to do anything more than what we’ve already done, so we should be free to forge our own destinies!” Blue cheered. “We can do whatever we want now.”

“Probably shouldn’t make like bananas and split so soon, buddy,” Sans joked. “We might just get creamed if we forge a future on our own too fast.” 

“Well that doesn’t sound too sweet ,” Stretch huffed, finally tearing into his honey stick and turning it over to suck dry.

“What did you have in mind?” you asked Sans, noticing the way he spares a look for his brother. 

Picking up on his cue Papyrus coughed into his hand and stepped forward. “While our mission may have ended, it would be unwise of us to ignore the bonds that drew us close in the first place. My brother and I have been looking into local property and have found much of it highly affordable. Much of the town is too sparse to function. It is ideal for covert settlement.”

“Covert…Papyrus, what are you and Sans trying to say?” you asked, feeling the budding of a new headache coming on.

“We bought a lot of the town up,” Sans explains. “Seemed like a nice place to settle.”

“Oh?” Edge said standing up from his seat and crossing his arms. “And where does that leave the rest of us who aren’t quite so financially blessed?”

“Eh, we got gold, boss!” Red protested. 

“Not enough for a house or property, I’m sure,” Edge snapped nearly flushing at the confession.

You raised a hand before speaking. “Same, I’m with Edge on this one. I’m worse than broke right now considering I’m one month shy of my lease renewal on an apartment I can’t easily get back to.” 

You didn’t mention Black’s offer for a live in nanny position, as it seemed unfair to announce an offer that wasn’t good for anyone else except you. An offer that was growing more attractive with the turn of the conversation. 

“You think we’re the sort to kick you out on your rears over something like money? We’re not complete assholes ,” Sans snickered

“Brother!” Papyrus cried in exasperation. “That was both crude and unnecessary.”

“Hey, don’t act so sore over me cracking a few jokes. What fart was so offensive?”

But Red and Stretch were both snickering and you had to hide your smile behind your hand while Papyrus and Blue fumed.  They were stupid puns. You understood why Blue and Papyrus were so upset, but you couldn’t find it in you to join them in their frustrations this time.

“Vulgarity aside, that’s excessive. You know how much gold a single property would cost?” Blue huffed, flushing with color from embarrassment. 

“Yeah, no, property near the capital is like ten times times as expensive for half as much. Out here they’re practically giving it away, even to monsters.” Sans grinned wide.

“That is to say, it wasn’t a great burden on either of our parts to purchase some land and property out here,” Papyrus said.

“Does that mean there is something Paps and I could even afford?” Blue asked, eyes wobbling with want.

Sans and Papyrus shared a nervous look between them. “You can certainly explore that option, my friend,” Papyrus answered. “Though I’m not sure what you may or may not find that’s hospitable. Many of the properties we passed over were in need of some serious repair-more than we’d be willing to invest in at this time. However…”

“We sorta bought up everything we could,” Sans finished. 

“Why would you be that extra?” you ask. “You’re not even homeless or homebodies with the homes you already have.”

“Yeah, sold those already,” Sans said while Papyrus just laughed.

You knew for a fact that Sans and Papyrus both had their own apartments in the capital, separate apartments that suited their new jobs aboveground. It had been a point of unspoken contention for Sans to be separated from his brother in such a way.  

On the road they had talked about it, about how Papyrus felt like he needed to grow up and not be a burden on his brother, and how Sans felt like Papyrus had never been a burden or a bother in all their years together. It had been something you knew from conversations you had with each of them privately, but once they were able to sit down with each other and have a heart to heart (or rather a soul to soul) it had all come out. They had talked about sharing a property again, a house like in Snowdin. That was probably a good idea for their relationship. 

“It seemed like a good business move,” Sans mumbled, looking away.  

“To elaborate,” Papyrus interjected, “there are a number of monster folk who were interested in relocating out of the city to somewhere more accommodating of a slower paced lifestyle. As Mascot to the monsters, it’s been a concern I’ve been aware of for quite some time now.”

Edge seemed to perk up at the news and looked quickly to Red before his eye lights switched back to Papyrus. “You’re making a safe haven for monsters.”

“Indeed!” Papyrus seemed to inflate with pride. “That is our aspiration here.”

Edge nodded stiffly and then drew himself up to his full height. “I see, then I shall lend you my expert aid in accomplishing this task. No doubt you will stand to benefit from my-”

“Boss,” Red coughed. 

“Oh, was I doing it again?” Edge asked in a stage whisper. 

“You’re too cool, boss, but we don’t wanna overwhelm ‘em,” Red chuckled. 

“Very well, my great and terrible self would like to humbly request a position in assisting you on this worthwhile endeavor,” Edge amended.   

“Wowie,” Papyrus cheered. “My first volunteer!” 

“You should probably pay him, bro,” Sans chuckled.

“My first paid volunteer!”

“I think they’re called employees,” Red added. 

“My first employee!” 

You all shared a laugh at that and then let Papyrus ramble on about some of his vision for the town and its new inhabitants while Edge interjected an idea or two he had seen Ma or Mini utilize in their home town.

 It sounded like a lot of fun and you were excited when Sans mentioned hoping to relocate some famous business to the local area. You had been missing your weekly Grillby burger and fries.

“Well, as nice as renting from you might seem, we already have a competing offer for our services,” Blue finally spoke up.

You, along with several others, turned sharply to look over at Blue who was grinning down at Stretch who was still trying to chew the last dregs of honey out of his honey stick. 

“Another offer?” Papyrus echoed, sounding surprised. “Who could move so fast?”

“Ah, earlier this morning Black mentioned it,” Stretch explained. “Said he’d be willing to board us a little long-term if we helped out with the kids. Figured we could work a little on the side and save up for our own place this way.”

You felt a little off balance. Black had offered a job to both Blue and Stretch? It…made sense if it was for Peter and his unending energy, and Tron who was starting to need help with school work based off his struggles with summer homework. Blue and Stretch were a pretty good fit and the pair seemed to be positive towards the question. 

Did that mean…Black had wanted you to be a nanny for Wendy while Blue and Stretch helped with Peter and Tron? Or was it just his own generosity looking for an excuse to keep some company for his brother?

Thinking that Stretch and Blue might stick around made the thought of working for Black a bit more appealing. And if the rest of the boys stayed in the area working to make it a monster friendly safe haven, that would be ideal.  

You weren’t ready to even think about a next week where you weren’t around the boys. That was a realization that surprised you as soon as it hit. But you didn’t have the time now to unpack it all. There were other things that needed to be discussed and addressed first.

You caught Sans’ eye light and held it, watching as the easy grin went stiff and then sagged on his skull. He didn’t look away though.

“Is now a good time for that talk you wanted?” you asked in a low voice, speaking only to him.

“Not in front of Paps.”

“You don’t think that’s part of the problem?” you huffed, sagging in your seat. “What’s so bad about knowing?”

“Not everyone wants to know all the terrible things,” Sans sighed. 

When he looked up he saw Red staring his way, looking between him and you. You had a gut feeling that Red was also someone who had lived through resets the same way Sans had. You wouldn’t guess the same for Blue, but maybe Stretch…

“There’s something else,” you speak up, earning the attention of the others. “It’s…something else about that Dee guy and what he said. I’d rather have it shared with everyone.”

Sans didn’t look at you but Red’s eye lights were brighter than before as they stayed glued on you. Stretch glanced at the others and read something in their expressions before sitting up to listen better. 

“How many of you have heard of resets before?” you asked. 

As expected both Red and Stretch were the ones who raised their hands along with Sans. You were willing to bet the way they experienced resets was the same for all three of them.

You look to Sans for support and spill out the same story of last night, this time unedited. You explained what a reset was and Sans echoed what you said with examples of his own experiences. Red and Stretch offered their own too, though Stretch seemed a tad less bothered by them.

“And your brother could do them?” Stretch asked in clarification.

“He could…but one of the reasons he brought so many boss monsters over was to make this world too ‘heavy,’ for lack of a better term, to manipulate in terms of space and time.”

“I see, but I’m still confused about something,” Papyrus interjected, striking a classic thinking pose. “What’s so bad about getting a do over? Is it so important that he not be able to skip back again?”

“Think about having to live a hundred days all over again, and being the only person to feel and know the difference. Think about the things that went wrong and then the things that went right that you don’t get to experience again when your whole world shifts,” Red tried to explain. “Some days it drives you crazy when you lose things or remember the wrong history with someone. Resets can be as brief as a few minutes or as vast as a few years.”

“Heavy stuff,” Stretch added, gnawing on the empty plastic of his candy.

“It’s what we have to face, though. It’s the reason you’re all here now and why I’m here too. We’ve all been caught up in this because of these resets and you all should know what they are. That’s what Hightower wanted, we think, to redo the whole story and send his own child down into the underground to manipulate the story to suit his aims.”

“That’s a pretty big deal,” Red chuckled humorlessly.  “That’s a lot of years too. You said with all the boss monsters here your brother couldn’t do his thing, could he?” 

“No, this quantum entanglement has been pinned down and nailed in place. Space time isn’t flipping back anytime soon,” you answered. “And even before all this, when he could do it, the strain always really messed him up. It’s why his hair is white now I think.  He couldn’t reset more than a few minutes but what Hightower wants is over half a decade of history undone.”

“Don’t sound possible,” Sans huffed in clear disbelief. 

“If the kid couldn’t reset anything then why would Hightower want his skinny ass now?” Red huffed. 

“No good reason, clearly,” Edge hissed. 

“It seems as if our objectives have changed. We no longer wish to catch your brother, but rather... hope to keep him out of the clutches of those in power at the Embassy,” said Papyrus. “And the reason he didn’t tell you this sooner is because he didn’t trust you with your implant?”

Edge flinched at the mention of your fake eye and you knew what he was remembering to make a face like that. You weren’t far, so you reached out and squeezed at his gloved hand, alerting him to your proximity. He saw you and squeezed back before listening to the others. 

“And that’s easy enough to do from anywhere. We can hang out here in Blackberry’s town and leave that guy to stay off grid. We can do that.”

You squeezed Edge’s hand once more and found some sort of courage for yourself in his touch. “There’s one more thing I should mention,” you say, knowing your voice is soft and lower than normal. In spite of the diminished volume everyone seems to hear and turned towards you. “About the resets…and the reason I knew about them before all this. Um…it’s…sort of a secret I was told not to mention or tell anyone else about, but, I knew about the resets before my brother could do them.”  

Someone called your name and it was too quiet to tell, but everyone watched you with soft expressions.

You’re cold all over and you don’t doubt you look less yourself as the color drains from your face and leaves you winded. Your mind’s eyes trips on a memory and you see it all again. 

You see the pit.

 You see the harness. 

You see the hatches open and waiting. 

You see the darkness inside. 

You see the black.

 And nothing more. 

It was part of the memory you used to drive the men who terrorized Ma’s place insane. That inky darkness so full of substance and nothing at the same time. The sound when atoms didn’t vibrate anymore, the emptiness you could feel but never name, all of that went into the nightmare. 

“You don’t have to talk about it now if you’re not ready,” Red said, speaking up after another minute passes without you saying anything new. 

But instead you look to Sans whose expression is nervous, as if he thinks he’s the reason you’re having such a hard time. You focus on his face and mentally shake yourself loose. Damn what you wouldn’t give for some sour candy right about now. 

 “You weren’t able to find any files or information on the conversion process, were you?” 

“…N-no. Figured that you were all just born the way you were,” Sans said. 

“Nah, no one is. Something has to happen. When we’re old enough that we can’t see souls anymore there’s a pit in the basement of the Embassy that’s two hundred meters deep. Children are harnessed and lowered into the pit. We were told it was a hole to the underground but I’ve visited both places, and they’re not the same, if anything, the pit in the basement is more like the Void.”

“That’s not…possible,” Stretch hesitated to say. “The void isn’t a stable place you can just…hold a door open or stay in for long periods of time.” 

“You can try,” Red laughed without humor as he seemed to recall something else. 

Your voice doesn’t crack, but it feels like its breaking. “The more I think of it the more it makes sense, especially now that I’ve gone with some of you on shortcuts through the void. But it’s a place they dropped us into, like bait on a hook, and left us there until we were ready.”

“Ready for what?” Papyrus asked, voice slow and measured while Edge squeezed your hand and refused to look up from the wood grains of the porch. 

“Eventually our souls would just naturally detach, sometimes it would take hours, but eventually they’ll be out and then we had to…” 

You dropped Edge’s hand and held up both your hands to gesture with. You pictured the red light in the ocean of black ink. You remembered holding it in your hands like an overripe fruit with a tough exterior. You mimicked with your fingers digging in your nails and peeling it open, pushing the insides out with your thumbs and then folding it back in on itself so that the meat was on the outside and the exterior was now the interior. 

“We broke the shell and turned our souls inside out.”

“That’s not-” Blue interjected, rising to his feet so suddenly it almost made you drop your hands, but they stayed frozen in mid air, mimicking the ritual. “Y-you can’t just do that to your soul. It’s -they’re not meant to be broken like that!” 

“Right,” Edge softly agreed. “Human souls fall apart when they’re broken.” 

“It wasn’t broken, just turned inside out,” you say, but your voice is too weak to convince anyone. 

Not even yourself. 

“And this has something to do with the resets how, kiddo?” Sans asked, looking strained and nervous if his tight smile was anything to go by. 

“It’s the first thing anyone ever does. The soul breaks in our hands and we’re lost somewhere even beyond the void, but we’re told to refold the world like we refolded our souls. They called it a reset . If it works we’re back in our bodies and we get tugged back out the hatch and voila , we’re mages now or whatever it is humans with magic are called.” 

They called it resurrection. 

You can hear the hum of June bugs and the heavy rustle of wild grass as other things buzz by, but no one else says anything. You look from face to face, waiting for one of them to say something, hoping that someone reaches for you, but not really expecting it. You’re holding your hands to your chest and one thumb presses down painful on the back of your hand to help ground you in the moment. You just divulged secrets you had been sworn to never share and you felt…you just wanted someone to touch you but no one was looking at you, making it worse. 

“Guys?” 

“What happens if it doesn’t work?” Sans asked, looking the most collected of the bunch, but just only. 

You remember with painful clarity your best friend going down before you, all smiles and practiced confidence. 

“Then it…doesn’t work and they bring up an empty harness.”  

Red cursed behind you. 

“It happens rarely. I’ve only- it’s only not worked three or four times while I was there.” You can remember three boys that just didn’t come back and then the girl who’s harness came up shredded and empty. But that was opposed to the two dozen different kids that went down and came back up the next day or even mere hours later. They had been doing it like that for years.

And it had all been for a purpose.

You were supposed to be heroes

All heroes had their tragic backstories right? 

“Apart from in the pit, none of the other kids were ever able to fold back time and space in a reset like what Raven could do. It was only in the pit where we could reset even if some of us were aware of them.” 

You remembered back after you lost your eye and the attempt Raven made to capitalize on your agony. You had almost believed that reset was real, but it had only been an illision of his making. You would never be able to flip time again but he liked to let you dream. 

Blue looked sick where he stood and Stretch wouldn’t even look your way while Red cursed softly under his breath, “I thought our world was the messed up one.” It made Edge click his jaw loudly, clearly dismissive.

You forced your voice to work again. 

 “Even so, after monsters came topside the pit got locked up and to the best of my knowledge, it was sealed up tight. But, that might be the other reason a guy like Hightower wants to stop Raven from weighing down the world. If resets are impossible he can’t make any more mages.”

 The June bugs were louder than before and you felt far too light to live inside your body in a word where the dragonflies flew by, undisturbed by your words. When the wind rustled the wild grass it hissed like whispers. You wanted someone to hold you to keep you from falling apart but that sounded just wrong, so you crossed your arms over your chest. 

“But now you know,” you say on a sigh, if only to interrupt the silence with something.

“Are you okay?” Blue asked first.

It was such an honest question you couldn’t begin to answer so you just chuckled and waved a hand in the air between you before folding it back under your arm. “I’m fine. This is all old news I just wanted you guys to know since I’m sure it was never in any of the files.” 

“They’re not doing it anymore, are they?” Stretch asked, looking away from you, towards the house. Upstairs you can hear Peter screaming at Tron for something Wendy did. 

Your eyes go to the second story, following his. “No, and it’s not something they can pick up and start again so easily. It took them years to get us... prepped and ready. They wouldn’t be able to just pick any kid up and do that again.”  

It hadn’t taken long, but it looked like Stretch had also warmed up to the kids alongside his brother. It made sense for the two of them to get an invitation from Russ and Black to stay on the farmhouse. 

You couldn’t see Red or Edge who were behind and beside you on the porch, but you figured one breakdown a day was enough so you refrained from facing them or letting your shivers show. Seeing Edge disassociate had been worse than anything you could feel after a simple memory. 

You were determined not to let the others know how rattled you really were.

The silence was startled by a soft vibration coming from Papyrus’ pocket.  He seemed more startled to hear it, since it was on vibrate. “Oh, how embarrassing,” he flustered, pulling out his phone and blushing. 

The sight made you snicker and something broke loose. Sans laughed and made a joke that only frustrated Papyrus, Edge, and Blue, but it was enough. You breathed out and dropped your arms as Stretch joined in, followed by another off-color pun by Red. The brothers easily dissolved into a familiar mess of puns and infuriated cries. 

You squeezed Red’s shoulder on your way inside and he reached for your hand to squeeze back as you passed him. If you had asked for it, or had let him see, you know he would have taken you and zipped you up against his ribcage to snuggle back into a sense of calm, but you didn’t want to bother him. 

You thought you heard him turn to watch you go back but you were inside before he could stop you. Maybe he could tell? 

You climbed the stairs up to Wendy’s room, knowing it would be empty as she ran off with her brothers and played throughout the house. You fell down onto the plush carpet and leaned your back up against the bed. You convinced yourself you were fine. You shut your eye and the darkness there wasn’t the darkness from the pit. You were fine. You were…

You were not alone.

You looked up and blinked at the skeleton taking up space in the doorway. “Hey, Rus, you look like you need something. Can I help?”

“…so-sorry, i hadn’t meant to but i ended up hearing it all.”

Was he going to get angry about it? You couldn’t picture Rus angry about anything, but you knew he loved the kids. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was scared of you now. Maybe he wanted you away from the kids. Maybe-

“-are you okay?”

Your manic thoughts fell apart.

“What?”

Without another word Rus padded into the room and sat down on the floor next to you, close enough that the sleeve of his jacket brushed up against your arm, and the denim of his jeans brushed up against your leg.

“Rus?”

“h-here, just…” 

He reached for you and pulled you over until you were in his lap and his arms were around you. With his poor posture it was easy to forget how tall he was and how much bigger he was compared to you, but he folded you up easily on his lap and nuzzled his chin into your hair. You felt like all the falling apart you had been lying about had been caught and saved. You didn’t bother to be embarrassed. You melted into his arms with ease. 

“…just stay like this a little longer till you feel better, you… looked like you could…do with a little affection… thought you were gonna fall apart there on your own looking like that.” 

You can’t help but snicker into his shoulder, cuddling closer. “How’d you know?” 

“…lucky guess?” 

You reached up and grabbed for what you could with your fingers, and pulled yourself closer, not minding how Rus seemed to fold up around you, like if he could he’d make himself a bed you could fall into. 

“Thank you. I…I needed this.”

Rus chuckled and the rumble echoed throughout his body. “‘m figured as much, that was some heavy stuff-ah, sorry about the eavesdropping though, it’s a bad habit.”

“I hadn’t meant to exclude you or Black, but I didn’t think it’d be something worth concerning you with. It’s a little too much.”

“yeah, but it’s something about you so it’s not. if it’s about you it’s not something ‘too’ much or whatever. and its still bothering you ain’t it?” 

You pressed the side of your face against his chest. You can feel his bones through the fabric of his shirt but they’re not hard the way dead and exposed human bones feel. His bones are softer and almost have a flexible quality to them, like the other skeletons. You had cuddled with enough to know they weren’t just rock hard bodies of sharp bones, which was what you first suspected when you saw them.

“It’s silly, all I did was say some stuff but I feel so exhausted.”

“it’s not silly, if you’re exhausted then just take a nap, its what I do.”

His words made you snicker. “I don’t want to be silly.” 

“‘yer not silly.” 

You close your good eye and inhale, unable to distinguish all the things that go into Rus’ scent, but enjoying it nevertheless. 

Behind you the door creaked as it was pushed open further and you hear enough footsteps to know they belong to more than one person who calls your name. 

You open your eye to see Blue and Stretch crouching down on  the carpet in front of you. Blue’s eye lights were wobbling. “Are you really okay?” he asked. 

Rus looked up, sharing a look with Stretch over Blue’s head and then Rus huffed loudly. “-not my fault you were too slow,” he grumbled lowly, seemingly directing the comment at Stretch. His arms around you wrap tighter, protective in nature.

“We’re sorry we just let you go off like that!” Blue exclaimed. “We should have been more mindful but-”

“-We weren’t and we’re sorry and we’re here now.” Stretch leaned closer. “We shouldn’t have assumed you were just okay like that.”

“Red said you might need some space but-but if you-I-um, that wasn’t it, was it?” Blue blubbered. 

With a heavy sigh of resignation Rus eased up and uncurled from around you, letting you turn enough to crawl out. You moved but not enough to leave Rus’ arms. “You don’t blame me for the reset?”

“what?” Rus jerked from the question and Blue just looked confused. 

You force the words out. “I…one of the resets was because of me and it…it was gross, what I told you about my soul, wasn’t it.”  

You felt the one arm left around you tighten as Rus tensed up during the same moment you heard Stretch, but you were too distracted by Blue throwing himself at you.

“NO!” Blue exclaimed, forgetting himself for a minute as he exclaimed without taking his magic out of his voice. “Nonononononon, no!” he gasped. “No!”

Behind him, Stretch looked miserable. “That…that didn’t, oh honey…shit we dropped the ball on that one.” 

“There’s no way we’d ever think you’re gross just cause someone made you-” Blue gasped and pulled back so that he could look into your face. The rest of what he wanted to say dissolved into whimpers. 

Rus bent his head into your neck from behind and breathed out. “it’s the prettiest soul I’ve ever seen, even if it hurts, that doesn’t change anything.” 

“The resets…?”

“Not worth you worrying about,” Stretch answered. “I’m not sure anyone would blame you for doing what you could in that situation.” He reached over and brushed his hand across your face, pushing back a stray curl of hair that had been pulled free from Russ’ earlier nuzzling. 

“What about-” 

You fumbled with your words but they all fell apart in your mouth. Blue chuckled at your expression and nuzzled against the side of your face while Rus busied his jaw in the back of your neck, his arm still slung low across your waist to keep you pulled up against him. Stretch moved closer and took your hand, bending his head until his forehead touched your shoulder. 

“Nothing else matters. Don’t worry about anything any more.” 

You don't.  

 

 





That evening Edge and Papyrus took over the kitchen and it smelled like an authentic Italian restaurant between their lasagna and spaghetti. The kids helped with the garlic bread because of course Black had two industrial sized ovens that could accommodate enough food to feed a small army.

Everyone shared dinner with a little wine, (except the minors) and happier news. Papyrus had heard from a contact with his ‘Monster Positive’ organization that there would be a few interested parties including one very familiar name.

“You got Grillby to agree to move here!” you exclaimed. “No way.”

“Oh no, please not you too. It’s a grease trap and nothing compared to a good, home cooked meal,” Papyrus bemoaned. 

“Your home cooked meals are to die for, Paps,” you say. “Both you and Edge really outdid yourself tonight. I haven’t eaten such amazing Italian food in forever.”

Papyrus blushed and looked away, hiding a smile. “Oh, yes, well if you can still tell then I guess your taste buds aren’t deficient.” 

Edge blushed a little darker in his seat but didn’t say anything. 

“Yeah, I got excited too, but its conditional. The hothead goes where the business is best,” Sans chuckled. “Plus, it sounds like he’s training a new guy to take over his place in the city thanks to your brother. That has to go smoothly if he wants to move out.”

“I wanna visit before he makes the move,” you grumbled into your meatballs. You really did miss his burgers and fries. They were the best and he always made them just the way you liked them, like he knew you well enough to know such a silly detail.

“We can do that, you said you wanted to pick up your things, didn’t you?” Sans answered. He winked. “I know a shortcut.”    

“More monsters are going to be our neighbors?!” Peter exclaimed, bouncing in his seat. “Alright!”

Wendy started to wiggle in excitement and even Tron looked more awake at the thought.

“APPARENTLY,” Black huffed. “NOT THAT I’M OPPOSED TO THE IDEA BUT I’LL BE QUITE PUT OUT IF THEY ARE THE NOISY TYPE OF NEIGHBORS.”

“sure,” Rus chuckled from the opposite side of the table, glancing at Papyrus and Edge who were loudly arguing about the density of the sauce and how much or little meat needed to be mixed into it. Black didn’t even blink at the bickering but reached over to push another napkin into Wendy’s hand. 

“Kinda feels like this is gonna be something bigger, don’t it?” Red chuckled, digging through what was left of his lasagna. “Finally off that damn bus at least.”

 “You’re telling me,” Sans chuckled. 

“Then it sounds like now is a good time for a toast,” Blue interjected. He held up his glass and grinned wide at the others around the table. 

“What are we toasting to, bro?” Stretch chuckled. 

“Decent meat sauce with actual meat in it?” Edge quipped.

“Too much meat in the sauce distracts from its original purpose!” Papyrus exclaimed.

“You can never have too much meat.”

“We have meatballs.”

“Never enough.”

“Boss!” Red laughed, looking like he was wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “We’re gonna toast, get your booze.”

Wendy reached for Black’s glass but he seamlessly removed it from her reach and replaced it with one filled with grape juice. Peter stuck his tongue out at Wendy but she made a good effort to ignore his mirthful teasing.

You watched as everyone else around the table put down their forks and reached for their glasses. So many of them had the same soft smile on their faces that you knew you were also wearing. Sharing food with all of your friends had been more of a blessing than you had anticipated. It was like….it felt like coming home , which was weird since you never had a home to know what it felt like. 

You grabbed your own wine glass. Black offered to top it off while Blue was still watching the rest of the table.

“A toast!” Blue exclaimed, standing  next to his chair and raising up his glass. “To new neighbors and new beginnings. Thank you all for being a part of our future.”

“to new neighbors,” Rus echoed.

“And new beginnings,” you finished with a wide grin you couldn’t hold back. 

“Looking forward to it, sweetheart,” Red laughed with a playful wink as you clinked the side of your wingless with his. 

Around the table you each touched glasses, even with the kids who didn’t have wine but still drank their safe grape juice. At some point you had to stand and reach across to touch glasses with those across the table, but you were determined to get a blessing and share your blessing with everyone.

“Cheers!” 

Notes:

Here you go, less of a cliffhanger this time around I think. There's only two-three chapters left before a time skip which starts off the next story arc, but I almost ended it here. It was sorta heavy at first but now everyone knows how mages are made, where reader got their power, and how some of those resets happened.
To clarify, every mage resets once as a part of their transformation. Raven is the only on who can do it outside of transformations, but many mages, including reader, remember resets. The 'reset' after losing their eye was Raven's attempt at tempting/taunting her and less an actual attempt.
If anything else is unclear let me know and I'll try to sort it out.

Also, I'm currently writing out/considering very future chapters (like you're not going to see them till 40's) but I wanna make sure I tie in some fan favorite tropes. I've got a lot of bed sharing cause that's my guilty pleasure, but are there any other domestic-y tropes you liked to see? I love hearing what others enjoy.

Chapter 30: Bishop Knife Trick 8

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Black knocked softly before peeking into the room. Tron turned around in his seat and pushed back the headphones until they rested around his shoulders, looking pensive. It was late and Black had been making it a habit to check on all of them more than once ever since the new arrivals came. 

Across the room Peter sprawled out haphazardly across his bed. Black chuckled fondly before slipping in to fix the younger boy under his covers once more. “YOU’RE STILL UP?” he said by way of conversation. 

“Waiting for you. Don’t you always make another sweep around this time?” Tron asked. “Last night you even started talking about angel prophecies for a bedtime story.”

Black turned to regard the eldest child once more and noticed that the program running on the computer looked like the basics Papyrus once started out playing with when they were both still underground and struggling to find a foothold in the world. Tron was a good egg and latched onto whatever anyone was willing to teach him. He was smart too, of course he would have noticed. 

“SUCH STORIES LOSE THEIR CHARM WHEN THEY NO LONGER FRIGHTEN PLEEBS INTO SUBMISSION. IF PETER IS ALL SETTLED FOR THE NIGHT SHOULDN'T YOU BE IN BED TOO? IT’S LATE.” 

 “I’m more productive at night,” Tron mumbled, bashful all of a sudden. Black felt a swell in his soul and remembered when Papyrus was still a bitty bones that wanted to stay up with the same sort of excuse. It delighted Black more than he could ever admit to have another chance to do things the right way. 

“YOU KNOW IT’LL BE BAD FOR YOU IF YOU’RE IN THE HABIT OF ALWAYS STAYING UP LATE ONCE SCHOOL STARTS UP THIS FALL. COME ON, BACK TO BED. YOU DON’T HAVE TO SLEEP BUT LAY DOWN AND LET YOUR BRAIN REST BEFORE IT OVERHEATS.” 

“I’m not a computer,” Tron chuckled. 

 Still, he put the headphones away, hanging them on the edge of the monitor then turned that off too. Black heard the computer start its hibernation cycle and nodded in approval. While Tron pulled the covers back to climb in Black hesitated where he stood. Rus was the better brother when it came to putting the boys back to bed. 

 Still….

“ARE YOU SET WITH WATER?” 

“I’m good. I can get up for a drink if I need it, you know.”

“YOU NEED YOUR REST.”

Tron chuckled again and snuggled further under his covers. “It’s nice to hear someone care and mean it,” he whispered before closing his eyes.

There was one wall light left on but Black turned that off and waited to hear any change in either boy. When he was satisfied with the silence he shut the door behind him and turned to the only other room on the third floor to check on Phil. Normally Phil slept in the bedroom next to Wendy and Black but had been restless there since the new house guests, so Rus and Tron suggested moving him into the guest room upstairs. 

While he was restless in his bed but didn’t wake when Black entered the room. In the dark, Black waited to see if Phil would notice the extra light from the hall but he didn’t so Black eased the door shut again and reassured himself with the knowledge that Tron would wake if his sibling needed something so late at night. 

Tonight wouldn’t be the night he stayed up struggling to turn a prophecy about avenging angels into a cute bedtime story for children. It was amazing the children weren’t tired of such poor folktales. 

Black took a shortcut downstairs and waited with a held breath to hear anything shift or change in reaction to his presence. He held himself taunt but then relaxed when another few seconds yielded no change. 

The guests were all where they needed to be. Blue and Stretch shared a room, the original and his brother shared another room across the hall, and the third room where you had stayed originally was slated to the edgy brothers who looked like they came from a world just as kind as his. 

Black was wary of the ones named Red and Edge. The others at least looked soft enough to crack if bones needed to be broken, but getting the upper hand on those two would prove a challenge. For now the best defense was the diplomatic approach. 

No one seemed to have any motives that would lead to his family being endangered, though the business they came from did worry Black. It was possible his new house guests might unintentionally invite complications if their enemies followed them here, but if that happened Black preferred having allies he could manipulate for the greater good. 

Speaking of allies…

Black took another shortcut down to the first floor and then once more into the basement when he was satisfied on each level. The lights weren’t left on but he could see well enough in the dark so he picked his way over the mess to Rus’ computer, moving the mouse so the screen woke up and brightened the dark living space. 

Black turned around and looked for his brother but couldn’t find or hear him anywhere in the basement, not even in any of the side rooms. Even his bedroom was left empty…and messy. Some things would never change, like how much a slob his brother could be!

Black closed the bedroom door behind him and glanced at the computer once more, suspecting it might have something useful to look through if Rus thought to leave it unlocked. Black took a seat and moved the mouse over to the most recently opened file and expanded it to see the list of recently downloaded content. The time stamps on when they were added were all right around the time you first came, with another batch dated as being downloaded that morning. 

There was a column of information on each file that listed it’s download and last modified time as well as the number of plays if it was an audio or video.  For being only a day old it was suspicious that Rus had managed to play something seventeen times.  

Like most of the files, there were no names to anything. For Rus, numbers had more meaning and each file, track, and video was identified by a series of numbers. 

He clicked on the first one in the newest list, not knowing what to expect. 

A younger version of you with longer hair and just as many scars entered a room and proceeded through a series of field tests. 

Black clicked on the next file.

You were just as young but badly managed the elemental nature of your magic for another practice session. He saw the way its sputtered free through the scars on your arm and back. You had more magic than you knew what to do with and it resulted in lackluster results. 

Black clicked the next file. 

There was a different child running the same physical series of field tests. The next file with the same kid manifesting their power with much better control. 

Most of the files after that were other kids running the same field and magic tests. There were a few more of you he watched, nodding in approval at how much faster and fiercer you grew until you were head and shoulders above your like-aged peers. 

Courting you into his family had been a wise play. You were strong.

 Then Black clicked on the file Rus had watched 29 times. It was short, only a minute or so long, but it was of you several years older. The room was different, bland and sterile. A label at the base of the video identified it as a mental health and wellness check up log.

You were wearing an oversized hoodie with the drawstrings hanging unevenly from the bunched up hood, short athletic shorts, and tall knee high socks. 

Oh

It didn’t really matter what you said in the video, Black understood a bit too well what it was that made the movie so watchable to his pervert of a brother. To another human it seemed perfectly innocent, but his brother was a bit of a freak and a horn dog so nothing was safe-not even socks. 

“I think I’ll be fine,” you say in the video, swinging your legs off the end of the chair you sit in oddly. You don’t look at the camera but seem distracted by something else. “It makes sense to situation me in the forward position.”

“How does that make you feel?”

You laughed and it was familiar enough even though Black knows he’s never heard it before. 

“Honestly I feel better about it than being anywhere else. I’ve got better chances of surviving the same thing, you said so yourself. Maybe someone else like Tank could take up a forward position parallel with me but don’t move me backwards.”

“Logical,” the voice behind the camera states.

“Isn’t that the right answer?” you ask.

“There is no right or wrong, only what you feel is true to you.”

You nod along, listening while closing your eyes. “I’m not going to let anyone fall down. They just need to stay behind me.” You look into the camera and Black almost swears at how unnerving that gaze is. 

“Next question.”

Then the video cuts off. The rest, if it exists, isn’t found on any of Rus’ files. 

Black leaves the computer to return to its hibernation and shortcuts to the only other place he can think of to find his brother. 

The barn is derelict and musty smelling. There are holes in the roof and a mess everywhere he looks, but the bones of the structure were plenty strong and could deal to stand through a renovation. He shortcut up to the loft area and frowned when he saw the bottles reflecting moonlight. Three-no four bottles of Honey Monster Whiskey. He picked up one and sniffed, scoffing at the strong smell. 

They weren’t that old. 

“MUTT,” Black barked, but there was nothing but silence to greet him. 

Black searched through the barn for a few more minutes, finding evidence of his brother’s attempt to clean the place up but no actual brother, not even a passed out one sleeping himself into a hangover. 

Where could he be? Had he missed him on the way from one floor to the next? Was he being purposefully difficult and hiding? 

From the loft area Black looked out and could see his property across the acer of land that separated the barn from the farmhouse. In the pale moonlight it looked charming if a bit worn down. In another few weeks he was sure he’d have it looking as pristine as the day it was built. There was a reason he and his brother had settled on this property, after all. 

It hadn’t taken long to become close with the property and Black was secretly a bit intimidated by how fast he fell in love with domesticity after a life of play-acting malevolence in a world far more violent.  

When the wood above him creaked uniquely he knew it was more than just the old farm house settling and shortcut up to the second floor. 

Inching around the corner he spotted you in the hallway, walking barefoot across the floor with a bouncy rock-step way of moving. He could see in the low light how you held Phil close to your chest as you bounced with him in your arms. On previous nights he had caught you singing to Wendy or telling her stories until she was asleep under the covers, so wasn’t surprised to see you with the youngest child in your arms.

There was no reason to stay in the dark and out of sight, but that’s where Black kept himself, watching from a distance. You padded back into Phil’s room and tried to set him back down in his bed but as soon as he went horizontal the youngest child began to squirm and breath heavy, the way he would before a scream. You swooped back with him in your arms, cooing up at him and then rocking him back into the familiar rock step way of walking. You paced up and down his smaller room before moving out into the hallway again and then back into the bedroom to try once more, to no avail. 

Black followed you from a distance when you moved out of the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. He watched you set Phil on the counter, one hand rubbing at his tummy while you rummaged with the other to pull out the carton of milk, followed by a microwave-safe sippy cup. You poured a little into the cup and then placed it in the microwave to warm up. You took Phil back into your arms and paced up and down with him while the timer on the microwave counted down. 

“It’s fortunate you’re old enough for this old home remedy,” you whispered conspiratorially to the traumatized four year old. 

Phil watched you blankly, not even a little bit sleepy. Black recognized the look and knew it would be a long night for you if you planned on staying up with him until he fell asleep. Phil sometimes got nightmares he couldn’t understand and it was up to Black or Russ (usually his brother) to calm the child or stay up with him until he could fall asleep again. 

For a skeleton, staying up for a whole night was no great sacrifice. Black had gone a week without sleep once during a siege  outside the palace walls. Sure, monsters needed sleep just like anything alive, but monsters didn’t need it like humans did-not nearly as much. There was a reason Black got so frustrated with the sloth of his brother. For not needing sleep as much as he did, Russ slept twice as much.  

The responsible thing to do would be to take Phil off your hands and shoo you to bed. It was better that way. Phil wasn’t your child. He wasn’t your responsibility. He was someone Black promised to watch over, so he should be the one to stay up all night with the little tyke…

So why couldn’t Black make his legs move? 

You sipped some of the milk and tested it before fitting the cap on the top and screwing it tight. You tilted it towards Phil and hummed, rocking with him in your lap as you sat, nursing him without reservation. Your humming was nonsensical and without pattern, just a collection of jumbled, soft sounds running into each other in your mouth. It wasn’t coordinated or cultured but… Phil’s wide eyed stare went hazy and blurred as his lids dropped. 

You burped him on your shoulder and continued to hum all the way back up the stairs, through the hall, and into his room. Black hung back, watching as you paced a bit more around his room, going in circles until you were beside his bed. This time when you set him down, Phil stayed quiet. 

 Black heard the young boy yawn loudly and saw your arms empty. The look on your face as you stared down at Phil…

Black felt something in his metaphorical throat and nearly choked on it as he scrambled to get out of the shadows and into the safe confines of his room’s hallway before you could stand and see him. His body was shaking like there was a reason for him to feel fear when clearly there wasn’t! It didn’t make sense but he didn’t bother to try-he bolted like it was a reflex. 

Before he could blip away he saw the eye lights in the dark that made him freeze mid- manifestation of his shortcutting magic. Across the way Mutt - Papyrus stood in the shadows watching like a fixture of the house, seeing every single expression Black failed to control. There was a smirk that Black could see only because of how it pulled at his brother’s gold canine.

‘i know what you’re thinking…’

The door opened and Russ stepped back into the wood, glitching into a new space while Black shortcut right back to his room, eager to hide his face and anything else his brother might see during a rare moment of weakness. 



 

Elsewhere in the house, Stretch stayed up, lazy but awake with his back to the door and his skull to the wood, listening to all the little sounds that told a story in the house. He heard the footsteps, he heard your humming, he heard Peter snoring in his bed and Wendy tossing in hers. He heard the way you paced with Phil’s weight in your arms and the way another set of footsteps stalked you from a distance. And because it was Stretch who listened, he even heard the second voyeur who hid in the walls like a glitch in reality watching it all. 

He closed his sockets and in the darkness of his mind he let his imagination paint the picture of what he heard. He could see the way you moved through the halls, oblivious to anything that wasn’t malicious. 

The shorter brother watched you with far more openness, benefiting from the transplanted shortcut magic he had never meant to wield. Further back Rus stayed a part of the woodwork, safe where he was. Clipping through the layers of a simple tri- dimensional plane of existence meant he could watch from the safety of an unreachable perch. 

Stretch could imagine it all, could see it in his mind, but the details were still fuzzy. He didn’t know what they looked like when the brothers watched you. It hadn’t been the first time the one named Black kept an eye light on you, but those times had been all revolving around you interacting with the young girl he was most protective of. Those times made sense. 

Tonight was different.

And that had nothing to do with Rus joining in on the dirty habit. The younger brother was usually none too bold to wander so carelessly beyond the borders of his bedroom after dark. Something must have made him brave tonight. 

Stretch opened his sockets and the image in his mind fell apart as he faced the darkness. He was still leaning up against the door, listening, but now his focus was on other things-future things. It had been a short bout of growing pains with the addition of the Underfell brothers, but Stretch had managed well enough with what he felt. 

Now there was another set of brothers posing the same problem-seeing the same prize and wanting it for themselves. 

In the dark Stretch didn’t bother to hide the way his skull twisted into an ugly expression. He knew what he looked like but he didn’t care.

Things were... unpleasant.

In addition to the new arrivals you had also managed to heal with the Comic-or this world’s Sans. Whatever bad blood had existed between you before was almost completely gone, and now it was as if you were closer to that guy than you were to him-which didn’t make sense. He had never hurt you, Stretch thought to himself spitefully. What was up with you forgiving that paranoid bastard so easily? 

His mouth ached for something and he wished he still had his cigarettes on him. He wanted to smoke and calm down. All the thoughts in his head made him nothing but angry so late at night. 

With his skull still next to the door he listened to you putting Phil to bed. He listened for the others and heard them too. 

now leave, now leave, now leave… ’ but in his mind the chant echoed a little differently. 

‘don’t look at her, don’t look at her, don’t look-don’t look-don’t look…

 

Notes:

It almost feels like this is a bonus chapter and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or what-but here is more insight into a couple of the boys and what they're thinking. Black likes to think he's above his feelings (lol) and Stretch has caught the jellies.

Two more chapters before the new arc!

Chapter 31: Bishop Knife Trick 9

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You had accepted Black’s offer, but it had been conditional. You wanted your own space, and while he seemed eager to convince you he could do that within his own walls, you asked for the barn instead. It had almost horrified him to consider it, but you were convinced you could put the work into it to make it habitable. Until then you could take up one of the spare bedrooms, but you were adamant about wanting a place you could call your own. 

Eventually, Black agreed. 

In the morning you came down to breakfast in your goldenrod colored shirt and polka dot skirt. Rus was still asleep somewhere along with Tron and Stretch, but Blue ,Peter, Wendy and Black were at the table when you came down. 

“So pretty,” Wendy exclaimed, causing Blue to turn around and Black to look up from his newspaper. 

“Morning to you, too, sunshine,” you yawned, one hand absently running up the back of your skull to ruffle the still wet hair. You had gone running with Papyrus in the dark morning and showered before coming down for food. “Smells good.”

“It’s just cereal and muffins,” Peter laughed.

“Mmm, but those are really yummy smelling muffins,” you teased, reaching over Peter to grab at one. Peter squawked and then laughed when your chest pushed him into the table and pinned him down as you pretended to take your time picking out a fruit flavored muffin. He flapped his hands in mock distress under you and you played at being surprised to see him in distress. “Oh, I didn’t see you there.” 

“You were poking me, ugh!” Peter complained loudly.

“Sorry, sweetie.” You kissed the top of his head in apology and he complained louder about ‘gross stuff,’ while his sister just laughed harder. You figured it was the necklace Black had given you that poked Peter from behind. You had stuffed it inside your shirt to keep it from getting caught on things while you worked. 

“It looks like you all got started but I can make eggs for anyone interested,” you offer seeing the stove unoccupied. You were craving some protein and something a little heavier than cereal. You were always hungry, it felt like.

“You look very nice today,” Blue complemented. “Do you have plans to go out?”  

“Maybe, I’ll have to check and see what the day looks like. It’s weird waking up and not knowing what to do,” you answered over your shoulder. 

You pulled out the eggs, cut peppers, and slices of fresh deli ham. You found a package of shredded cheese in the fridge as well and turned back to look at Black who looked stiffer than usual. He had his usual mug of black coffee and newspaper, but you couldn’t see a plate for food to tell you if he had eaten or not. Blue at least had a dish with crumbs in front of him.

“Black, have you eaten yet? I can make you an omelet if you want.”

You watched him, waiting for a reply, but he seemed a little more out of it than usual. Maybe he was still waking up.

“…YES…PLEASE.” He inhaled and then coughed into his free hand.”WITH THE…PEPPERS AND CHEESE, IF YOU WOULDN’T MIND.”

“Sure,” you answer easily. “No problem.”

Black was still watching you as you turned around to turn on the stove and spray down the skillet to keep it from sticking. You pulled down a bowl and cracked a couple of eggs into it before mixing thoroughly. It wasn’t long before you had a sizzling mess of yellow to add cheese and veggies to before flipping neatly onto a new plate.

 It was less than five minutes, but when you turned back around with the plate you saw that Black still hadn’t turned around. 

“Here you go, let me just grab you a fork.” You set the dish down and notice his mug almost empty in his hand and cool even though there was plenty in the maker. “You want any more coffee?”

“…PLEASE.”

You took the mug in exchange for his eggs and grabbed him a fork while he folded up the newspaper. You heard the clink of metal on ceramic that told you he was eating what you made for him. The coffee in the pot was still warm when you poured a fresh cup as straight and black as his namesake. You had figured out early on that he didn’t like to add anything fancy to his drinks, especially his morning coffee.

When you were done you set his coffee down next to his plate and returned to the stove to make something for yourself but paused when you heard someone in the doorway. 

“m’lord is eating breakfast?” 

With a grin you glanced back over your shoulder and saw Rus wearing a familiar shit eating grin that only set his brother off. Black’s skull erupted into color that he tried to hide by looking down as he ate. Rus hummed in acknowledgment before looking up and seeing you at the stove with another bowl of eggs ready to drip into the skillet. The smirk fell off his face and he looked more like his brother as a pale purple bloomed across his skull. 

“Morning, Rus. Omelet?” You turned the bowl over and the eggs fell into the skillet with a sizzle. “You like cheese and ham, don’t you?” 

“Rus likes everything,” Peter laughed.

“Not veggies, he’s worse than you,” Wendy snorted. 

 You turned back to the stove and did up another omelet, plating it with a fork for the sleepier skeleton before turning back and making an omelet for yourself, complete with all the added ingredients. 

You took a seat between Black and Blue, across Wendy, noticing there was already a glass of orange juice poured for you. You side eyed Blue who was next to the carton with a knowing smirk that made him startle. “Thanks,” you say before eating your eggs.

A faint blush bloomed across Blue’s cheeks, and he uttered a soft mweh-heh.

Black finished his eggs first, but took care to make sure there was nothing left on his plate before washing it all down with his coffee. 

It was a nice soft morning. 

Hopefully one of many to come. 

Black finished his things but didn’t pick up his paper or leave the table to put away his plate which you thought was odd, but suspected it was because he was tired. 

The two of you had talked late last night after putting Wendy to bed about a formal contract for employment and means of pay, all of which felt too formal and professional for you. You had parted on the promise of discussing the details in the morning. You didn’t want to ask him if he had drawn anything up or if he still wanted to do so, you were fine working under the table. Maybe he stayed up late looking up contracts and legal papers or something. It would probably be best if you didn’t disturb him. 

You stood to take your plate to the sink but Blue was already up, collecting your things to add to the pile built up between him and Peter. He picked up Wendy’s plate too and then paused beside Black’s side to stare at the empty plate before reaching for it.

“I CAN SEE TO MY OWN NEEDS,” Black barked, glaring at his look alike. 

Rus snickered and rolled his eye lights from where he sat, eating another muffin whole, including the wrapper. 

“Suit yourself,” Blue said, not sounding like he cared one way or another before taking the things to the sink. Peter raced over to help.

Wendy wiggled out of her seat and ducked under the table only to pop up beside you on the bench, taking up the corner between you and Black. She reached for your arm and ran a finger down the white inked designs under your skin. They were faint after years of healing, nearly transparent, and hard to pick up unless you knew what you were looking for, but Wendy had an eye for these things. 

“You have tattoos,” she breathed in awe. “And they’re flowers, too.”

You tugged your arm up, freeing it from her grip and winked down over your shoulder before channeling magic into your hand. The white lines of your tattoo glowed a crackling gold red with vented magic. A second later the flames spilled out before being pulled back to flicker through the cracks.  The room around you soaks up the warm red bloom of color from your magical fire.  

“Is that why you always cover yourself up?” Blue asked from the sink, stars in his eyes. 

You let the magic go and the tattooed flowers faded back to white. You bend each finger and then shake your hand lightly to get rid of the residual tingles that always came when you tried to channel magic through a body made out of matter instead of magic. Monsters had it so much easier. 

“Nah, I just…there’s no risk of them leaking aymore, that’s just... a me thing.” You shrugged and tried to not remember how nauseated your scars used to make you. The ones on your arms were the least offensive but had still plagued your thoughts during younger years. Nowadays you didn’t care as much, but it was still easier to hide them under layers. And even if it’s a lie you repeat the words that bloomed in therapy, “I don’t care who sees anymore.”

“They’re pretty,” Wendy insisted, eyes wide with childish honesty. There wasn’t an iota of fear or revulsion as she watched your scars and tattoos.  

You giggle, covering your mouth with your hand to hide your smile. “Stop making me blush,” you mumble out between your fingers. 

“don’t listen to her, wendy,” Rus chuckled from across the table. “do your worst.”

You playfully glared his way before lowering your arm to let Wendy keep exploring your tattoos. The peonies wrapped around your forearm between your wrist and elbow, leaving enough skin between their design and each joint. 

“So, did you have a plan for the day or maybe something that needs to get done?” you asked.

Black blinked and his eye lights wavered in his sockets before he managed to find his voice again. “SOMETHING THAT NEEDS TO GET DONE? WHAT… DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?”

“Chores? Something to do with Wendy and the kids? Something around the house. You’re renovating it, aren’t you? I can help out with that.”

Black’s eye lights dipped and made a quick scan of your clothing before returning to your face. “NOT TODAY, YOU’RE TOO NICELY DRESSED FOR SUCH MESSY WORK. IT…IT WOULDN’T BE THE WORST THING FOR YOU TO RELAX FOR A DAY. I’M SURE THE CHILDREN WOULD APPRECIATE THE COMPANY IN BETWEEN THEIR CHORES.”

“No chores!” Wendy whined with big pleading eyes. 

Black purposefully looked away from Wendy, tilting his chin up as he spoke in his best, authoritative tone. “I’LL NOT HAVE YOU SPOILED ROTTEN. CHORES, YOUNG LADY.” 

Wendy pouted and then looked to you, expression hopeful. So young and already she was playing the field like a pro. You could tell she was hoping you would offer to help out or get her out of chore duty altogether. 

 “I’ll get my own chores soon too. It’s only fair we all do them to help out,” you say instead.

“Don’t be a rotten apple,” Peter teased with a sassy smirk that, no doubt, came out as a result of her not getting her way. 

“maybe some grocery shopping,” Rus said, speaking up. “we’re low on a few things and it would be helpful to have another pair of arms.”

“I can help with that, and it’d be a good idea to get familiar with the local businesses,” you say.

“THEN I SEE THAT AS ACCEPTABLE. MUTT, YOU MAY TAKE THE FAMILY DEBIT CARD THIS TIME AND DON’T FORGET YOUR LICENSE AGAIN.”

“got it m’lord,” Rus snickered before getting up to put away his things. Looking your way he added, “we can leave in half an hour if that’s okay with you?”

“I’ll be ready.” 

In that time you returned to Wendy’s room where you were staying until the other boys moved out and emptied one of the spare bedrooms. You freshened up in the bathroom, looking over your hair in the mirror before combing it down with your fingers so it curled over your bad eye. It would be good enough until your hair grew out some more. 

You ran into Papyrus in the hallway just as you exited Wendy’s bedroom. He seemed too alert to be caught off guard and only brightened when he saw you.

He had mentioned closing on a property along with Sans later that morning. The call he had received yesterday had been from the bank asking for availability on their end. It sounded like if everything went according to plan, they’d have the keys to the first of the different properties they had seized on by the end of the day! 

It sounded like plenty of the land owners were eager to sell as soon as they heard of buyer interest. For a lot of them, the properties were too run down to be worth salvaging unless someone was dedicated to rebuilding from the ruins that remained. 

“Some honest work would do Sans some good, and as meaty as his pasta sauce may be, I know Edge is a very capable skeleton who is almost as zealous as I am to transform this town into the safe haven we both believe it can be.”

“And I’m sure even Red would be willing to lend a hand,” you laughed in good cheer at the sight of Papyrus’ excitement.  

“Ah yes, that is to say we will be busy with these matters, with helping the other monsters to settle as well, but we won’t be so busy that you’ll have to worry or…or miss us.” Papyrus’ voice tapered off into something softer as he fidgeted with his fingers. “I won’t be going so far from you, s-so there’s no need to worry.” 

You wanted to admit right away that you weren’t worried, but before you even had the words in your mouth you realized that wasn’t true. You…were a little bit worried. You were worried about going from living on a bus and sleeping three feet away, to being neighbors with acres of land between you. What would it be like to wake up and not have Papyrus an arm’s reach away for the rest of your days? 

 It felt like a step down.

“I’m going to be the most annoying neighbor ever,” you warned. “I’ll insist on seeing your face at least every day, and if I can’t cause you’re traveling or something, then I’ll text you so much it could fill up a phone book or something.”

Papyrus laughed and the familiar sound of it made you warm through and through. “I am not sure what a phone book is, but I am sure I would not like it as much as what you would have to say. I am glad there really is no need to worry.”

Before you could reply Papyrus took a step forward and braced his hands on your shoulders, moving only enough that his gloved hands didn’t fall off your soft edges. You were smaller in comparison, after all. He bent towards you, nearly looming over your smaller form.

“I’ve met a lot of humans since first coming to the surface, but you are undoubtedly my favorite. I won’t be away for long.” 

“Pfff, of course not. You’re a super star. You can do anything with just a little effort,” you laugh, feeling warm through and through.

“Nyeh heh heh, the Great Papyrus is indeed a skeleton of great and effective compassion,” he boasted. “Watch me and you will be impressed even now.”

“I’m always impressed, Papyrus.” 

You reached out and wrapped your hands around his thin middle, pulling him closer to your body in a hug. You felt his hands slip off your shoulders and instead wrap around your sides while his head buried itself in your messy hair. 

“We will still meet in the mornings for our daily runs, no matter the simple distance.”

“Absolutely,” you agreed.

 You hated how you felt so uncomfortable when the thought of being parted came up. You had lived for years on your own and only spent a couple of months close to the others. Why did it feel so hard to part from them?

Papyrus pulled back suddenly and when you looked up at his expression you saw shock. “I almost forgot to mention it, but your dress-er, skirt and shirt, your clothes…you look so very nice today.”

“Thank you,” you laughed, feeling heat on your cheeks from the compliment. Papyrus sounded so honest and sincere when he praised you.

He touched your cheek with the back of his knuckles. “Hopefully I was not the only or the first to tell you so. But you do look beautiful today, you wear your smile so well.”

“You’re literally too sweet for me to handle right now,” you playfully complained. “Stop it.” 

“The most radiant-”

“Stop!”

“Exquisit-”

“Papyrus!”   

“Breathtaking-”

“Shut uuuuup!” 

You giggled, splaying your hands across your face to hide the blush of color that turned your cheeks pink. Papyrus was laughing, trying to pry apart your fingers to better see how his words had flustered you. You fail to miss the look of pride that shapes his facial expressions. 

“The most lovely of humans I ever did see, and it never mattered once to me what you wore as long as it was a smile,” he added softly.

 “I’m dead now, are you happy?” you moaned, smiling so wide it made your cheeks hurt. “You killed me with kindness.” 

“Nyeh heh heh, as expected of the great warrior papyrus.”

You pushed away with a final hug and made your way back into the kitchen. 

A few minutes later Rus emerged to join you at the table with a pad of paper and pen in hand. He began to make a list of things you would need, and every so often he asked you to check the fridge to see how low they were on something.

“we also have a deep freezer for meats and other frozen meals. We should check it out for space if we see something we like but don’t have room for in the main freezer,” Rus explained. 

“Like ice cream?” you joked playfully. There were already several small individual tubs of different flavors crammed into the back. You counted at least eight.

“i knew we were missing something, gelato!”

You bit back your snickering and helped him construct the rest of his list before he finally seemed satisfied. 

“anything else you think you need from the store?” he asked 

“Do you have ground meat I can use? I had been hoping to treat you all to dinner tonight since Papyrus and Edge treated last night. I was thinking…burgers?”

Rus seemed to brighten at the suggestion. “Oh yeah, you’d wanna do that for us?”

“Only if no one else claimed the kitchen. I know some of your house guests can be pretty passionate about the food they eat.”

“it sounded like m’lord and blue had plans to make mexican food at some point together, but i’m sure they’d be willing to wait one more day if you told ‘em what you planned.”

You felt your good eyebrow raise as a look of surprise crossed your features. You weren’t sure how the two of them were going to get along long enough to make anything that wasn’t combustible, but you were glad to hear that Blue and Black were willing to work together on something. You’d have to ask Blue later on how the idea came to be. 

“Hamburgers and hot dogs, a summer classic. I noticed you had most of the condiments for it already. I’d just need to grab some buns, maybe some extra ground meat, and the hot dogs themselves.” 

“we can get all those things,” Rus said. He stood, folded the list a couple times, and then stuffed it into the front most pocket of his jacket with the fur hood. He fingered it nervously, glancing sideways at nothing in particular before starting to tug it off. “but maybe i should g-go change if we’re gonna go out.” 

“Why? You look fine.”  

“it’s…it-ain’t it a bit too casual?” he laughed.

You shrugged, reaching out and pinching a bit of the fabric between your fingers to rub. “It feels comfortable to me. If you like it you should wear it.” You worried he thought he looked scruffy in something less put together than his outfit from a few days ago so you add,” You look good,” hoping to encourage him.

You think it worked when he turns away and chuckles a soft nyeh heh heh

“What’s that about?”

You almost start when you feel the voice as it vibrates through your whole body. Stretch has draped himself over your shoulders and his voice made your bones echo with the sound. You huffed and shrugged him off, catching the playful smirk. 

“We’re going shopping. Do you need anything?” you asked.

“Oh yeah. That’d be great, thanks.”

You waited for him to explain what he needed but Stretch didn’t elaborate. Instead he just picked at the muffins left behind at the kitchen table under the plastic, peeling it back enough to sneak a blueberry one free.

“You…gonna say what you need or do I have to guess?” you asked.

“Nah, I can go with you. When were you planning on leaving?”

“now,” Rus answered.

“Cool, we muff-int keep those groceries waiting then.” With another knowing smirk he chomped down the muffin, wrapper and all. 

Stretch didn’t seem off, per-say, but he seemed a bit more clingy than usual. You wondered if maybe the changes were getting to him and driving him to something he knew better. 

“Is that okay?” you asked, turning to look at Rus who was noticeably more composed around Stretch as opposed to before when it was just you and him.  

“there should be room in the car for another one,” Rus mumbled. His dark purple eye lights watched Stretch before fixating on you again, “but we probably should get going before anyone else wants to tag along, we still need room in the car to actually stuff these groceries.”

“Did you remember your license,” you teased, echoing Black’s words from earlier at the table.

Rus smirked, pulling a wallet out of his back pocket to wave tauntingly. “you think i’d forget? someone has to pay for all our things after all.”

“Yeah, sorry I’m broke so I’m not even going to try and scrape together some dignity and fight you on paying, just know I feel bad about it.”

“Why would you feel bad about it?” Stretch interrupted, leaning into your open side. “You’re doing a favor by helping out, providing someone a skilled labor during your free time instead of going elsewhere to find a job. The least anyone can do is feed ya.”

“I have a feeling you haven’t worked a whole lot on the topside side of this world,” you chuckled. 

You remembered several of your first part time jobs where you scraped together enough hours to feed yourself and pay rent on an empty apartment. Taking a break and eating meant not getting paid for that time and having to lose money on the food you ate so much of. In hindsight, the business practices of several of your part time jobs had been suspect, but they got you by when no one else would take on such an inexperienced worker. 

‘No formal schooling? What do you expect someone to think with this?’

‘You can read, right?’

Stretch frowned at your comment and he looked as if he was going to say or ask something so you quickly brushed past and headed for the front door, turning to hold it open for the pair of similar skeletons. When they stood side by side, it was easy to see how alike they really were.

“Ready?” you called. 

Rus was out first, leading the way to the ‘family’ car while Stretch tagged along at a much more relaxed pace. To be nice, you don’t let the screen door shut on his face once he was in range. 

You weren’t good with cars enough to recognize what sort of make or model the dark blue four door was that Rus climbed into, but it had enough space for all of you to sit comfortably. Judging by the symbol on the steering wheel it was probably a Toyota. You took the passenger’s side and Stretch climbed into the back to spread out. 

You strapped in and thought the most you’d have to worry about was Russ’ choice in music, but-

“You said you had your license!” you hissed, bracing against the dash with one hand while the other turned white at the knuckles from holding onto the seatbelt. 

“yeah it came in the mail, why?”

“Did you take a driver’s test!”

“nah that’s too much of a bother, I just added my name to the system and made the computer send me a backdated one to use,” Russ casually explained as he  drifted off the road and overshot the right hand turn enough to end up in the oncoming lane. The roads were close to empty so it wasn’t the worst case scenario but-

“Russ that’s a stop sign!”

“yeah but there wasn’t anyone there.”

Notes:

Here is your domestic fluff injection for the day. Additionally, I need you to know that when I first shared this chapter with my friend via google docs the comments were godtier gold. My fav:

-Black blinked and his eye lights wavered in his sockets before he managed to find his voice again. “SOMETHING THAT NEEDS TO GET DONE? WHAT… DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?”
-Me.

In my head Rus thinks he's a great driver when really he needs to work on it more. There weren't a lot of places to practice underground.
Next chapter is a shopping episode~ A very innocent shopping episode~

Chapter 32: Bishop Knife Trick 10

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

You were never more happy to see a parking lot in your life. Stretch short-cut out from his backseat and braced against a nearby light pole while you stumbled out the old fashioned way.

“I think maybe I should drive us back when it’s time to leave,” you say, leaning against the car. 

“did you bring your license?” Rus asked, waving his wallet one more time and tilting up his chin. He looked a little bit too much like a happy dog that was getting praised when he looked at you that way.

You frowned, knowing well and good that you only had your phone on you and had left your wallet (empty) along with your licenses behind.  

“I will remember it for next time.”  

You felt a tug from behind and turned to see Stretch hanging onto the fabric of your shirt. “I don’t have to ride back, do I?”

“Don’t worry about it,” you answered without actually answering his question. He knew as well as you did that he had the ability to short-cut back to a place he had already been to as long as it was within a day’s distance away (give or take a mile). He didn’t need to ask you to know that already. He was just looking for permission to leave.

“I’m not gonna micromanage your life and tell you what to do, but at least stick around long enough to carry food back to the car and load it up?”

“I’ll help. Just don’t ask me to ride in the deathtrap.” 

“Deal.” 

Stretch stayed close to you, his hands still grabbing at the fabric of your shirt as you walked around the car and followed Rss to the shopping cart pick up. When Stretch spoke again it was so soft you were afraid you might not have heard it correctly.

“I could take you with me…keep you safe…” 

You glanced over to where Russ was pulling one cart free from being stuck, wedged in between two other carts in the turn-in sectional. He struggled a bit before moving onto a different cart that came away easier, only to set several others free and send them rolling. He panicked and scrambled to push as many back over the hump and into the cart pick up before grabbing the last one for himself.  Once he had his cart he peeked out from underneath his hood to check for whoever might be watching. When his eyes meet yours they flashed with purple magic in surprise before he ducked his face and let the fur of his hood obscure his expression.

“I think I’ll survive, you can go home ahead of us.”

 Stretch saw where you looked and shifted. He let go but drew up even with your shoulders, keeping pace beside you. “I don’t need to do that…and who’s to say I couldn't survive in a death trap the same as you. My brother is pretty good at ‘em, himself.” 

Rus had stopped his cart and stood behind it, waiting for the two of you to catch up. There were only a handful of other cars in the parking lot, (more than all the other ones you saw on the road coming over) but it didn’t look busy at all even if it was tiny for a grocery store. 

Nothing about the town of Blackberry seemed busy.

“We on an off day or what?” you asked, glancing around the parking lot once more.

“right now it’s not so busy, every other day of the week has more traffic and we just missed the morning rush,” Rus explained, eye lights darting to a fro as the three of you crossed the lot. 

“You got it down to a science,” Stretch said.

Rus glanced back at Stretch, searching for something in the other skeleton’s expression. “…just observant by habit.” 

“Well, all the better for us, come on.” You reached out and grabbed the front of the cart to tug behind you, taking over the lead. 

The automatic doors wooshed cold air over your face as you all stepped in. Rus directed you into the leftmost section of the store to pick up the necessary pastries  and fruits before you made your way through the rest, picking up each item on the list as it came across your path. 

There was one tiny patch of an aisle reserved for monster food, and judging by the advertisements it was sold more as a novelty for humans to try. Rus explained that he and his brother got most of their food through a food delivery website that specialized in monster foods so the grocery store runs were mostly for the kids.

“Do you not like the human food?” you asked, loading a bag of ‘Popato Chisps’ that looked like it came from the MTT brand into the cart. The package of Cinnamon Bunny had a different, cuter, mascot advertising it to a wider market which might explain why it wasn’t with the rest of the monster food. 

“me? its all the same to me for the most part, there’s only a little bit of a difference as far as i can tell, but Sa-Black is particular about it ‘cause, unlike me, he can tell. hes got a lot more magic and he’s way cooler about stuff like that.” Rus smiled and waved a box of goldfish. “i got the tastes of a four year old.” 

“Is that why you can’t shortcut anymore?” Stretch asked. 

You and Rus both turned at the same time to look back and see Stretch standing with a basket of his own, partially filled with candy. He slouched and stared straight ahead. He had almost the same face as Rus, but Stretch never flinched or looked away and that made a world of difference in distinguishing them. 

“…uhh,” Rus fidgeted with the ends of his coat. “n-no, its not like that, sans is just...”

“No, no, I get it. You were the one who had the ability first. Nothing wrong with it. If you couldn’t hold onto it, its better to pass it on to someone else than collapse under the pressure. No biggie.”

Rus swallowed and you could hear his panicked breathing. You reached for his arm on a reflex you didn’t know you had, but he went still as soon as you made contact. Rus’ neon purple eye lights were brighter and smaller, two ultra focused and condensed beams in the black sockets of his skull that missed nothing. 

“It’s fine,” you say before you even know what you’re supposed to say. 

You turn to face Stretch, to tell him his words are upsetting Rus, but you stop when you realize he already knows . Stretch knew it would rattle Rus, but he said it anyway. He wanted to unsettle Rus, like there was already bad blood between them and he was just wading through it. 

It wasn’t a hard thing to accomplish. A weak wind could unsettle Rus and Stretch could be intimidating when he wanted to be. It seemed as if he was low key channeling some of that dominate energy that unnerved Rus. Why? Was it because they were alternatives of each other? 

“Stretch,” you call out his name and you don’t say it gently, but you know you don’t say it in a harsh way either.

But it hurts him. 

You don’t know how and you don’t know how you knew, but Stretch made a face and then he took a shortcut out, leaving you and Rus alone in the aisle. You curse under your breath.

“That numbskull,” you hiss before turning back to look over Rus. “You okay? You don’t look so good. Do you need to sit down?”

“s-sit down?” 

He tries shaking his head ‘no’ but you drag him out of the aisle to the display stand for summer foods where there is a beach chair Rus sinks into too easily. You tug the cart over to leave it next to him and turned around to search for Stretch-cause you sure as hell weren’t letting him run away from those words of his-but you stop from a tug on your skirt. Rus’ fingers are twisted into the fabric and trembling slightly. His eyes were still pinpricks of neon light. You can almost smell the panic he gives off. 

“Rus, can you look at me, look at my face?” you ask, kneeling on one knee in front of him, never minding your skirt. You reached up to take his face in both hands. 

“-is right.”

“Rus?”

“…he…he knew, he was right and he said it and he knew…i-i-couldn’t when we-we came topside and s-san took it.” His hand move from the fabric to your bare arm, grabbing onto it. “he knew.”

“Stretch is a pretty smart guy, he probably just guessed since you and Black are supposed to be alternate versions of him and his brother, more so than the others. It makes sense.” 

Rus’ words came out stilted and choppy, catching in his throat and then tumbling out fast and faster. “but why would he know that, why would he p-pay attention, why would he c-care?”

“You’re safe, Papyrus. With me, here, you’re safe right now. Stretch isn’t going to hurt you.”

“-he could!”

“But he wouldn’t . I wouldn’t let him. I know you might feel scared because, yeah, he is pretty capable, but ability to hurt doesn’t always equal hurt,” you say, remembering how Rus could see a person’s EX and LV. For Sans that had only fed into his paranoia.  

“Your brother is plenty capable but sometimes the people that can hurt us the most are the safest to be around. Just ‘cause someone’s dangerous doesn’t mean they’re a danger to you. Me and your brother are here to keep you safe, not to endanger you. With us you don’t have to worry about others.”

Rus’ eye lights trailed off, starting to flicker rapidly and you grabbed at his shoulders to draw back his attention, calling his name sharply. 

“Hey, look at me. Are you scared of me? Are you frightened?”

“…” Nonverbally, he shook his head and answered ‘no.’

“Why not? I’m pretty dangerous myself.” 

Russ’ eye lights began to widen, dulling from their neon intensity as they drifted down to the space where your soul rested. You took one of his hands and didn’t care that the gesture would have carried different implications in any other situation, you placed his hand over your heart to feel that heartbeat. 

You let a little of your magic wash over him and it drags him down like a weighted blanket. You wrap it around him and he deflates into it, the worst of his rattles gone. 

…tch , you’re not dangerous," he chuckled, sounding calmer than before. 

“I’m hell'a dangerous, whatcha talking about,” you huffed. “I’m a badass.” 

“yeah, but you wanna be good and you’re… warm.” Rus ducked his head and leaned closer. “so warm.”  

You let him rest there like that for a minute more without moving while in the background some old, slow version of some retro 80’s pop hit drawled on.

 Eventually, you reach up, sneaking a hand between his face and his hood to rub the back of his skull with soothing circles. You felt him relax, melting bit by bit until his eyes were back to normal and he was breathing easy again, (even though skeletons didn’t need to breath). 

“Better?” you ask.

 When he nodded you pulled your hand back. He flinched turning towards where your hand used to be, looking like he just lost something, but he didn’t say anything about it.

 “Rus, I need to go find Stretch now. He needs some comfort too, and a talking to, but I’m pretty sure his hurtful words came from a place of personal hurt.”

“oh yeah, no, they did, he doesn’t like it when i’m close to you. that’s the only time he’s mean like that,” Rus said. 

That made sense. 

You had been pretty busy recently and ever since you took Sans back to pick up Red and Edge, or even before then, when you left the hotel on a bike with Blue, you hadn’t had a lot of time to hang out with Stretch or just…talk. You had actually spent more time with Rus than with Stretch, and while that wasn’t an excuse for his actions, it helped explain them. 

He didn’t seem like the type, but it seemed Stretch could get jealous if he felt left behind. To add insult to injury, the skeleton he felt jealous of was just another version of himself. 

“It's no excuse.”  

Rus chuckled. “maybe it's cause we’re the same, but it…makes sense ta me.” 

“Still no excuse for hurting someone else.” You stood and turned, but hesitated. “Will you be okay if I go find him?”

Rus blushed and glanced down enough for his hood to slide forward and hide much of his expression. “even if i don’t feel great about it, yeah, i’ll be fine this time…j-just hurry?”

You reached back down to give him a quick, tight squeeze that made him mumble in embarrassment, or maybe something else. With a quick parting kiss to the side of his skull you turned and trotted off for the far end of the store, knowing where you would find the other skeleton.

Stretch popped around a couple time, using shortcuts whenever you got close, but you could always see where he was with your map magic, so eventually he seemed to give up and let you catch him in the candy aisle where he slouched, shoulders up high and faced away from you, staring at something on the shelves. 

You slowed when you realized what he was staring at. 

“You don’t need them as much anymore, do you?”

“I still have plenty,” you admit, pushing back the package of rock candy on the shelf. “And yeah, you’re right. They’re not as necessary.”

“You’ve adapted,” he said without turning to face you.

“Stretch,” He stiffened at the sound of his name. “Please don’t run away from me like that. You know I’ll eventually catch up to you.”

“…I didn’t think you’d chase me.” 

You sighed and stood next to him, facing him head on even if he wouldn’t look at you. “Do you wanna talk to me about why you think you were purposefully unkind to Rus? You’re too smart to not know how it would go over, you knew better.”  

 “I am smart.”

Papyrus .”

He flinched enough to face you, eye lights flashing caramel orange in his sockets. 

“Stretch, I’m doing this here with you, right now. I’m listening. I’m here. Talk to me.”

He didn’t.

At least not at first.

“…I’m not cool like my brother, and I-I’m not so broken that I need you, not like that Papyrus is. He’s a mess and you’re the best at messes.” He paused and watched you with his wavering eye lights before pushing on. “And I’m not as reliable or savvy like some of the others are. I can’t buy you a house or…do much of anything in this world. I’m not a celebrity or anything so useful or good.”

“You don’t have to do or be any of those things.”

“I don’t?” he almost laughed, sounding almost offended. “What’s the alternative?” 

“You shouldn’t need to feel like you’re lacking. You’re not. Stretch, look at me.” You reached for his hand and he let you take it but he flinched from the touch. “Stretch, I want you to believe me. You don’t have any reason to feel inadequate. I’m sorry if I let you believe that, but it’s wrong and it’s no excuse for hurting another person. I’m not going to leave you or ignore that.”

When he didn’t respond you shook his hand a little and he looked back at you.

“Stretch, you see me.” 

And you hoped he understood what you meant. When you were at your lowest, when you were sick of yourself, when you were broken, when you were weak, he saw you and he didn’t look away. You needed him to understand that you were safe being vulnerable with him. He made you feel safe, but more than that...you didn’t feel like shit in his eyes when that was the only way you knew how to look at yourself.

Please , stretch,” you whispered. 

And then the tension between you rippled, fading like smoke after a fire. 

Stretch chuckled, eye lights fixed on where your hand touched him. “You sure you don’t have a justice soul, or one of ‘em integrity blue ones? You don’t let things like that go.”

“I’m not letting you go either.” 

Stretch bowed his head. “I don’t want your pity feelings.” 

You almost pulled away, hoping he didn’t think that’s all you felt for him, but the moment you started to move away he snapped to grab back onto your elbows with his hands, dropping his basket. “But I’ll take them! I’ll take whatever I can get, I don’t care who’s coattails I have to ride on. I’m too greedy not to.” 

He seemed to sag towards you, dropping his head and turning his face downwards until his forehead was almost on your shoulder, but he held himself back, hovering close but not close enough. You held his elbows while he held yours, supporting him.

“if it was pity i don’t think she’d let you touch her like that.”  

Stretch flinched but when you turned to look back it was only Rus, tugging the cart behind him with a sleepy sort of smile that made his gold tooth stand out all the more. 

Stretch started to pull away but you held on and tugged him back. “I won’t let you go,” you whisper. 

He watched you a moment longer before straightening up and facing Rus. Unlike before, Rus stood with only a slight slouch.

“I said something that hurt you. It was wrong.” You squeezed Stretch’s elbow when his eye lights brightened too much to not be panic. It was enough to help him refocus. “Sorry for that.” 

Rus nodded. “i guess it’s all good since you didn’t say anything wrong . it just freaked me that you could tell.”

“Stretch was also the first person to guess that Raven was my brother,” you added, giving his elbow another squeeze. “He’s really observant.” 

“Yeah, observant enough to notice we actually aren’t the only ones in this grocery store and the middle aged lady at the end of the aisle really isn’t interested in Pringles?” Stretch teased under his breath. 

You and Rus both jumped but Stretch just laughed, tugging you behind him as he passed Rus and headed towards the front. “We’re done. Let’s pay and go home.”

You grabbed for Rus’ arm as you passed and the three of you, connected, made your way out. When the lady Stretch mentioned started to not-so-subtly follow you towards the cheek out lanes, Stretch stood at the back, shielding you and Rus from her view. You didn’t seem to mind being seen, but the attention appeared to unsettle Rus. 

One more thing for Stretch to notice. 

“thanks,” Russ whispered, as he fumbled with the debit card. 

Stretch just shrugged and looked away like it was the least he could do. 

By the time you had all made it back you had decided you were going to teach Rus and Stretch both how to drive since Stretch said he was never getting into another car he wasn’t in control of or able to escape from.

 

After unpacking the kids and Blue roped you into afternoon cartoons. Black passed by and loudly critiqued the quality of the ‘MIND NUMBING ENTERTAINMENT’ but after finishing his work for the day he drifted into his lazy boy recliner with another brain puzzle from the paper to do while the rest of you watched tv. 

At one point Rus leaned over to ask if you needed help setting up the grill but you politely declined since you had something else in mind. 

An hour later the sun was low, but not low enough to set for, and the stack of ‘water dogs’ was almost as tall as the stack of regular human hotdogs and hamburgers. You stood over the empty grill with another patty of meat, mixed through with all your usual ingredients. You shaped it into the form you wanted and then your hands turned black, cooking it with your fire magic. 

“How’d these taste so much like Grillby’s?” Sans sighed, dripping ketchup out of his mouth. 

His plate was evenly stocked with water dogs, hot dogs, and hamburgers. You were grateful for Rus’ insight into how much meat would be necessary for a communal cook out with all the other skeletons.  

“It’s the fire magic,” you laughed. Off to the side Peter and Wendy stood transfixed with mirrored expressions of awe as your tattoos flared with vented fire that wouldn’t burn anything but burger meat.

“Ya sure you can’t come work for me as a personal cook? I’d salary match with the gooseberry.” 

“YOU ARE TOO LATE TO POACH MY EMPLOYEE, DULL MARSHMALLOW!” Blackberry called out, hearing everything perfectly even as he cut up a hotdog for Phil to pick up and eat with his hands. “I HAVE A CONTRACT!” 

“What a killjoy,” Sans sighed. You filled his plate with one more burger, already done up the way you knew he liked them, and he looked up at you with wavy eye lights that almost made a shape, but you turned away before you could see what they formed into. You had more burgers to nearly burn.

“I don’t know babe,” Red chuckled, sliding up to you and wrapping an arm around your waist. “I’m sure you and I could make a killing with an illegal hot dog stand of our own.” 

You bumped him off with your hip and tossed the freshly cooked patty onto your growing stack. “I’m sure we’d make more than just a killing,” you laughed sarcastically.  

“It’s soooooooo gooooood!” Blue sighed, kicking his legs back and forth from where he dangled off the railing on the porch. Beside him, the oldest child, Tron nodded in agreement. 

“Thanks for preparing the toppings, Papyrus, and thank you Edge for mixing up the secret sauce.”

“I don’t see why you call it a secret cause if you told me what goes into it. What makes it a secret now?” Edge playfully grumbled, hiding his blush while Papyrus beamed brightly from where he sat at the picnic table, enjoying his own burger. Without the healthy toppings and sophisticated sauce addition he had been hesitant to indulge in ‘greasy pleasure foods’ before he found out that you would be making them.  

“All it takes is a base of mayonnaise, some ketchup, dill pickles, yellow mustard, apple cider vinegar, and a pinch of salt and pepper. I figured it would be a crowd pleaser.” 

“Consider the crowd pleased,” Stretch said, coming up beside you with an empty plate and a hungry smile. “Can I get some thirds?”

“You had thirds.”

“No, I had three of only the waterdogs and two of the hotdogs. I haven’t had a burger yet.”

You rolled your eyes but let him go, bumping him with your hip the way you had with Red earlier. “I saw way more than that on your plate, but fine, be that way.”

“Those weren’t for me.”   

You looked back over your shoulder, watching Stretch take two burgers and another hot dog back to where Rus sat with Black and Phil, the youngest child. At some point, without your noticing it, Black had gone off to grab for himself a bottle of wine to pair with his burger. It was…an interesting visual. 

Things were perfect between Stretch and Rus, but it looked like things were...moving in the right direction at least. 

“I want a patty that looks like Micky,” Wendy chirped.

“Me too!” Peter echoed, bouncing on his toes with excitement. “I want mine to be a mouse shape.”

Just to hear them cry out in excitement you refocused your magic and made the fire burn purple with a red core through your tattoos. They sparked prettily and both children, along with Blue and Tron who were closest to you, all cheered at the performance.

“Dinner and a show!” Red cheered before making a noise that made Edge reach over and hit him upside the head in brotherly admonishment. 

There was enough of a breeze that it was nice to be outside for those of you with skin, nerves, and a preference on what sort of temperature an environment should be. 

The friendly conversation around you makes you feel giddy and calm at the same time, which was an almost impossible thing to think about. You were so happy and excited to be surrounded by all your closest friends and people that cared about you, people you loved and cared about in return. That made you feel like you could take to the skies and dance up in between the stars with enough burning joy to outlast them all. 

Yet, at the same time, you felt a settling peace, like you were a puzzle piece that had finally found your slot in the puzzle. How many people lived and died never knowing what that felt like?

You heard someone call your name and looked over to see Stretch there again, back for more napkins. He watched you like he could unravel all your secrets, and you didn’t doubt he could. He probably already knew what it was you were feeling.

“I’m really happy right now.”

But you felt like you had to say it out loud anyway. 

“I know,” he said with a grin that made his eye lights spark honey gold.

Notes:

Found Family and Fluff are my greatest weakness. This was the last part of the Bishop Knife Trick arc and the next one is less action packed with plenty of emotional developments (aka flirting and fluff tropes) and character exploration (aka more flirting and fluff moments). *wink wink* Ya'll deserve a break from saving the world.

Also, yeah, some things did happen on the surface pre meeting that resulted in Rus and Black switching out the 'Short cut' ability. I've never seen that done but in the context of this story I'm treating it like a video game ability you can equip or un-equip. Rus wasn't able to handle it anymore so Black took it for his baby brother and exchanged it for the ability to fold himself through reality and 'clip' through places. If you're asking if that's rare or dangerous the answer is 'yes' to both. Later on in the story we might understand the why/how that happened.

See you next week!
In the meantime I have another short side fic with the Undefell brothers that you might enjoy called, In the Time of Quarantine. The world is crazy, I hope you are all staying safe and indoors.

Chapter 33: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 1

Notes:

Time skip

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

I'm pretty sure that this isn't how our story ends
So hold me tight
Hold me tight

Hold me tight, or don't
FOB


 

Summer had to swell, hot and sweltering, before it could stumble into anything less. And it did. Summer tampered off and smoothly transitioned into autumn and with autumn came a new shift in lifestyle, among other things.

Sans and Papyrus had made good on their plans to buy up what they could of the town and that resulted in the resettlement of several different monster families that had trouble coping with city life.

Their arrival was like an injection that brought the town back to life after teetering on the edge. Nearly four dozen properties changed hands as many monsters came up to purchase property with their own efforts. Along with the families came the businesses.

So the slow, quiet town of Blackberry changed.

And so did you. 



You felt the disturbance before you heard it. You cracked open your good eye and peered out into the gloom. It was dark, well past midnight, and the only light in the room came from the filtered starlight that made it through the drag curtains. Seeing was next to impossible.

But you don’t need to see. 

You hear the stumbling downstairs, followed by the familiar creaking of someone making their way up the stairs and you relax, recognizing the sound of their footfalls. You don’t even keep your head up long enough to greet them. Instead you let it rest back atop the pillow and breath easy, closing your good eye with every intention of going back to sleep. 

Behind you the bed dipped and you grumbled incoherently as the covers were pulled up only enough for a new body to slip in.

“Whacha doin now?” you mumble, too tired to turn and face Red as he scooted closer to you.

“Heard you were dreaming alone, thought I’d join ya, sweetheart,” he chuckled.

You felt his arms wrapped low around your waist and tug you back against his chest. He had already ducked his head to nestle up against your neck and slipped one of his boney legs in between yours.

You know he’s lying, and that the skeletons have some secret pact between them of making sure at least one of them is always with you at night to keep you from your nightmares. 

At first you had been apprehensive about it, thinking you sounded more like a chore on the chore chart and too much of a bother, but you had a hard time holding onto that thought the longer you indulge yourself. It was nice to fall asleep to cuddles. You weren’t ready to go back to sleeping without someone’s arms around you.

“Sorry I’m so late. Time got away from me,” Red explained before brushing his teeth up against the flesh of your neck. “You doing okay?” 

You make a sound and it’s enough to set Red off chuckling. He knows better than to start a conversation after you had been in bed long enough to get so drowsy. He rubbed a hand over your stomach, teasing with the hem of your shirt, but not going further. He knew better.  

You hear the floorboards creak again and then two dull thuds as Edge toes off his boots and then approaches your bed from the other side. You don’t react as much when he slides in, but you reach for his hand and take it as he falls asleep facing you, ducking his forehead enough so that his teeth kiss the crown of your head and stay close to your longer curling hair. 

Between the two brothers there was no way you wouldn’t feel safe. Their intent was soft and strong and heavy, settling over you as thick as magic. You were protected. Nothing could touch you that you didn’t allow.

“What kept ya, boss?” Red whispered over your shoulder before snickering. 

“Don’t act like you were here all this time. I’m not even able to shortcut and I was here less than two minutes after you,” Edge hissed back.

“No fighting in bed,” you grumble, barely awake enough to make sense of what you were saying. It was more a reflex than anything. 

Red chuckled behind you and Edge bent closer, pressing another skeleton kiss to the side of your face, nuzzling with his teeth and whispering apologizes just as sweet. You could feel Red’s lazy hold around your waist tighten. 

“Sorry, sweetheart.”

“We’ll keep you safe. No fighting, we promise.”  

You didn’t stir or say anything more, but you were aware enough to hear the rest of what the brothers said to one another only for another minute before drifting off. 

“…I can’t believe you were nearly late and then you nearly wake her up with your arguing.”

“We were both late, boss. And ‘sides, it was an honest mistake.”

“…Did you hear about the vanilla wafer then?” Edge grumbled. 

Red almost snickered. “You using pet names on the boys now, that’s cute.”

“I’m trying to be serious about something right now and if you want to brush it off then at least listen to what I have to say.”

“I already know what it is, you’re going to mention how on Papyrus’ day she let him share with his brother. That’s not as new as you think it is.” 

There was a beat of silence before Edge eventually spoke up. “…He’s a bastard marshmallow to keep it to himself like that. I wouldn’t have known if Papyrus hadn’t mentioned it to me.” 

“You gonna complain about it, Boss? I thought you liked how big ‘er heart was.”

“Of course I’m not going to complain about it, th-there’s nothing to complain about. It’s not like… isn’t not a commitment or anything. It’s just…it’s platonic for now.” Edge snuggled closer to you and shut his sockets like that made it easier to lie or something. “And even if it wasn’t…it wouldn’t matter as long as this doesn’t change.”

Red was quiet, content with how close he was at your back, nestled around you like a glove.  “I get what you’re saying, but you don’t have to be so scared about it. You’re important to her, too important to forget or leave behind. You’re too cool, bro.”

“You’re not so insignificant yourself, brother.”

“Ya making me blush, Boss.”

“Sans,” Edge called.

“Yeah, Paps?”  

“I love her.” 

The confession came suddenly, but not unexpectedly. This hadn’t been the first time Edge had admitted his truth to Red, thought he had yet to say it to you directly. 

“…i know.” 

The darkness was thick as even the stars seemed to fail in their efforts to throw light into the bedroom. Your breathing was the only sound as both skeleton brothers lay easily still in the gloom of the room. Edge’s eye sockets were open enough for his eye lights to wander up and over your shoulder to gauge his brother’s reaction.

“I’m serious.”

“i-I know,” Red whispered, his voice tight with something close to panic. “I get it, trust me. I know. I-” the words felt too heavy in his mouth so Red ducked his face and kissed at the back of your head again, brushing his teeth up against your hair. “Me too.”

“It scares you.”

“To hell and back,” Red chuckled in confirmation. “You bet it does.” 

“We don’t have to worry while we’re here. There’s no need for it now,” Edge said. “We’re safe, she’s safe, and the monsters we relocate are all flourishing. It’s okay to let yourself be vulnerable this time.”

“…You’re the coolest, Boss.” 

“Stating the obvious is moot, Sans.”

“I know I just-I know…I don’t want things to change. They’re good right now.”

“I’m sure that’s the reason young Blueberry has held his tongue as long as he has,” Edge huffed. 

“You think that’s the only reason he’s not confessed first?” Red asked. 

“What…else would be the reason?”

Red nuzzled your hair, spreading it out across the pillow before pushing through it to rest his teeth on the back of your skull again. It was late enough and you were tired enough that he could be sure you were asleep. He wasn’t sure if that made him relieved or…

“You don’t think we’re obvious as hell about it all? We’ve made a point of endearing ourselves romantically but she’s not ready for that or…or it’s not something she wants,” Red whispered over your shoulder to his brother. 

“But she hasn’t pushed any of us away either.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Red sighed. He closed his eye sockets before going purposefully still. “This is all I need. You could dust me and I’d go down satisfied. Night, Boss” 

Edge huffed but settled back in and closed his own eye sockets. It was late enough and the bed was too warm and soft to stay awake for much longer. He settled and spared his brother one last sentence before he followed his bedmates into sleep.

“Goodnight Sans.”  

 

-

 

When you wake Red is still in bed beside you, but Edge is already downstairs making you breakfast. You can smell the sausage and eggs all the way up in the loft and they make your mouth water. Only Edge would wake up so ridiculously early to make you a breakfast before your morning workout with Papyrus…

Papyrus?

You scrambled for your phone on the bedside and grabbed for it, cursing when you saw the time. Red’s arms stayed looped around your waist, moving with you as you scrambled. When you first tried to turn around and climb out of bed they locked into place and pulled you back. 

“Red, let go, I’m late,” you hissed.

“No, you are not. I already talked with Papyrus and he’s gone off ahead of you,” Edge called up from the kitchen down below. 

Red mumbled something indistinguishable into the pillows and you twisted around once more in an attempt to break free, but it amounted to nothing. Red wasn’t letting you go.

“I-what do you mean you already called him? Why would you do that? Ugh, Red, really I need to get up. It’s already late enough.”

You heard the footsteps and Edge’s skull emerged first from the stairwell, followed by the rest of him plus a plate for breakfast and a bowl of fresh fruit dressed with whipped cream. He carried your lap desk under one arm. You struggled to get free before he could reach you but Red refused to let go.

“It’s how it sounds. I called Papyrus and told him you had a rough night. He agreed that you would best be served by a little indulgence. Now, Red, move enough so that they can sit up, I have hot food here.”

“I didn’t have a rough night. What are you talking about? I feel fine.”

“You were restless after the first few hours, even with both of us,” Edge said while setting up the lap desk with one hand followed by the plate of breakfast. “It wasn’t worth worrying about, but you’ve been faithful in your morning workouts even when he’s been away, so why not take the day off on your day off?”

 Red didn’t let go, but he moved enough to make room for the lap desk that Edge nudged forward.

“It’s not a day off…” you grumbled even though you knew that technically it was the first of your two ‘free days’ in the week according to Black’s contract. He had been adamant about you having time to ‘HAVE A LIFE OUTSIDE OF OUR FOUR WALLS.’ In hindsight it was the smartest decision since you underestimated the work that went into childcare. Even with so many helping hands, there was a lot and it could get overwhelming at times. You…just weren’t used to it after living four plus years alone, even if that was how your teenage and early adult years had been like. 

“You don’t need to be anywhere today, do you?” Edge asked in a tone that made you think he already knew the answer. Considering how he and Blue texted you didn’t doubt Edge knew everything that went down on the farm. 

“Russ and Stretch are just taking the kids to the lake along with Blue,” you explained.

From the mattress Red barked a laugh. You let a stray flame blip out from your empty socket. “Fire and water, not such a good mix,” you confessed. “Plus, there was somewhere else I wanted to be later today.”

Edged rubbed his gloved hands on his pants and then sat down on the mattress beside you, scooting back until his back hit the headboard. “You can’t get there without a decent breakfast. Let me know if you want any more.”

“You’re too good to me. Don’t tell me you haven’t eaten yet.” Your fork hovered inches from your mouth.

“I did have something, don’t worry,” Edge huffed. “It’s my brother you need to concern yourself with. His slovenly manner knows no end and I am forever doomed to be irked by it. He can’t even be bothered to rouse for food in the morning.” 

“I understand the feeling,” you laughed.  

Without guilt you took the first bite and proceeded to finish off the rest of Edge’s rich breakfast. You dipped a finger into the cream of your fruit salad to suck clean before using your fork for the rest of it. By the time you were finished Red was awake enough to let you go.

Edge took your dishes and the lap desk away, shooing you into the master bath to shower and change for the day. Through the closed door you could still hear Edge yelling at his brother to quit being such a ‘ lazybones ’ and get up. They still blushed when you said that, but you heard them calling each other numbskull and lazybones enough to know the only thing lewd about the insult was the fact it came from you .

You emerged later with your damp hair twisted into a small bun and a handful of clothes you had been forgetting to clean out of the bathroom from showers past. 

You had plans for later in the day so you were back in black jeans and a dark gray shirt that was loose enough to move around in comfortably without looking sloppy. It showed off the tattoos on your arms enough.  At least the drab colors make your necklace stand out. For a change you left it on top of your shirt instead of tucking it in.

“Got a grand opening ya have to be to?” Red asked from the bed once he saw you emerge. 

You dropped off your dirty things into the hamper and then reached for your boots. “Don’t laugh, you’re going to be there too. Sans was adamant about it.”

“Not complaining. It doesn’t happen until…noon thirty,” Red grumbled, wincing at the sunlight he had moved under. You threw one of your fluffy doughnut shaped pillows at his face, connecting with his skull and knocking him back out of the direct sunlight. 

“Thanks babe,” you heard him call. 

“Speaking of that, I’ve gone and left my watch in Wendy’s room again. I’ll need to pop over there real quick before we head over to Vanilla’s place.” 

You turned down the stairs, hearing the muffled snicker from your bed as Red reacted to your nickname for Sans. 

Edge was in your kitchen, cleaning more than he had any right to. It made you feel a little embarrassed to see him so engrossed in his tasks. Your place was a freshly renovated barn but it was still dingy. That’s what happened with a bare bones budget. You took what you could get and refurbished the rest. It wasn’t the cleanest of places but it was getting there. 

You came up behind him and touched his back, breaking his concentration and stealing his attention. “Are you heading out now?” he asked.

“I’m just popping over real quick to get my stuff. You know I’ve told you this before, but I don’t want you spending all your free time cleaning.”

“I like cleaning.”

“It’s your day off, Edge.”

“Like I said, this is something I like to do and thank the stars for that, or between the two of us nothing would ever get done,” Edge called out loudly, throwing his voice up into the loft where Red still lazed about. 

“You deserve to be happy and do something fun on your day off that isn’t cleaning for a change.”

“It’s not just cleaning, it’s cleaning your place. You let us stay over, it’s the least I could do.”

You huffed in playful frustration. “That’s not something you need to repay or even thank me for. You guys were the ones who helped me out and plus, you made me breakfast.”

Edge opened his mouth to say something but you grabbed at his hand first and the contact made him hesitate. You squeezed his hand through his glove and after a second he squeezed back. He stared down at your face, searching it with the soft light of his crimson eye lights until he saw something that made him settle. 

“Most days I wish you believed you were as deserving of love as you are,” he quietly admitted. “The rest of the time I’m too determined to let you go on unbelieving only so I can have the satisfaction of convincing you with my own efforts. I like to do things for you. Don’t fret over me.”

You felt small, smaller than before, but managed to nod once for him. He smiled and squeezed your hand before turning back around to the countertop he was wiping down, thought his face stayed turned towards you and his body always angled in your direction.

“You know….I’ve never been good at doing what people tell me to do,” you say.

“I’ve heard that,” he laughed.

“Then don’t be too surprised.” You left to grab one of the Amazon boxes left half opened by the door and carried it over to the counter Edge had finished cleaning. “You were warned.”

Edge peeked inside the box and saw the book binding before reaching in with his free hand to remove the paperback title. “You minx,” he hissed in delight at the awful romance title that was the latest in a series you were both reading.

 Neither of you could take the writing very seriously but enjoyed tearing it to shreds in giddy daiquiri filled critiques that never got bad enough to put you off from reading the rest in the author’s works. The local library didn’t have any more books in the series and Edge had resigned himself to starting something new.    

“I started the first few chapters but I haven't had the chance to make my way through the rest of it. I thought you might want to, I don’t know, say…actually relax on your day off. Maybe you could even put your feet up.”

“You mock my commitment to excellence,” he playfully chastised. “Oh, you are the worst.”

His begrudging joy only made your own grin stretch. “I’m glad you like it. I’ll be back later.”

He mumbled something that had you giggling all the way out the door. 

The walk from the barn to the main house wasn’t far, and you had made the trip in the dark once or twice without issue. Black had insisted on laying some loose flagstone down to make a makeshift walkway between the two structures that helped cut down on the dirt and mud tracked into the house; You still slipped off your shoes by the door, regardless.

The house is silent as you make your way into Wendy’s room and find it a mess…again. It had been neat last night but you knew how much damage she could do in a day. Your watch was on the bathroom countertop and took all of thirty seconds to grab, but there were so many things left a mess in the room you couldn’t just leave. You started to pick up some of the messiest toys that looked like they might hurt if stepped on. The rest were for Wendy to pick up and learn some responsibility.

“I THOUGHT I HEARD SOMETHING.”

You glanced back over your shoulder and grinned when you saw Black in the doorway standing with his arms crossed. “I had to come back for something I left.” 

“WHAT WAS THAT, THE MESS OF A SIX YEAR OLD? DON'T’ TOUCH ANYTHING MORE OR SHE’LL NEVER LEARN HOW TO TAKE CARE OF HER THINGS.”

“I wasn’t planning on picking the rest up, just the things that would hurt the most if stepped on.”  

“ON YOUR DAY OFF?”

“I was already here,” you answered with a laugh.

Black huffed and you had learned his mannerisms and tells well enough to know that was his ‘acceptable’ huff and not his ‘disappointed’ huff. Some days there were expressions you still couldn’t decipher, but there was enough you could recognize that you felt like you could say you ‘knew’ Black. 

So, when you straightened and turned to face him in the doorway it confused you to watch his expressions melt into something caught between shock and… another whole mix of emotions you couldn’t decipher. 

His eye lights had shrunk to pin pricks the way they tended to when he switched into a hyper focused state and their color went indistinguishable between red, purple, and pearl-white. The rest of his body went stone still, rigid like a taunt bowstring.  

“…Black? Is something wrong?” He didn’t twitch so you asked again, “Are you fine?” 

He doesn’t answer you right away. You take a handful of steps and stop just before you’re an arm’s reach away, being careful to give him ample ‘breathing’ room. From experience you know Black’s personal bubble is a bit bigger than the average person’s and he’s not one to normally let others trespass his boundaries so casually. 

Stiffly, he turned his face up towards you and stared for another good thirty seconds before responding. “YES.”

You weren’t convinced. 

“You sure you’re fine? You seem a bit…unsettled by something.”

“NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST!” he answered too quickly. The words almost blurred into one another. A second later the color began to bloom across his skull, dark and far reaching. 

You knew he was lying, you just didn’t know if you should call him out on it. It seemed like too cruel a thing for someone with as much pride as Black. He was one of the easiest skeletons to ruffle, much to your secret delight.

Honestly. Who wouldn’t think it entertaining? There was nothing shameful about enjoying a little feeling, was there? 

“Well let me know if you need me for anything. I was just on my way out but I forgot my watch.”

“YOU ARE GOING OUT?”

You nodded. “Sans and Red are helping with another official relocation that I wanted to be a part of. It’s not far.” 

Black fidgeted like he was wearing a suit that didn’t fit him. He never fidgeted. Sure he’d blush and bluster, but his body was never one to abandon his control even when his emotions got away from him. (That was more of a Blue habit.)  It made you worry.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

“OF COURSE!” 

His eye lights wobbled in their sockets and you saw them shift just a bit around the edges but they were too small to see the shape clearly. Also, your eyesight wasn’t exactly the best since the accident.

You scrambled for something else to say to help ground him, knowing he was the last skeleton to ask or accept help from someone or admit he was in need. You fidgeted, rubbing the back of your neck and jostled the chain. He almost flinched and you latched onto that, the first new reaction from him.

“Oh yeah, I’m wearing your necklace. All the other times it’s been tucked away but I guess it must have fallen out when I was bending over to clean things up, maybe?” You stroked the raw stone. “I guess you haven’t seen me wearing it before today.”

“…I…UH HEM, I DID NO-NOTICE IT ON OTHER OCCASIONS BUT DID NOT THINK TO DRAW ATTENTION TO IT. I-I SEE IT SUITS YOU AS WELL AS I HAD HOPED IT WOULD.” Black ducked his chin and averted his eyes for a moment, like the effort of looking straight at you was too much to maintain. But he was Black, so of course he managed to fix his eye lights back on you after only a moment. “IT IS GOOD YOU LIKE IT.”

“I love it.”

His eye lights flared enough with color and shape that you were almost sure you could distinguish the details of it, but then he looked away, coughing into his hand and suffering another darkening shade of flush across his skull.

“Thank you,” you say, hoping it’s enough to help him gain some more composure. “I mean it, I really do love it and I wear it almost every day.”

He was probably embarrassed to have gifted you something so fancy in hindsight. You weren’t dressing up enough for it today, after all. You didn’t think he regretted his choice of a gift, but…it was still too nice a thing for you. You were more grit and blood than class and poise. 

Hesitantly, you reach for it and begin to pull it back to tuck it into the collar of your shirt, because it’s true about going out and you didn’t want it getting caught on anything or dirty.

Black turned back around to watch you and once it was out of sight, tucked safely away, he seemed to deflate a bit and regain more of his composure. He coughed once more and righted himself, standing with his hands folded behind his back once more. 

“IT SUITS YOU BETTER THAN ANYTHING ELSE I’VE COME ACROSS SO I AM GLAD TO HEAR YOU ARE SATISFIED WITH THE TRINKET.”

You scoff, voice catching on the laugh stuck in your throat. “Trinket? Black, it’s the nicest thing I own.”

“FOR NOW THAT MAY BE. HOWEVER, DO NOT FORGET THE VALUE OF THE FAR GREATER TREASURE IT WAS MEANT TO COMPLIMENT.” 

“You’re awfully sweet for someone who chastises children as much as you do,” you playfully tease, knowing well and good that Black was a marshmallow when it came to Wendy and the others. He might bluster and speak loudly, but he was like puddy in their hands. 

“I AM A MALEVOLENT SKELETON OF UNBIASED CHARACTER AND CUNNING. I AM NOT SWEET!”

“If you say so, but you make me smile plenty.”

“THAT-” His eye lights wobbled again, but without the dilation you could better see the shape they were trying to make. They weren’t stars…

“Don’t think too much about it. It’s not a bad thing to make someone smile. No one’s going to take advantage of you for that here. New world, new standards, new life.”

“I NE-NEVER SAID SAID IT WAS A BAD THING. AS FORMER CAPTAIN TO THE RUTHLESS GUARD I WILL ENDURE READILY EVEN IN THE ABSENCE OF THE ADVANTAGE CRUELTY PROVIDES.” 

“Glad to hear it. I like you the way you are and would hate to see you change.” You moved to pass him and step out into the hallway but patted his forearm as you walk by. He doesn’t flinch from the contact but you know better than to push your luck and not try for anything more. “I gotta head out if I wanna make it to the grand opening in time. Don't work too hard on your day off. For once you have a quiet house for a few hours. Enjoy it.” 

You didn’t hear his voice over your shoulder as you made your way down the hallway and the stairs but you figured that wasn’t anything to think twice about. 

You buckled your watch onto your wrist as you walked, already feeling the bump and weight of your keys in the back pocket of your pants. That was all you needed. Your license was still where you left it, in the first cup holder of your broken down Camry from over a dozen years ago. Black hated it but had to admit your driving was safer and more practiced than his brother’s. 

Soon after accepting Black’s proposal to nanny for a living Sans, Red, and Stretch had each taken turns shortcutting into your apartment and then shortcutting back over the course of three days until everything you owned was waiting behind in the run down barn for you…everything except your car. 

Sans had been the one who took you back so that you could end things properly with the landlord and cut your losses with the apartment. Then the two of you had taken turns driving from the city up to Blackberry; a trip made, thankfully, in only two days. (It would have taken even less time if Sans hadn’t insisted on stopping every other hour for more food and drinks. Considering all he had helped do for you, giving in to his incessant requests was the least you could do.)

You slid in and fit your key into its slot, starting the car and throwing it into gear. The drive from Black’s farmhouse to the budding monster metropolis at the ‘heart’ of Blackberry was less than a ten minute drive. Along the way you passed a couple other farm-like properties with homes or buildings you recognized as belonging to newer monster neighbors. 

Downtown is quaint in the old fashioned sort of way. There are still a number of shops and storefronts dead where they stand and just as empty, but slowly the town is reviving with the influx of new monster neighbors. In your opinion, one of the best things about Blackberry was how the people were so thankful to have some new life and new neighbors again it didn’t matter if they were monsters or human. You hadn’t been expecting that but you weren’t about to complain. You’d take the kindness where you could get it. 

You recognize the quaint brick building with a small private parking lot in back with a smile. It’s similar to the building back in New Ebott, but a little bigger and a just a touch more run down. You, Edge and Red had worked alongside Sans and Papyrus to dress it up as best you can and in comparison to what it had looked like when you first saw it…the place looked amazing.

You pulled up and found a parking spot out back, locking and slamming the car door behind you. Red must have heard the commotion since he came outside to look and grinned wide when he saw it was you. 

“I thought something happened to you, sweetheart. What took you so long?” 

“I can’t shortcut to where I want to be whenever I want. Some of us have to get around the old fashioned way. It’s a ten minute drive from the house you know.”

“You could always let me drive you here. I’d rather drive ya crazy, but I can settle for less.”

“I’m sure you can,” you snicker, following him inside. 

The interior is familiar but new. There’s a bar in the center of the room and  enough tables and chairs to pack in a nice sized crowd. At the back there’s a sign above the office labeled ‘Fire Exit’ that both Sans and Red instead on installing. You remember the Grillby’s in New Ebott having one too. 

The jukebox is on and glowing, playing a smooth jazz melody that seems to play without ending and there are already a number of patrons loitering around or adding last minute touches to the ‘Happy Grand Opening’ sign Papyrus was in charge of hanging. He stood underneath it with a scrutinizing expression, eyeing it like it had personally offended him.

“It looks good, Paps,” you call out, diverting his attention. 

“Oh, you made it!” he turns away from the banner and crosses the room in two long strides to reach you, calling out your name as he does so. He doesn’t bother with waiting for your reply but goes straight in for a hug, nearly lifting you off your feet.

“Sorry I couldn’t make it this morning. I hadn’t realized how tired I was I guess.” 

Papyrus squeezed tight one last time then let go enough to see you properly. “While I might normally feel the need to chastise others for their laziness, there is no need for someone as hardworking as you to feel remorse for taking time to properly rest and care for yourself-unlike some brother of mine.”   

“Hey, speaking of the man of the hour, where is he? I thought he’d be here by now. I was nearly late, wasn’t I?” You looked around for any sign of Sans, knowing he was the one who would be bringing Grillby back via shortcut.

“It’s my brother,” Papyrus sighed, sounding like that explained everything. 

Behind you Red barked in laughter. “The Marshmallow ain’t ever on time, is he?” 

“You are no better, Red,” Papyrus quipped. “I swear, with the two of you…I don’t know how Edge manages it so well.” 

“Hey, we get the job done.”

“Hardly!”

A few of the nearby monster patrons chuckled at the familiar exchange. You didn’t recognize most of them, but there were one or two you could remember meeting after their resettlement. The red bird monster seemed especially excited to see Grillby again if him coming all this way was any indication. There were a few other dog monsters who gathered in the corner and were setting up a card game while they waited. 

It felt familiar enough to make you want to relax again. 

“If he’s not here on time he won’t be much later,” you finally say. “What’s left to do?”

“Absolutely nothing but worry over what has already been done! Should I have bought something scented to freshen up the room? He’ll be cooking and the natural aroma is much more suited to this sort of place but for now all you can smell is air!” Papyrus panicked, launching himself into a mini rant on all the things he was worried about until you grabbed his arm. He stilled at the contact and you sighed, all too familiar with his tendencies. He was a perfectionist to his core. 

“It all looks great. Grillby is going to be so thankful and just love it, I’m sure.”

“I…ahem, well, I was not the most courteous of patrons to his establishment in the past, the menu never suited my tastes, but I would like to help a fellow monster in finding their best life atop the surface.”   

“That sounds just like you, but don’t worry. It’s all going to turn out perfectly, trust me.”

“I…. I can do that!”

You let him go to straighten out tables and try them in different places on the floor while Red made himself comfortable at the bar, dozing lightly. You waited over by the jukebox, flipping through the different tracks and recognizing most of them from before. There were a few new additions, as with the digital age it became possible to quadruple the total number of tracks fit into a single machine without sacrificing the ascetic the body presented. 

You found a couple tracks you enjoyed and added them to the line up for a handful of spare nickels. You needed to remember to leave nickels next to the machine since most monsters didn’t use cash and coins but stuck to either their gold or plastic credit cards that made the conversions for them.   

Tracks from Daft Punk and tumbling Jazz played one right after the other, interrupted by some soft and old classical rock before returning to Grillby’s favorite tracks. At one point you looked back to notice a couple of the dogs bobbing along while Papyrus danced to and from his different tasks, and it was nice to relax while you waited. 

But then there was static and you felt the magic in the air before leaning back to see out the front windows to where Sans stood in the middle of the street with his hands spread wide in a ‘ta da’ pose while a stunned fire elemental monster looking on in mute awe. You didn’t miss the beads of sweat on San’s skull from no doubt the magical exhaustion that came from taking a shortcut so far. 

They exchanged a few words before Sans reached out to Grillby, tugging him towards the front door. 

“Places, people!” Papyrus whispered sharply. 

Everyone fell into place and when Sans opened the door and dragged Grillby in. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. A cheer of ‘surprise’ went up followed by nonflammable confetti and then his usuals swarmed him. 

You heard the familiar crackle of his fire speak and then the red bird monster was translating…a bit poorly. You suspected long ago his translation skills were more based off of body language cues and less the actual fire language. 

Sans dragged Grillby to the bar and Red hopped down to make room.  

“Fully stocked, hot stuff!” Red cheered.

“Only the best. This town needs some good eats,” Sans said. 

Grillby’s fire crackled and you understood it literally, but even without the translation, it seemed Sans and Red still both got the gist of the message. 

And then the flames around his face burned brighter for a moment, flashing differs colors as he saw you leaning up against the jukebox. You waved and headed on over, lightly punching Sans in the arm as you passed him by. 

You heard him say your name in the crackle of his flames but doubted anyone else could tell what it was he said. 

You don’t hesitate to wrap Grillby up in a big hug, never minding the flames that were all but harmless until he wished them to be otherwise. He reacted on a reflex, but then you felt when it hit him who you were or what you were doing as the returned gesture became all the more familiar. 

“Glad to see you again,” you said into his shoulder. 

He pulled you back and grabbed at your face, pushing back the bangs that you had purposefully brushed and curled so that they would fall over your bad eye. You should have known better than to assume Grillby would be any less observant.  

“It’s fine,” you whined, “it happened a long time ago before we even met, I’m just not wearing a fake anymore. It’s fine, don’t be such a dad.” You pat at his hands and let your own flames spark out of your palms to show you were serious. Begrudgingly he let you go and stood back with his hands on his hips.

…Have you been eating properly?

“I’ve been eating properly. I just started training with Papyrus again if I look any different.”

“…Papyrus.”

You waved to Papyrus who had been hovering on the outskirts of the greetings, beckoning him closer. “Yeah, he’s also the one that made everything look so amazing. What, you thought that was Sans?”

The flames around Grillby’s face flared with a laugh and Sans complained loudly from the bar but didn’t protest more than that.

 “ …I guess not. ” 

“Paps?” you waved him over when it looked like Papyrus might be content to hang back and not draw any closer. “Come here.” 

Grillby turned to face Papyrus and extended a hand to shake, one Papyrus immediately responded to. 

“I’m so excited to welcome you to our town and happy to see you like the new place. It might not be as close to the original as you were hoping, but the community is just as eager as any you may be used to, I can promise you that!” 

…It’s…perfect. Thank you. ” 

You watched with nervous excitement as Papyrus puffed up and laughed at the thanks, too pleased to contain himself very well. 

“Wanna check it out behind the counter, hot stuff?” Red called out, already climbing up over the bar while Sans snickered into his hand. 

Grillby flared and hurried to use the proper entrance to get behind the counter and shoo Red out, crackling through his flames about how that wasn’t appropriate. With the space now open, Sans took the opportunity to slide in closer to your side and lean over, voice hushed.

“I didn’t know the two of you were so close.”

“I told you we knew each other. I was a pretty faithful regular.” 

“Yeah, but so is Doggo, you don’t see Grillby getting that friendly with any of the pups, do you?”

You eyed Sans weirdly. “What are you trying to say?” 

“Nothing, nothing,” he chuckled nervously. “Just…I know the guy too. He’s…a funny guy.”

You snorted. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard him crack-le a joke.”

Sans’ eye lights sparked with extra magic, hearing your pun. “Not that way.”

You turned back around to watch Red make a nuisance out of himself, picking up bottles and condiments that Grillby had to put back almost as soon as they were removed. Red knew he was annoying too, but that made him all the more eager to get in the fire monster’s way if his eye-socket creasing grin was any indication. Grillby looked more like a dad running after a stray child than anything else. 

“I’m glad he’s back at least. It’s a good feeling.” 

“Heh, don’t tell him what I said about your burgers. It’s not a big dill, I just don’t wanna go bacon his heart.” 

You snicker but shoot him a look of mock offense. “Oh cheese , are you really gonna use that sort of language in this sacred place?”

Sans’ eye lights wobbled and his grin stretched. “You know you love it.” 

“I…don’t wanna taco bout it.” 

Sans wheezed. “My thoughts e gg-xatly .” 

 You tried to hold it in but you hated how ruined your defenses were when it came to Sans’ awful puns. It was too easy to find the fun in them and you were only a little frustrated with yourself for getting tricked into each rebuttal. 

You pretend not to notice Grillby watching you oddly or the way Red seemed all too delighted with what he could overhear. 

 

Notes:

Fans of the Underfell brothers get a treat, Black gets an eye full of you wearing his gift, and Grillby moves in to the neighborhood. It's a fun chapter, a domestic, fluffy, fun sort of chapter and it was a delight to write.
I'm fulfilling ALL my own personal wishes.

This is part 4 of 7 or the start of arc 4, (also based on a Fall Out Boy song), so we're nearly halfway done with the series and I'm...kinda excited? I feel so weird about this chapter because it's one of my favorites, but I wrote this in August when summer really was winding down. Now it's March and in my drafts I'm working on chapter 62 and the world is a mess.
Hopefully you are all staying safe, staying inside, staying sane and enjoying whatever joy you can steal from life with your own two hands.
Best wishes to you all, hope you enjoyed!

Chapter 34: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 2

Summary:

You make dinner for Sans and Papyrus.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You closed out of your messenger app, still a bit dizzy from Russ’ explanation of what he had done (illegally) to get all the kids registered for the local school in tim e for the school year. You had been so impressed with his ability to access anything with his computer you had just…asked about it once…and it was like the floodgates were open. You let him ramble off his explanations and kept up as best you could, but the differences between the undernet and the internet were still boggling your brain a whole hour later. 

All you really needed to worry about was making sure you took the kids tomorrow. Wendy still needed to clear kindergarten testing in person and you would go shopping for school supplies with Blue and Stretch after that. 

But that was tomorrow.

Tonight…you could do whatever you wanted. 

It was your night off.

It’s one of your free nights and you know they’re both going to be home so you show up at Sans and Papyrus’ place to make dinner. Sans was the only one currently ‘in’ since Papyrus was running errands for one of his new monster neighbors, but you knew it wouldn’t be long before he came back.

You knock to the tune of shave-and-a-haircut then wait until the door opens knowing Sans would have already recognized you by now.

“You don’t mind if I steal your kitchen, do you?” you ask as a courtesy. Even if Sans told you no you wouldn’t have believed him and what’s more you would have just continued on your way without paying him any more mind. 

He smiled and stepped off to the side, opening up the way.

“Hey, what is it you humans say? My house is your house. You can just move in if you want.” Sans followed behind you and helped himself to a seat at the counter while you busied yourself in pulling out the necessary ingredients. “Actually, we got enough spare bedrooms if you ever feel like just crashing.”

“Sans, you were one of the people who helped me set up my own place in the old barn,” you laugh. “You know I’m good.”

“I know you have a place to call your own, I can’t say how comfortable it is by looks. Our beds are finer than what we hauled out of your closet of an apartment,” Sans teased. 

He sounded just like he had when he and Red first saw your bed back during the move. They had been horrible about it. 

“Hey, it gets the job done.”

“It’s not very big.”

You flushed at his words and dropped the package of ground meat onto the counter as your hands shook. “It-It’s big enough.” 

“Yeah, for maybe a couple of humans, but me and Paps aren’t bite sized, cupcake .”

You could feel the heat of your flush spread up to your ears and turn them red. “Sh-shut up. You-you’re almost as bad as Red.” 

San’s grin stretched wider across his skull until it was positively shit eating. He was enjoying your unease far too much. “You say that, but when’s the last time he got you this hot and batter-ed , eh, sweet tart?”

“What has gotten into you, recently?” you grumbled as you ducked your head to try and hide more of your blush. 

“You’re the one that let me into your bed so don’t get upset when I criticize it.”

“You make it sound worse than it is!” you hissed, far too rattled by his words for the situation. 

The two of you were alone in his house, there was no one else to overhear the conversation with both Red and Edge being out on work as well. It shouldn’t have flustered you as much as it had, but San’s comments had been uncharacteristically forward. 

After Grillby’s relocation he had grown increasingly more jovial and confident, but more than that you had to blame his change in attitude on your decision to invite him to cuddles with you and Papyrus that one night a month or so back. He had been so hesitant at first you hadn’t expected him to show up again a week later with his brother, or again six days after that.

“What does it sound like?” Sans teased, leaning forward over the counter. 

“You know what it sounds like. Make me say it and I might get mad enough to leave this food here uncooked,” you threatened. 

“That would be the biggest mis- steak ever,” Sans joked, eye lights bright. “Come on, lettuce not fight about it anymore.”  

“Sometimes you are insufferable.”

“Only sometimes? I must be doing better.” 

You sighed and patted at your face, hoping to feel it cooled down. With Sans in his good mood you started to rip into your ingredients for the skillet served dinner. When Sans eventually came around and offered to help, you told him he could get the buns and condiments out after laughing at him for his offer. You hadn’t expected him to actually do it, but when you turned around the buns were ready and so were all the toppings. 

“You’re making those burgers again?” he asked, sounding eager. “The ones with the egg in them.” 

“Yeah, but that’s supposed to be a secret so shush .” 

Sans stayed quiet for a good minute and thirty seconds before he had to interrupt your focus with another horrible joke. 

“Hey, how do you make a hamburger smile?” He only gave you a moment to consider the question before rambling off the punchline. “ Pickle it gently .”

“You must be in a good mood or something,” you snicker in spite of yourself. “What’s that occasion?”

“I need a reason to make a funny?” 

You finished forming the meat into the desired patty shape over the skillet but made your hands burst into flame instead. Standing over the stove, you worked your own fire magic into the food until it was ready and from there you let it sit in the warm skillet while you readied the second and third patty. With Papyrus nowhere in sight you plated the first two out of three and offered it to Sans to dress himself the way he liked it. 

You took the last burger for yourself and set it aside in favor of putting away the extra meat for whenever Papyrus got back since Red and Edge would be gone for the night. 

You looked up when you heard the sounds Sans made as he melted across the countertop with the burger between his hands. “Don’t tell Grillby I’m cheating on him or even that I said this, but these are the best,” he sighed. 

“Thanks, your secret is safe with me,” you laughed before joining him at the counter. “There’s not that much difference since he was the one who showed me how to make them this way, with fire magic.”

There were a couple of bags of different flavored chips and even more monster chisps to pick from when adding a complementary side. You licked the excess sauce off your thumb before reaching for a bag to pull open. 

Sans moaned again, finishing his first burger and dripping ketchup out the side of his mouth. You didn’t bother to even grimace anymore when he used the sleeve of his blue hoodie to wipe his face clean. It wasn’t fair to Papyrus who did all the laundry in the house.

“Can you cook for me every night?”

“No, you have money, you can bother Grillby for your magic burger fix. You’re there every time I stop by so I know you’re his favorite customer.” 

“Yeah, I said ta not tell him any of this, but yours are the best.”

“Why would you give me blackmail material you lazy bun ?” you joked, watching for his reaction as he realized what you just said. 

It was a rare day when you could make his eye lights shift into shapes but you recognized the change when he turned to face you anew. You bit into your burger and pretended to ignore him while Sans sagged a little more in his seat. 

“…How abouts I hire you out as a personal cook, say once a week? Bonus, you can have your own bedroom to crash in if you’re here too late.” 

“I live ten minutes by bike just down the road, Sans, why would I ever need to crash here? And besides, I’ll be booked up more in the afternoons coming up soon. The kids will be starting school in a week.”

“You’re gonna get lonely without ‘em?” he asked, picking up his next burger.

“It’s only school and it’s only for a few hours during the weekday, but it’s far away enough that Black said he would take them via shortcut each morning so they didn’t have to wake up at unreasonable hours.”

Sans made another sound as he bit into his second burger and chewed his way through a good third of it before he had to pause and moan. He sagged against the countertop and turned to you with his eye lights shaped like hearts. “Seriously, you should just marry me k?”

You snorted, rolled your eyes, and bit into more of your burger, content to eat in silence while Sans finished his. Some of his jokes were funnier than others. 

You were nearly finished with your burger when you heard the front door open and then the familiar stomps of Papyrus leaving the mud from his shoes on the welcome mat before coming inside.     

“I smell human cooking and it is love-ly! ” he cheered, coming into the kitchen and making a beeline for you. He grabbed for you and hugged you to his body, wrapping his arms around you enough that he was able to touch his shoulders again. “You came!” 

“I said I would,” you laughed, pulling away. “Busy day?”

“A productive day!”

You eased off the stool and headed back into the kitchen. “Let me get you a burger. I said I would wait until you were home before-” Papyrus’ hand on your shoulder and Sans’ hand on your wrist both stopped you before you could walk too far from your plate. 

“You didn’t finish your food, kiddo,” Sans explained.

“I would be the world’s worst host if I didn’t let you finish your own meal before making mine!” Papyrus added. 

“It’s not a lot left and it’s not gonna go bad if it gets a little cold,” you chuckled before making your hands flash with heated fire. “I could just toast it up again.”

“Sometimes it is the principal of the matter and not the details of it that one must adhere to. I will go change and come down again in six minutes and forty-five seconds. That should give you ample time to finish off what you have left,” Papyrus said.

“Plenty,” you laughed, agreeing with Papyrus. “Go change into something comfy. I’ll be ready when you come down.”

Papyrus beamed bright but left to head into the hallway and up the stairs to his bedroom. “Do not rush, you still have six minutes and thirty five seconds,” he called from somewhere you couldn’t see.

“Eat, cupcake,” Sans encouraged. 

“You’ve been hanging out with Red too much, I can see him wearing off on you with the nicknames.”

“You don’t hate them, do you?”

You took another bite and shook your head. “Nah,” you answered around the mouthful before you had to chew and swallow. “It’s fine. I’m not as attached to my actual name as you might think since it-well, I’m not sure what my real first name is anyway, only the name I took for myself to keep from having other kids call me SevenA all the time. Nicknames are nice.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, tart .”

You laughed, finishing off the rest of your burger before standing up to round the kitchen island and pull out the ground meat from before. “You planning on sticking to food nicknames?”

“Only the sweet ones.”

You laughed but made another two new hand -burgers, knowing that Sans had the room for a third patty at least. 

You hadn’t been keeping track of time but Papyrus showed up abruptly and promptly, grinning from ear to ear. In place of his (crowd pleasing) battle body he was wearing a neon yellow crop top with the words ‘c00l boy’ printed across the chest as well as some casual shorts. 

And while burgers weren’t Papyrus’ first choice in a meal, he admitted loudly and proudly, that your burgers were the exception because you made them with ‘ love instead of grease .’ He and Sans joked back and forth about being able to taste the love in your food but you could only laugh at their misplaced earnestness. They were just far too kind for their own good…or delusional in Sans’ case. 

Monsters said they could taste food and honesty in home cooked meals, but even with magic you had never been able to pick up on anything. You weren't sure if it was a collective joke or just something you’d never understand as a human. Regardless, it was a compliment and you appreciated the kindness.

“If you’re staying does that mean you would be amenable to breaking in our new and improved home movie system?”  Papyrus asked once the extra food was put away and the kitchen cleaned up.

“You have a new home movie system? What was wrong with the tv in the living room?”

“Two words,” Sans interjected, “recliner seats.” 

“It’s an authentic home theater experience with the surrounding sounds and monster sized seats perfect for MTT holiday specials,” Papyrus added.  

“How could I refuse?” you asked, knowing all too well that one or two movies would soon turn into three or four, until it was two AM and you were all too tired to be responsible about your choices. 

You knew how it would go. You’d end up snuggled and sleeping on the couch again…together, but that was only if you were lucky. One of your first nights over you all ended up in a mess on the floor half under the coffee table. One of these days you were going to make it to that guest bed in time, but you doubted that day would come so soon.    

“I have been stocking our cabinets with the classics of your species but tonight we will be indulging in the finer side of monster culture,” Papyrus exclaimed.

Sans shot you a look past Papyrus’ elbow and you snorted but ignored the older brother’s look of shock/horror in favor of taking Papyrus by the arm and following him to the second story wing that had been under construction until only last month. One of the rooms was still closed off with a sign designating it as a ‘work in progress’ room that Sans and Papyrus couldn’t agree on the theme of. 

Red and Edge, while they still worked for Sans and Papyrus, lived in the detached guesthouse, so the main house building felt more empty than it really was. 

The movie theater room was just as impressive as Papyrus promised it to be. The lush recliner seats were extra plush, tall, and wide to accommodate monster sizes. For you they were massive and perfect for snuggling up in. There was a trunk at the back next to the popcorn machine with extra pillows and throws you could use to cuddle with during the movie. Papyrus knew you too well. 

“Looks amazing, guys,” you praised loudly from across the room. “I’ll be sure to crash more frequently.” 

“Please do! Our house is always open to use. Feel free to treat it like your own. We even have a spare bedroom you could use or decorate the way you want for any sleepovers!”

Papyrus sounded so much like his brother. You shot a look over your shoulder at Sans who chuckled at your playful glare before shrugging his boney shoulders at you.

“I’ll make sure to keep that in mind, Paps. What sort of movie were you thinking of putting in for tonight?” You ask, defusing the situation and turning the conversation back to less personal matters.  Papyrus was only too glad to pull open the display case and show off the vast array of dvds he had collected in the last five and a half years above ground. He even had a highly coveted VHS collection that he pulled from to show off his monster favorite classics. 

You loved watching how animated he got once he started to roll on and on about the things he was most passionate about. It was hard to listen to him and not smile. 

 

 

To no one’s surprise, midnight came and went, and the second movie rolled into the third movie because that’s what you do when you start a trilogy. The final installment in Mettaton’s space western spy flick with murder, romance, and a long lost twin brother stretched on until the wee hours. You were barely awake when Papyrus shifted in his sleep so that his upper body crossed over your armrest and edged into your personal space. 

You expected Sans to be just as passed out but instead he was up and hobbling over to the both of you. Before you could ask his hands were on you both and you were dropped onto a long, California king sized bed decorated with a soft reds and a cream colored comforter, already pulled back and folded for you.

 Papyrus reclined naturally and his hands reached for you in his sleep, tugging you down with him. You didn’t resist and you probably wouldn’t have even if you did have the energy. Papyrus knew you too well to not know the shape or feel of you even when half asleep. 

Sometimes when you snuggled he would subconsciously start to heal you even though you weren't hurt or in any pain. It was just something he tended to do in his sleep with you and no one else. That was the sort of monster Papyrus was, far more sweet and generous than any other human or monster you had met before.

“Sleep tight kids, don’t let them bed bugs bite,” Sans chuckled, pulling back the comforter on both of you.

You reached out for his wrist, stopping him before he could get far. “What are you doing?”

“… Tucking you in?”

Your brain felt fuzzy, but you forced out the rest of your words. “No, where are you going, I mean. You’re not leaving are you?”

“I-ah, Paps already looks like he’s fine. He can-”

Maybe it was because you were so drowsy or maybe it was because the movie was so bad you were still loopy from trying to keep up with its convoluted plot, but you tugged Sans down with more strength than necessary, tripping him into bed beside you while Papyrus stayed wrapped with his arms around your waist. 

Sans stuttered out your name and tried to crawl away but you dragged him back and fisted your hands into the fabric of his hoodie, pinning him in place against the pillows. 

“We’ve talked about this, Sans,” you said.  

“You… you looked so comfortable with Papyrus….”

You sagged back and then titled, falling onto your side and letting go of Sans only partially. Your hands were still in his hoodie, but your grip was weak. In the dark Sans’ eye lights were quivering pearls of light. 

“I’m comfortable with you too. It’s not an exclusive deal here. It’s just…it’s just sleeping.” You could feel it in your mouth, the way the words started to slur with sleep even as you pushed them past your lips. “So ca’mere…” 

He chuckled, giving up and giving in. “Whatever you say, princess.”

You scoff into the pillow, too tired to even crack and eye for him. “No sweet tart?”

But you were asleep before Sans could even think up a way to answer you. Instead he settled in beside you, reaching one arm up under the pillow beneath your head to better cushion you. Papyrus could wrap himself around you, his lanky form suited it, but Sans much preferred curling up alongside you, supporting you, or just…watching you until he fell asleep. You were…his favorite thing to see when he closed his eye lights for the night or opened them in the morning. 

If someone would have told him a year ago that the girl he stayed up late reading about and digging up information on would be… in the same bed as him and his brother, he would have laughed at the terrible joke.

Being so happy only made the fear of another reset all the more crippling. The science said that wouldn’t happen, not with so many trans-dimensional anchors present, but… Sans was paranoid with good reason. He had lost track of all the different times he had woken up only to realize too late that his yesterday was the rest of the world’s today. 

That kind of fear never died.

That kind of fear adapted .

 So maybe there would be no more resets, so what? There were plenty of other dangerous things that could take you away from him.

With half of your face pressed into the pillow he could barely make out the scar that stretched over your eye, but he knew it was still there...along with all the other scars you hid and covered up.

He didn’t want to leave, so he risked a dip into his pocket with only one hand and pulled out his phone. The screen was dark with the light turned down as far as it could go, but he could still make out the names and numbers in his contacts as he scrolled through to open an old message thread.

He wasn’t planning on losing his favorite sight. 

 

Notes:

Take your best guess one what sort of shit Sans is planning on stirring up.

So, this is the shortest out of all the chapters in part 4 (Hold Me Tight, Or Don't). At one point I considered axing this chapter and just skipping over it, but I liked the idea of casual dinner and movie nights too much, especially now when such simple pleasures feel so out of reach. Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe.

Chapter 35: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You were packing a satchel to go when Black came downstairs looking more irritated than usual. Wendy and you shared a look of understanding before she whispered, (loud enough to not be a very good whisper), “Mr. Blackberry has his angry eyebrows on.” 

“Oh no, I wonder what that could mean,” you playfully bantered.

“What?” Peter asked suddenly, only just hearing the tail end of your sentence.

You were about to answer when Black’s screaming for ‘Mutt’ made you pause and then dissolve into snickers alongside the kids. Even Tron, the most stoic of the bunch, chuckled. “It might have something to do with his appointment today.”

“Appointment. I didn’t know skeletons could get sick,” Peter said.

“Not that kind of appointment. It’s a playdate,” Wendy sagely corrected her older brother. 

“IT IS NOT A DATE!” Black roared from the other room. 

A moment later he stomped back across the walkway and up the stairs with something folded under his arm. You recognized it a second later as a blank canvas. You couldn’t tell what was inside the small satchel he pinned to his side underneath his elbow, but you were willing to bet they were painting supplies to complement his canvas. 

“He’ll have fun. Hanging out with different people is good for you, even if you don’t get along at first,” you explained to the children around you while only half believing it. For their sake you would always be the optimist. 

“Who is he going to go play with?” Peter asked.

“He’s not playing,” Wendy whined. “He’s going painting. I told you this already.”

“No you didn’t!”

Tron looked up from his book and locked eyes with you over the heads of the bickering siblings. You grinned and nodded, understanding without words his feelings. Even though Wendy was younger, she was sharp and likely gifted while Peter…struggled more. Really it was just his inability to focus that made some things take longer for him to pick up, but it still frustrated him the more and more he noticed his younger ‘baby’ sister correcting him. Tron was often caught in the worst of it and had endured far more tantrums and fights than you.

Phil grabbed at your ankles and you turned back around to scoop him up and rest him on your hip. He was getting heavier for a four year old. How long before he was five? He wasn’t that far behind Wendy even though they weren’t biologically related. 

“Who’s ready to go? If you don’t have shoes on I’m leaving you home and you’ll miss out on Dairy Queen.” 

The fighting broke off as both children scrambled to find their flip flops and sandals. With Phil on your hip and Tron ready by your side you were ready enough to start heading towards the door. As you passed the entrance to the basement, or ‘ Mutt’s Domain, ’ the wooden door creaked open and the skeleton himself emerged looking pleasantly ruffled.

“Good morning, glad to see you up before we left. Isn’t this sort of early for you, Sleeping Beauty?” 

He turned your way at the sound of your teasing and his skeleton smile grew wider.  “nah, i’m getting ready to hibernate after an all nighter. m’lord just needed a few things from the downstairs.” Rus’ eye lights fixated on Phil, drooling absently onto your shoulder. It made him chuckle and reach out to pinch Phil’s cheek. 

“Nahmah face!” Phil protested, slurring his first two words into a single sound.

“sorry, tiger,” Rus laughed. “you’re just so squishy.”

“What were you staying up all night for?” Tron asked Rus.

“oh you know, this and that, nothing too important ya need ta worry about, but maybe next time we can do some coding together.”

Tron’s eye lights went bright at the mention. “I’d like that. Stretch said he’d have me help him out with some stuff this week too.”

You reached over and rubbed the back of Tron’s head and he bent into the touch, almost as starved for affection as Rus. “We don’t want you overworking yourself so close to the start of school. You’ll get exhausted.” 

“that’s where you’re headed?” Rus asked, sounding almost worried. A little worry was normal for Rus, typical even, and today was no different. It was the burden of knowing too much, you assumed. 

Second only to Stretch, Rus was the most observant person you knew as well as one of the most anxious. He might not have been as strong as his brother, but he was ten times as observant and clever in his own ways.

“I’ll take good care of them,” you promised. 

You reached out with your free hand and rubbed at the side of his skull. Much like how Tron turned towards the touch, Rus nuzzled the side of his head into your hand and deflated a bit as some of the anxiety melted out of his posture. 

“take care of yourself too, you’re important…” he mumbled into your palm before kissing it the way skeletons did. You wondered when the last time it was that Rus had actually slept, since he had shadows under his eye sockets and was acting a little…’mushier’ than usual. You didn’t mind. You knew him well enough to know that it was just a fact of his character, to grow cuddly and clinging when he was tired or sick. 

Seeing the affection Rus showed for someone else, Phil turned clingy and reached out for Rus, making grabby motions with his hands. “Mine turn, mine, mine,” he childishly whined. 

Rus was happy to kiss Phil’s hands and then laugh at his satisfied expression.  

“Someone’s jealous,” you laughed before shaking your head. 

“there’s no need for that, i’es got plenty of kisses to spare.”

You heard Tron make a sound of acknowledgment beside you but didn’t think much more of it when Peter raced into the room first, looking proud in a pair of camo colored crocs. Wendy skittered in a few moments later, looking exhausted. 

“Ready to go?” you asked even though your back was towards them as you headed out to the garage.

“b-be safe!” Rus called, voice colored with worry once more. 

“Rus, it’s me, of course we’ll be safe,” you called back, sounding too confident to be careless. But he let you go off with a wave and a smile, watching as the children scampered like duckling into line behind you before returning to his room to sleep away the rest of the morning…. and maybe most of the afternoon. 

 

 

Black glared at the brick exterior of the building before him. While much of the town had fallen apart or fallen into disrepair over the last two decades, one building that survived the test of time was the local library, a well loved treasure in the town of Blackberry and not too far from that fire monster’s new grease pit you were so fond of. 

Black, of course, had his own library card and was familiar with the system of check out, he had taken the kids out on a number of outings earlier in the year, even though Wendy was still learning how to read the most basic words on her own. She could recognize the word ‘play’ and the names of all her family members, but little more than that. Peter was a little better, and Tron had a voracious appetite for books while Phil was still just a drooler who liked to listen.

All that to say, Black knew about the library well enough. He wasn’t an outsider and he wasn’t scared of the building. Ha, the IDEA! As if a building with four walls and a roof could scare a skeleton as cunning and malevolent as he!

“I see you found the establishment without issue.” 

Black turned and snapped his posture back into place. His heels clicked and his eye lights shrank as he quickly assessed the new arrival. It was only fair, since Edge was doing the same thing-only he didn’t have to tilt his head back too far to see up. 

“I AM PROFICIENT IN NAVIGATING MY OWN HOME TOWN. SUCH AN INSIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENT PROVED TO BE  UNCHALLENGING WORK.” Black then nodded to Edge’s canvas as it poked up out of the fabric bag he wore over one shoulder. “I SEE YOU HAVE ALSO COME PREPARED.”

“Naturally. To present one’s self for activities with anything less would be downright insulting,” Edge quipped back before taking a step back to make more distance between Black and himself. “I wouldn’t expect such careless behavior from you, but I would anticipate it in my brother if you ever happen to be in a situation where you rely upon his help.” 

“THEN THANKFULLY I AM NOT YOUR BROTHER.”

“Nor am I,” Edge quipped.

Black drew himself up as much as he could, standing ramrod straight and at his full height. He was much shorter than Edge, and that was to be expected considering how tall Rus was, but Black refused to let such trivial matters impact his confidence. He would stand proudly and with conviction regardless of who was set up opposite of him.  

Edge has impeccable posture himself, so he cast an impressive figure even among monsters, and Black had to admit-BEGRUDGINGLY-that Edge carried himself well for a Papyrus. Unlike Mutt or the other one-Stretch!- Edge came prepared and with an alertness in his eye lights that made Black wary. 

“I believe the scheduled time for the event will begin shortly.”

 It wasn’t an invitation, just a statement, and Black could respect that, so the two of them turned to head off inside and got set up before the rest of the audience trickled in. As opposed to the last time Black had visited, there was a significant influx of new monster neighbors populating the interior of the library, some perusing shelves or using public computers, while others set up for the event. 

It didn’t matter that Edge was able to set up his easel first or prep his canvas before Black. It wasn’t even by much! It didn’t matter if you were first if you were wrong or sloppy! And it wasn’t that big a deal anyway because Black managed to prep all his paints and brushes first. 

Ha.

Black kept himself from gloating when the event organizer walked out and waved to the class, introducing themselves. In the background a pair of assistant volunteers unrolled a long white tarp that was used to catch the projected video feed for their lessons. 

Behind their instructor the video featured a man in white overalls managing an oversized paint brush across the screen before the assistant paused the video to allow their presenter time to finish introductions and instructions.

“Now we’ll get set up with the correct paints for today…”

Black and Edge both mimicked their instructor’s methods for selecting and measuring out the correct paints before picking up the correct brush. Everyone in the room turned as one to the screen as the video rolled and a pleasant looking man with an afro of hair and a soft smile came into focus. 

Step by step Edge and Black were guided through the process of turning a blank canvas into a dreamy mountain landscape with crisp white glaciers highlighted in shades of Prussian blue. 

The man on the screen was as soft spoken as he looked and in addition to all his instructions his voice carried kind and thoughtful annotates about “doing whatever makes you happy’ or what ‘feels right’ because there was no right or wrong in art. It sounded a lot like what you might say to the children, encouraging their imagination the way you did during play time. 

The man’s voice was far too soft, how lucky for him. Black had the tones and volume of a captain of the guard that, unfortunately, contributed to some of his perceived drawbacks.  Not that he wasn’t adaptable or resourceful . Folding you into his home had to be proof enough of that. 

You had become a vital component in his house and Black was hesitant to admit it, even to himself, but at this point you were far too important to do without.

So…

The idea of the other households vying for your time was MOST VEXING. Just-just because the kids would be in school for so many hours didn’t mean you weren’t…needed around the house. Even if there wasn’t anything for you to do… it-

Black pulled back sharply and frowned at the mistake on his canvas.The valley between his mountains was too deep and dark. It wasn’t what was on the screen and not what he had intended at all. 

“Oh wow, what lovely creative choices,” one of the aids complimented from behind Black. “I love your bold exploration of the canvas. Excellent job on making this piece unique.”

Black glanced sideways at Edge and inhaled before drawing up his back and righting his posture. “YES, WELL IF NOTHING IS RISKED THEN NOTHING SHALL BE GAINED, DO THEY NOT SAY?”

An elderly gentleman in the row ahead of theirs flinched at Black’s tone and he made a note to quiet his voice in the future. The elderly were all so sensitive to sounds. Black had thought the older humans got the worse their senses grew. 

“It’s not the volume, your majesty,” Edge tisked. “It’s the magic you put into your words. Humans don’t do that. The older ones are more sensitive to it.” 

“WHAT?”

The man ahead of him flinched and Black frowned. He tried feeling out the taste of words without magic in his mouth before repeating himself.

“What do you mean?” Black asked.

The old man didn’t flinch. 

“Just that, the older humans are more sensitive to the magic we lace our speech with. Kids can tell too but it doesn’t bother them as much. The only other people it annoys are people with magic.”

Black dropped his brush into the mason of water and sat still for a moment more before turning in his seat to face Edge. “But…she has magic?”

“Yeah, she also said it wasn’t that big of a headache so it was enough to avoid it instead of saying anything to you or Rus about it.” Edge glanced sideways at Black and then his eye lights were back on his canvas. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you about it if it was just her, but there are other humans who will suffer if you remain unaware.”

“She never…mentioned it. Are you sure she could even tell? How would you know if it was even a bother to her?” Black snapped, hating how small his doubt was. He wanted to believe Edge was lying, but he knew better and that frustrated him.   

“Don’t believe me if you don’t want to.” Edge nodded at his mountain and then set his brush into the can of dirty water. “But as important as that conversation may be, it was my intention to address a different set of concerns.”

FINALLY!

“Oh?” 

Black didn’t say anything else for a moment more, as the room around them busied itself with a varied myriad of different tasks, none of which made enough sound in Black’s humble opinion. The room was too soft and too quiet for the number of bodies present. Why were they all so damn quiet? It wasn’t ideal for conversations.

“Yes, I have been working with the prime brothers, or the ones we haven’t given official nicknames to,” Edge began, “and something about your living situation has been weighing on my mind for some time now.”

“You think there is something untoward with my present situation?” Black all but hissed, imaginary hackles raising. 

“A question more than a suspicion. Your choices warrant as much curiosity when one considers your background and the world you came from. From what I’ve heard it was little better than the one my brother and I traveled from.”

“Doubtless.” 

“And yet, the first thing you do when you come topside is take in a brood of children. Why?” 

Black’s eye lights flashed with magic. If he had been tense before it was nothing in comparison to how he now held himself. Edge didn’t flinch but kept his composure intact and his attention straightforward. 

“You are insinuating something I do not kindly tolerate,” Black all but hissed out, voice dropping a good full octave. 

Edge, much to his credit, remained unruffled. “It’s just a question. Why take such offense?”

“You know why. I won’t forgive you for interfering with my family, much less for insulting my honor. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m not talking about anything, I’m asking a question and you’re not telling me what I want to hear.” Edge tapped his brush against the water can. 

“And that is?”

“What are your intentions with those four?”

It was such a simple question but it was such a loaded answer. The imbalance shook Black and kept him from answering. He had confessed to you easily enough, but you were different. Black didn’t feel like he needed any walls with you, not after…not after seeing your soul and the way you were with his children. You were just as precious to him and dear to his heart as any family member and then some. 

Edge…he was still an outsider-an outsider Black would decimate if he needed to. Unlike the others he had both the ability to shortcut like a sans, and the prowess of a fully developed Papyrus. He was confident he could take any of the Judges or their brothers on, even the original. 

“If you come for my family it will be the last thing you do,” Black warned.

Edge looked away from his canvas and met Black’s stare head on, nonchalant as ever. “It isn’t my intention to do anything so improper. They seem happy and healthy, plus our human seems to trust you well enough, so that’s typically enough for me, but it didn’t feel right until I asked you myself and saw in person what sort of reaction it would earn me.”

“…Reaction?”

“Think objectively for a minute, will you? A captain of the guard, one who’s taken four children and killed them to bring down his barrier, adopts four such children once he’s topside. Isn’t that just curious? Is he guilty or is he just falling into an old habit? Perhaps he plans on taking them back with him to bring down the barrier if ever he should be pulled back to that world again. Those are all questions a decent, concerned skelle-fellow should ask.”

“They are groundless concerns,” Black hissed. “I would never bring any harm to my family.”

“But they’re not your family. Rus is. Those kids are just people you’ve picked up along the way.”

“Not true!” Black snapped. “They’re not of my bone and magic, but they’re mine all the same. Papyrus and I, we both made that decision together. They needed us and we were going to be something good for a change. Believe it if you want, or don’t. I’ll not give you any ground to act as you see fit if you come after us.” 

Edge looked back to his painting and then flicked his eye lights up to the man on the screen, smiling and waving goodbye as the ending bit looped into credits. He didn’t say anything for another small moment. 

“You know what a drill sergeant is above ground?” Edge asked. 

“I am familiar,” Black huffed. “Nothing compared to the captain of the guard, but a harsh and formidable occupation nevertheless.” 

“Indeed. All that shouting… it is hard to imagine it.”

“Imagine what?” 

Edge gestured back up to the screen and then down to their art pieces. “That man we followed, the painter, he was once such a fellow, all anger and harsh rhetoric for those under his tutelage.”

“You…are mistaken,” Black hesitated to say. He glanced back up at the screen just in time for it to loop back to the smiling man. He was the last one Black would suspect of being military material. Even for a human he was too soft.

“He changed.” 

“…” Black didn’t have words.

“When my brother and I first emerged topside the humans who took us in were very persuasive of this philosophy. Also, they were fans of this painter and would make us watch the videos when days were rough. But, they were always steadfast in their belief that people could change if they wanted to, monsters and humans alike. So, I am willing to believe you’ve changed. I just needed to confirm it with my own eyes today.”

“You were… testing me?”

Edge inclined his chin and glared down the ridges of his nasal cavity. “ Obviously .”

“You are a credit to your station then. I was ready to decimate you.”

“You were ready to try,” Edge quipped. 

Black barked a sharp laugh. “Believe whatever helps you sleep at night, Papyrus.”

Edge hesitated before reaching for his painting supplies, but only for a minute. Black had already turned around and was packing his things up with double speed. A minute later he had his painting and then he was gone, a shortcut away. 

Notes:

More Skeleton senes! How many of you were worried when you heard Black had a 'date' with someone else?
Yeah, he and Edge are some of the most severe iterations but I wanted to give them some more character development in this chapter. It's a little different but I enjoyed it and I think it fits in okay.

Thank you all so much for the feedback and comments. I love reading them, especially now when I can't leave the house. You guys are the best. :) Stay safe and stay healthy!

Chapter 36: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Shopping all on its own was plenty exhausting. Shopping with kids… it should count as an olympic sport. 

By the time you got to the last leg of your trip you had broken down enough to let Blue pick something out for you just so long as you didn’t have to grab it yourself. You were willing to put up with anything at that point. The three of you corralled the kids out of the mall, breaking down at the last minute to shill out a few quarters so they could get something fun from the wall of dispensers. Your only rule had been no candy. You were ashamed to admit you pretended not to notice when Peter broke down his three quarters for a handful of Mike and Ike bits and a sticker tattoo. He showed you the tattoo and you were willing to let him think he had been sneaky…for now. Later on when he least expected it you would bring it up as a means to encourage him to get his chores done.

And Black thought you were good with kids?

You were a hot mess half of the time and the other half you were just a mess. 

“You gonna be good to go for movie night tonight?” Stretch asked once you made it home and got the kids unloaded. 

“Sure, I just need something strong to drink with it,” you whispered behind your hand, watching to make sure Wendy made it inside. 

“We can manage that I think,” he chuckled. “I’ll have to pass on anything harder than soda. I’m a terrible lightweight compared to Blue.”

“You?” you scoffed sarcastically. 

Stretch flushed in embarrassment. “Hey, a glass or two of wine is enough for most people.”

“But not you ?”

“Hon, you were there. You saw. I-I can handle a glass or two.”

You huffed to hide your chuckle. Stretch liked to think he was tougher than he was, but you had been there the last time you broke into the wine. He hadn’t downed as much as you or Blue, but he flushed fast and got friendly real quick. If you remember correctly he had to be carried to his room by Blue by the end of the night before he could get too handsy. He had been almost as bad as Russ, and that was saying something.   

“It’s okay. You don’t have to drink with me. One of us should stay level headed.”

“Hmmm, tall order considering who you’re watching with,” he chuckled.

Stretch and Russ were both equally light lightweights. You could hold your drink well enough, but tonight you didn’t want to. Tomorrow morning was free and the only place you had to be was Meet the Teacher night and that wasn’t until evening. You would be fine.

“I wanna get messed up,” you admitted under your breath before you could stop yourself. Stretch snickered and blushed a dark clementine shade of orange with gleeful magic. You playfully glare up through your lashes at him and his blush only darkened. “Shut up.”

“Can’t help it, honey. You’re cute when you’re frustrated.”

The two of you headed on inside and put away your bags, making sure the totes with supplies were ready to take to the school. You headed off to your barn house out back to change from your day clothes to something more comfortable. When you came back in Happy Sushi patterned pj pants and a matching nightshirt Stretch only laughed while Blue cooed about how cute you looked. ‘Ready for bed before six o clock.’

“Oh hush, it’s your turn to cook, mister,” you pouted, moving along.

It was Tuesday so of course it was a taco night. And for all your complaining you slipped into the kitchen behind Blue to help him with the ground beef and the cooking of his famous friendship tacos. He had gotten so much better at making them, even if he did insist on adding the edible monster glitter. 

Russ roused and Black came down just in time for the five of you to take seats at the table where the kids were already…suspiciously, ready and waiting. 

The kids were never ready at the table before you.

“Oh no, what did you do now?” you asked over the plate of heated shells, catching sight of Tron’s guilty smile and Wendy’s quick exchange of unspoken words with her brother, Peter. 

“Nothing!” Peter sang playfully. 

You slid onto your bench seat and Black started to serve those at his end of the table while Blue helped those at the other end. Everyone was set up with their own taco of sorts and halfway into the meal before Wendy spoke up, sounding ever so innocent. 

“So, I got to see the teachers at my new school today.”

“Tell me about it,” Black encouraged. “What did you think of the school or the people there?”

Wendy rambled on while you helped yourself to seconds, having already heard her thoughts during the ride back. You made a grabby hand motion for the hot sauce and Blue laughed at you but passed it down.

“So, it got me thinking…” Wendy trailed on, tilting her head to the side and batting her eyes. You grew weary, knowing Black was highly susceptible to manipulation with that move. Wendy was about to ask for something. “Can I say you and Y/N are my daddy and mommy tomorrow night?” 

!

What?

Stretch choked and Blue dropped his taco onto his plate. From his seat Tron glared daggers at Wendy while Peter huffed angrily.

“What made you think that?” you asked, regaining your voice first. It looked like Black was still frozen where he sat.

“Cause I don’t have a mommy or daddy but Mr. Blackberry takes care of me like a daddy and you take care of me like a mommy, so it’s it just okay to say that? I’ll be the only one there with no mommy or daddy.”

“Is it that important to you to be able to give us those labels in front of others?” you asked, treading carefully. 

“But…it’s true, sorta. You are kinda like…ummm, well, like a mom should be. R-right?”

“I wouldn’t know, sweetie, I never knew my mother or father and grew up without. I can remember wanting one at some point, but in the end it was only the family I made that I got to have.” You set down your shell and moved your plate up to cross your arms and set them on the edge of the table. “What do you think about your family here?”

“Wh-what?” she stuttered.

You asked your question again, softly. “What do you think about the family that you have here? We may not be mommies or daddies but we’re still a family, aren’t we?”

Wendy looked from you to Black to Russ and then to Blue and Stretch before her eyes landed on her brothers. Peter was her biological brother, but Tron and Phil were still just as true as siblings. Labels didn’t change that. 

“BE- ahem , be as it may, while that is true, Mutt-er, Russ and I were conversing on this topic when we had to sign you up for school. Officially at least, I am…registered as your adopted father and Russ is your legal uncle. We had planned on telling you before Meet the Teacher night, but this is most fortuitous an opportunity to address it.” Black shifted in his seat, angling towards the children more. “If you want to, you may address me however you so chose, just know you have…options now.”

“I can call you dad?” Peter asked.

“If that is what you want,” Black clarified. 

Tron’s eyes went wide behind his glasses. “For real?”

“Daddy!” Wendy cried, jumping out of her seat and reaching for Black. 

He caught her easily and tipped away from the table to save her dress from ending up on his plate. She was crying and Black might of had to duck his head into her chest to hide the lilac colored tears that leaked free from his own sockets. You felt warm just watching them.  

“You okay with being my uncle?” Tron asked, looking to Russ.

“Yeah, uncles are cooler than dads, aren’t they?” 

“Heck yeah!” Peter cheered, standing up in his chair.

“Sit,” you said, snapping at him to get down. Peter pouted but obeyed. Once he was in his seat his pout melted into a smile so wide it would have been impossible to hide. “I’ve never been able to call anyone dad or uncle or anything before.” 

You shared a look over the table with Stretch who was grinning along with the kids and Blue beside you cheered in celebration. And as tired as you were, you couldn’t help but raise your water glass in a toast. You’d have to have more conversations with Wendy and the others about labels, but for now and tomorrow there was a peace you didn’t dare disturb. 

“To new families, whatever we call them.” 

 

The kids went to bed without much more fuss. Before going to bed Wendy told you that she’d work on convincing you to marry Black so that you’d have to become her mom. You squeezed her nose and then bopped her forehead to get her to stay in bed when she wriggled. 

“You sound like you’re already dreaming, get under those covers missy.” 

“A song tonight, a song!” she cheered instead.

“You’re too wound up for a song.”

“Please,” she begged.

You turned towards the door, knowing Black was nearby. Now would be the perfect time for him to show up and insist on a proper bedtime schedule, but the doorway remained empty. It didn’t look like he was in the mood to rescue you tonight. 

“Please?” Wendy asked again, this time so softly you felt your heart break a little bit for her. As manipulative and spoiled as she was…

You turned around in the bed to lay down beside her and started to hum. She settled into her pillows and pulled up her covers. 

“Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, brown paper packages tied up with strings these are a few of my favorite things…”

Wendy’s eyelashes dropped, but stayed open enough to watch you in awed delight as you dipped your voice low for the melody.

 “Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels, doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles, wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings, these are a few of my favorite things. Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes, snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes, silver-white winters that melt into springs, these are a few of my favorite things…”

Before you could sing about the dogs that bite or the bees that sting Wendy’s eyes were closed, but you sang on, too keen to the presence hovering just outside the door to leave halfway. You got to the halfway point in the song before it repeated and moved from her bed to turn off all the lights, leaving one plugged in. 

You continued to sing in the dark, voice growing slow and dipping to even deeper, softer levels. You would never be a soprano, but you could still sing a halfway decent lullaby. 

“When the dog bites…when the bee stings…when I'm feeling sad… I simply remember my favorite things, and then I don't feel…. so bad ….”

You eased the door shut behind you and then turned to glare playfully at Black who stood with his back to the wall, a coy smile stretched across his face. 

“You did a better job than I,” he admitted bashfully. 

“I wouldn’t know. You were pretty absent in there, daddy .”

He flushed at the name and tried to hide the smile but failed miserably. You might have seen him shiver but it was dark in the hallway so you weren’t sure. “I will admit when I am outmatched. Wendy will never go down so easily for anyone but you.”

You had noticed at the dinner table Black’s speech sounded different, and now alone in the hallway you could pin a reason to it. He was taking his magic out of his words the same way Blue, Edge and Papyrus would.

“When did you decide to start pulling your magic out of your voice?”

He almost flinched at the question but recovered quickly. “I noticed that it was having a negative impact on the health of the elderly humans around me. It is not so difficult a task to accommodate others.”

“But there are no elders here now, Black.”

He looked away and you felt your shoulder drop as you put two and two together. “Edge told you didn’t he?”

“He…might have mentioned it. Though I wasn’t sure why he had to be the one to let me know I was hurting you. I’ve spoken with Russ about it as well but you likely didn’t notice as the impact of his change was miniscule.”

“Still, that’s…awfully sweet of you. Thanks for being so considerate.” 

Black blushed. “You are too generous with your compliments. I am not sweet.” 

“Mm, I think you’re sweet to me though.” 

“Then you are the exception, not the rule.”

“I can live with that,” you laughed.  

Black coughed to compose himself and then glanced past your shoulder. “You and my brother are watching movies tonight, I take it?”

“It is Tuesday,” you confirmed before the idea bubbled up. “Do you wanna join us? It’s my turn to pick the flick.”

Black glanced up at your expression and then away again. “Maybe next time. I wouldn’t want to intrude on your time with the others. My brother enjoys himself so rarely it seems.”

“I think he’d actually like to have you there, and I would too. It wouldn’t be an intrusion.”

“You are unaware of one of my glaring faults then. I have the unfortunate fate of being unable to control my impulses while consuming media. I’ve annoyed my brother far too many times to know he prefers watching his movies without commentaries.”

“Why do I have the feeling you’ll be able to keep it in check for just one night if you really tried?” you teased playfully.

“Because you have far too much faith in hopeless cases, my dear.” Black smiled and then reached for your hand. You let him take it as he bowed his head down to brush his teeth against your knuckles in a gentleman’s kiss, before turning your palm over and kissing there as well in some not so gentlemanly manners. He only grinned wider when he heard your sharp intake of breath. 

“Next time, my dear, it is a promise you may hold me to.” 

And then he was gone leaving you alone in the hallway with a darkening blush that no one had to see. Black wasn’t supposed to be the smoothest operator but he seemed to be surprising you these days. 

When you stop to consider it, he was the only one you weren’t…snuggling, sleeping, cuddling with at night. You had fallen asleep with his brother a handful of times, (Russ really was as touch starved as you first suspected him of being), you had a place at Sans and Papyrus’ house, Blue and Stretch had sandwiched you in your bed before, and Red and Edge were good enough about finding their way to you on their own. 

You felt a little guilty to be even thinking about the boys that way. It really was as innocent as it sounded, all you did was snuggle and sleep. Even if Red did have some wandering hands, you never let it go far enough to get uncomfortable. You…weren’t ready to let anyone see you so intimately.

And besides, it was the boys. Your boys. They weren't ...well, sure they were romantic and friendly and familial…but that was just the way they were. Right? You had all grown close after going through so much together. It was…normal, wasn’t it?

You stared down at your hand, feeling the phantom sensation of Black’s kiss. It had been enough to make you flush and that fact had delighted the skeleton quite clearly. But maybe it was the same sort of delight you got from flustering him or Stretch or even Papyrus. It didn’t have to be anything deep or meaningful, did it?

You forced your feet to move and you found yourself slipping down the hall, down the stairs, and into the basement level where Russ lived. He had a couple of rooms set up for himself downstairs but in the main area there was an L section couch plush enough to sink into and an impressive media display area. Russ had almost every gaming system consul set up underneath his plasma television. 

In a cabinet against the nearest wall there were shelves and shelves of DVDs he had collected over the months from various stores and outlets (even though he could just as easily download any move he wanted using his computer skills).

One day you hoped to have a lounge area as comfortable and set up as Russ’ but for now you were content to crash along with Stretch and Blue. 

“Did you bring popcorn?” Blue asked, poking his head up over the edge of the couch. 

“Nah, figured you were still full from the eight different tacos you scarfed down,” you teased playfully.

“I had four, don’t exaggerate,” Blue huffed cutely. “But I suppose that’s fine. We just have plenty of drinks so I was wondering if maybe I should get up for some snacks to balance them out.”

You looked past Blue to the opposite wall where a wet bar was set up with several different concoctions. You recognized a couple of beer brands on sight.  

“If you want popcorn I can make some real quick. There’s a microwave down here somewhere, isn’t there?” you asked, turning to face Russ with your question.

But before he could answer Blue had vaulted over the edge of the couch and cut across the room to the far cabinet where Russ hid his favorite food treats from the kids. The whole two bottom shelves were stocked full of an assortment of different alcohol cases and bottles. The third shelf and up was where the sugary monster cereal, monster dog treats, and candy was stored away. There was a big glass jar filled with brightly colored wrappers you recognized right away. 

Black still had a bigger stash. 

“I would never ask you to do something I could just as easily do for myself, that’s not how a gentle-skellie behaves.” Blue reached up and used some blue magic to pull down a box of popcorn packages. “Besides, aren’t you picking the movie tonight?”

“Yeah, I thought you might appreciate something slower.”

“No more superhero flicks?” Stretch playfully whined, eye lights bright in the dim of the basement with private mirth. “Those are my favorite to sleep through.”

“Hey!” Blue squeaked from the microwave.

Russ came over with a tall tumbler filled with something fruity mixed in with tequila that you accepted with a sigh of gratitude he only chuckled at.

“I’m down for something slow,” Russ said. “Maybe a mystery?”

“Or a slasher thriller?” Stretch chuckled.

“How is that slow?” Blue whined from the microwave. “You’re terrible, brother.”   

 “Sorry to disappoint, but I don’t think this flick is either of those things. It was really popular like twenty some years back I wanna say, when it first came out it won a bunch of awards. Bonus, it’s about a monster from before humans even knew about the monsters underground.”

Russ straightened and even Stretch stood up. “Uhh, is it… appropriate though?” Russ stammered, glancing between you and the television screen. “Aren’t monsters normally the bad guys?”

“Hey,” you called, drawing his attention and holding it. “Trust me?” 

And that’s how the four of you ended up on the couch, sprawled out with a drink or two each and three different bowls of popcorn each flavored differently with either extra butter, cheese, or a combo of avocado oil and salt.  

It started slowly but before long the story unfolds and the boys around you pick up on the fact that the monster in the movie isn’t at all like the monsters in most movies. A mute woman visits the aquatic creature dubbed ‘asset’ and friendliness turns to flirtation and then-

“She likes him!” Blue gasped, only to be shushed by Stretch and Russ. 

Normally your movie nights had a lot more conversation and banter, but you finished your first margarita and three fourths of the movie before anyone spoke up.

“The monster isn’t the monster,” Russ breathed, sounding almost quiet enough for you to miss.

You scooted back into the couch and moved so that Russ could crawl over and lay his head down on your side. Blue moved in closer to your opposite side, bit unconsciously. You swore some of these boys had special radar for when you were ready to cuddle or something. 

“Sometimes things aren’t so obvious,” you whispered into the dark.

You brought your arm down across Russ’ shoulders as he curled up alongside you, nearly purring from your touch while Blue settled his skull down on your opposite shoulder. At some point Stretch had gotten up out of the corner to crawl across the floor and plant himself between your feet, lifting one leg over his shoulder so that he could lean against it as he drifted.  

The movie nearly ended in tragedy, but in beautiful cinematic magic the tragedy became something far more beautiful as the woman and her monster lover descended beneath the waters into a new world where the conventions and social constructs could fall away in the face of something greater. 

“They got their happy ending,” Blue breathed in awe as the ending credits began to play. 

“Surprising. I thought they’d have some poetic tragic tie up but…I wasn’t expecting that,” Stretch added, sounding more awake than usual. Movie nights were his favorite naps, after all. “Didn’t you say this was popular?”

“Yeah, it was the most popular or the best movie made in the year it was released. I was a wee thing back then, but it resurged in popularity after the monsters came up from the underground and people were face to face with real monsters,” you answered.

“And no one in the general public remembered those old wars?” Blue asked.

You hold back the sarcastic chuckle when you remember Hightower and the place where you were raised. Of course some people still remembered, but the rest of the world got to live on, oblivious and free.

“Humanity… I don’t know what to say but, maybe humans have always been a little in love with monsters deep down somewhere in their hearts. I’d like to believe that’s why monsters have integrated as well as they have into our society.”

“We still get stared at plenty,” Blue laughed, “but one can hardly blame the humans for marveling at magnificence when they see it.” 

You laughed but reached over to brush your lips against the side of Blue’s skull, turning it flush with color as he heated up. “No doubt about it.” 

“I can see why you liked this movie, I think,” Russ breathed, voice hushed against your side. “It was so…lovely. It felt like a dream I want to believe in.”

You trace a pattern with the back of your knuckles against the side of his skull, making him shiver in quiet delight. “Oh really?”

“You don’t think you’re living the dream right now?” Stretch chuckled from down on the floor. In the dark it was so much easier to see the dark brown orange light from his sockets. Most of the Papyrus had eye lights harder to distinguish unless the surrounding darkness helped, but even in full daylight you would have seen the way Stretch’s eye lights shone with private mirth.  

“You can wake up from a dream,” Russ murmured. 

Stretch didn’t say anything back to that, but once the movie looped back to the title screen he tapped the outside of your leg before untangling himself to get something more to drink. He wobbled a little and you remembered how low his tolerance level was. 

“At least, I’m glad you liked the movie. I made a good choice this time?”

“I loved it,” Blue exclaimed, sitting up and pulling away from you only enough to turn and face you more fully. “I especially liked the part that didn’t make sense when suddenly she’s in a dress and dancing with him on a stage somewhere.”

“It didn’t make sense to you?”

Blue scrunched up his skeleton face. “It…did? I think I know what their intention was. That’s what she was thinking about or what she dreamed about, right?”

“Something like that. I don’t have all the answers but I think you’re right about it being in her head. The song she sang was what her heart felt and the dance, that was a feeling too. Haven’t you ever just felt a new emotion with someone and related it to something else?”

“The way you relate our souls to sensations instead of colors?” Blue asked. When you nodded he sat back to think it over. “I… I’m not sure. There is a good chance that’s true but I can’t think of an instance where it would have happened right off the bat.” His eye lights sparked with neon light before fixing on you. “But I guess I can relate to the girl feeling like she wanted to dance with the person she loved. That’s a happy feeling right?”

“Yeah, dancing usually is.”

Blue tugged at your wrist and you stumbled to your feet, Russ sliding soundlessly off your side and onto the couch as Blue pulled you close. With a wide grin to match the mischievous mirth in his eyes, Blue took one of your hands in his then slipped the other arm around your waist. When you were so close to him it brought into focus how tall he really was. Compared to his brother and the others he seemed snack sized, but you didn’t have anything to compete against him.

“Blue, what are you doing?” you giggled, already reaching up to rest your free arm on his shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. Behind you the title menu swelled gently. 

“It’s a feeling and I’m going with it. Won’t you let me take you along?” he teased, tugging you out and away from the couch.

You let him lead and Blue turned you in his arms, stepping with something close to practiced ease as he angled you around the room’s obstacles and into more open space. And as tired as you were, you couldn’t help but want to keep up when he spun you out or dipped you over his arm. 

From the couch Russ watched on with a tired smile that was a near carbon copy of the one Stretch wore as he watched you dip and twirl in the arms of his brother. The music behind you looped again and Blue pulled you close enough that the watery blue lights from the television screen painted you both in aquamarine hues. The shadows made Blue seem even more handsome. Almost handsome enough to admit your heart was hammering in your chest. 

“So this is how you feel right now?” you asked close to Blue’s ear cavity. 

“I actually feel like dancing you straight outta this house and into the stars with me, but this will have to do for tonight,” he chuckled. “You are the best feeling. I would dance to you forever if you’d let me.”

“You say the most beautiful things,” you admit.

“And yet they all fall short of doing true justice, my sweet,” he laughed.

“I think you’ve had one too many to drink tonight.”

Blue barked a laugh that was echoed by his brother at the bar. “You should know by now that your human drinks don’t have any sway over my faculties. I could drink you under the table and still be lucid and sane.”

“Take it easy there, cowboy. I don’t want you hurting yourself.”

Blue looked as if he was about to quip back with another joke or exaggeration but when he looked your way the lights in his eye sockets spun lazily into upside-down heart shapes. His expression went gentle all over and his dancing eased into the slow drift of uncoordinated and unplanned steps until he was just holding you in the middle of Russ’ basement and swaying. 

“Then, don’t go where I can’t follow you,” he whispered, voice so soft and low you almost believed you hadn’t heard him at all, but he rubbed your hand in his and leaned in to duck his head and whisper again. “I’ll be fine if we could just stay here like this.” 

“Oh? Not interested in bedtime snuggles then?”

Blue chuckled. “I meant-just together. I just wanna stay the way we are right here right now at least. Together.” He glanced back at Russ and Stretch. “All together.” 

You moved the hand from his shoulder to his skull, rubbing the base of it lazily in affection. You love the way he flushes and melts for you under your gentle fingers.

“Well that’s plenty doable from a mattress, isn’t it? I’m wiped from a long day and it’s well past my bedtime. Your brother looks dead on his feet as it is.”

Russ stood up from the couch and clicked off the tv and movie player before coming up behind you. Not caring that you were still connected to Blue, Russ draped himself over your back, resting his chin on the top of your head and looping his arms around your stomach. 

“’M sleepy too. Cmon guys.”

Stretch followed behind as the three of you made it to Russ’ room where you broke off only long enough to brush your teeth before returning to the bed where Stretch was already asleep at the edge, being tucked in by Blue. You crawled up and snuggled into the middle most section of the mattress and opened your arms enough to accept both Russ and Blue’s cuddles. 

You felt Russ curl up beneath your arm with one of his legs entwined between yours while Blue edged up on more and more of the pillows. You found a hand under the pillows reaching for you and when you reached back for it you knew Stretch just by the feel of his phalanges.

When you slept the music in the back of your brain was something low, sultry, and perfect for a freshly polished dance floor where no one moved faster than a slow heartbeat. Outside a moon hung low and full, leaking her filtered silver lights in through the thin windows at the top of the basement.

 


 

 ‘ Moon river, wider than a mile, I'm crossing you in style some day... Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker, wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way….. you drifters, off to see the world. There's such a lot of world to see.... We're after the same rainbow's end, waitin' 'round the bend, my huckleberry friend, moon river, and me…’

Notes:

Another fav chapter of fine, to be honest. I love The Shape of Water and apologize if you've never seen it, but hopefully the reference to it in this chapter didn't need too much context.

Also, a note on the timeline, in my head when I was writing this I sorta set it ten or so years in the future. So if you get thrown off by the idea of a movie coming out twenty years ago when it came out something closer to six, that's my explanation.

I've got the Meet The Teacher night coming up next chapter but then after that some more skeletons need the attention. Who have you been missing? I'm always curious what ya think.

Stay safe guys!

Chapter 37: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 5

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Black was, for lack of better words, painfully over prepared for Meet the Teacher Night at the new elementary school Wendy, Peter, and Tron would all be going to. He had printed out, highlighted, and copied the class supply list for each of the three kids and had even gone so far as to prepare a simple ‘thank you for teaching my kids’ gift for each of their teachers. 

And it was a gift , not a bribe because, while that was a leftover habit from his time underground, he knew that some body lotion and self care accessories wouldn’t take anyone’s favor very far. 

The school systems of humans were particularly critical about alcohol and so he hadn’t been able to add any of the wine or brandy. That was unfortunate, the poor teachers would probably need it by the time November came around.

“You’re going to do just fine, bro,” Rus said around another yawn.

Black suspected if Rus could, he’d much rather crawl back into bed with you and sleep in for a few more hours. (NOT THAT HE BLAMED HIM!) But, you had left early for a run with Blue and Papyrus instead.  

Even on a day off you were determined to stay in shape and build up your stamina. 

“I am not sure how many other special teachers or aids we might encounter. Should I bring extra gifts just in case? Administration would undoubtedly view it as a bribe so they’re all out. Social media pages on most of them were pretty sparse anyway.” 

“You’re fine. But now I’m worried.”

Black turned around to face his brother and scowled. “What for?” 

Rus made a face. “I’m worried because you’re the one stressing out about this. That’s my job. Why are you making me say the condescending things like, ‘it’ll be fine, don’t worry about it’ even though we both know I have no way of making it fine?” 

“You don’t own a monopoly on worrying.” 

“Between the two of us I do,” Rus snapped back. 

He sounded more irritated than Black could ever remember Papyrus sounding when they lived below ground. It was enough to calm him and ground him in the moment. What was he worrying for? It was so unlike him.

“You are right,” he admitted, clasping his hand on Rus’ arm. “I am sorry to have antagonized you so. It seems you are not in the mood to humor my shortcomings.”

Rus groaned. “-din’t mean it like that,” he mumbled before rubbing his face. 

“Why are you so agitated?” Black asked. He might not have had his brother’s skull for observation, but he wasn’t blind and he was a good brother. He knew Rus well enough to be able to tell when there was something off. “I thought you would be in a better mood considering the privileges of your company last night.” 

A faint lilac dusting took over Rus’ skull and he grumbled, covering his face with his hands. “D-Don’t tease me about it. That’s no-not it, just…”  The look of agitation on his face shifted into something more open and honest. Black recognized the worry in Rus’ eye lights for what it was. 

“What happened?”

Rus looked away but Black moved, purposefully using his ability to shortcut as if to remind Rus that there was nowhere he could go that Black couldn’t get to first. There was no running from this older brother.

Rus’ shoulders sagged more than typical as he stared down at his shoes. “Nothing bad, I just… last night she seemed like she was…restless in her sleep or something…and I-it got me worried.”

“Papyrus?” Black called when his brother didn’t say anything more without provocation. 

Rus refused to meet his brother’s eye lights as he continued to stare at the floor. “I…peeked a little.” 

Peeked? 

The first thing that came to Black’s mind made his own skull flush with violet color but then a half second later he remembered who he was speaking to. His brother might be a bit more lewd than the average monster, (with sub par standards in who he chose to share his intimate acts with), but he wasn’t the type of pervert to take advantage of another person no matter who they were or how he felt about them. Also, Papyrus was too much of a marshmallow for that in the first place. 

No, what Papyrus meant had more to do with his Judgment skill and less with human underwear. 

Oh Stars, did adult humans even wear underwear to bed ?  

“What did you do?” Black asked, before his imagination and curiosity could get the better of him. 

“I had-I had just wanted to see what it was that was upsetting her. She’s usually a pretty easy sleeper but she was so cold and…her face, in the dark I could still see it, even with us there….”

Papyrus .”

“I think it was just a dream, but there was void there, in her mind, swallowing her up.”

“It’s normal for some humans’ fears to imitate the void-”

“No, it wasn’t an imitation, I know what the void feels like, don’t forget who started off with that ability,” Rus cut in. “The void isn’t darkness, it’s not empty space, it’s something else and it was there in her dreams.”

“…She…has used the void with us before to travel via shortcut to locations. It is not a stretch to infer this method of quick travel left her with some adverse reaction that’s only subconsciously manifesting itself.”

Rus looked up for a split second and it was long enough to spot the additional guilt. 

“What else is there you need to say?” Black asked, feeling apprehensive about the entire conversation. He didn’t like the idea of it and wished he could just…talk to you about it. Papyrus was the one who liked secrets and subterfuge. He liked addressing his problems head on. 

“I read her files, some of them a while back, some more recently. This world’s Sans had them so I just helped myself mostly.” Papyrus began to play with the ends of his shirt, tugging at it and curling it around the ends of his finger bones. “I…found the other files later on after some pretty deep data diving, ones that guy didn’t even have. It mentioned the void space but… not much more than that. I had to infer most of the rest.”

“And you didn’t… address this with her, did you?”

Rus’ guilt was clear enough to his brother, but Black didn’t want to press the issue any more. He was tempted to know whatever it was Rus had uncovered, but knew better. He wouldn’t. You had shared much of your past, anything they had asked you had answered. That would be enough for him. He didn’t want to dig up your secrets from behind your back. 

“You should know better than to unfairly take this out on me and my justified concerns for tonight’s events,” Black sighed, standing with his arms folded behind his back. “How immature of my baby bones brother.”

Sans ,” Rus whined, using his brother’s original name for a change.

“You should know well enough now what you should do. She’s due back from her morning workout soon. You can speak with her outside if you don’t want the children eavesdropping.” 

Black turned and headed out of the room, leaving his brother with the last bit of advice he would need to get over his hurdle of guilt. 

Black retreated to his room and shut the door, letting it latch behind him on a swing. He heard it click shut and turned the lock with blue magic before heading into the bathroom to shower. Unlike his brother, he liked to have clean bones. Just because he wasn’t a human that sweat didn’t mean he was unable to get dirty. A day’s worth of dirt and dust was enough to taint the pristine color of one’s bones. 

Mechanically he cleaned himself and then cleaned the bathroom, leaving it just as clean as he found it before seeing to himself. He had chosen for himself the outfit for today and seen to it being hung up the night before. It wasn’t his most glamorous uniform, as it was missing most of his medals, but the cut of the jacket and the shiny brass buttons did enough to help him strike an impressive figure. The Jacket was black with double breasted brass colored buttons and a wide belt to keep it snug enough to complement the curve of his skeleton. His dress pants were red and tucked neatly into his elevated military grade dress boots. 

He stopped in front of his mirror and picked at the corners of his shoulders, keeping them sharp. He was…presentable. 

Sound from outside drew his attention to the window and he went over to catch sight of you, playing with fire in your hands and venting out of your arms as Peter cheered for the sight of it. Wendy sat on Rus’ lap not far away, but far enough to avoid the halo of fire you drew around yourself. It passed harmlessly through Peter who only squealed louder in delight. He bounced and looked as if he was trying to beg another trick off you, but instead you just laughed and ruffled his hair. You turned back towards the Barn, waving to Rus and Wendy before you departed.

Rus looked…

Happy.

Ah, so the two of you had already talked. That hadn't taken long. He had only been getting ready for the last…hour and a half? Not that long. 

But really, knowing what he knew about you, Black wasn’t surprised. Your soul was fiery and determined, but there was no violence left in it. You forgave too easily and believed too readily. Even though he had benefited from that trust…well…

You were probably too trusting and that made him nervous. 

Black left for his office and set to organizing inquiries and reports. There were several different properties he owned that incoming monsters were looking to rent from him in place of owning. Some weren’t sure they’d stay and others just weren’t financially ready for the commitment. That was fine. 

Much of the business of settling new monster neighbors he diverted to Papyrus and his team. Without Papyrus there to field the requests and act as Realtor and agent, Black wouldn’t have even humored the inquiries in the first place. He wasn’t so generous as to share, but you were eager to see the town revive so maybe…he could make an exception this time.

Really, he hadn’t expected surface life to change him so much.

Peter cheered loudly, running down the halls only for Tron to chase after him in what sounded like exasperation. Not far behind Wendy’s gleeful giggles punctuated the noise and Black felt himself sag in his seat.  

The door to his office swung open and Phil tottered in, looking pleased with himself and his accomplishments. Knowing Rus or Stretch or maybe even Blue wouldn’t be far behind, Black stood up to collect the youngest child into his arms and take him back with him behind the desk to hold while he worked.

 When Phil made his ‘grabby hands’ Black had a spare stack of papers and a box of crayons ready. All his important documents were out of reach so Phil could do as he pleased. If he colored off the page it wasn’t like that would be the end of his desk, either. 

What was the point of money if you were only ever going to get upset about things so easy to replace? 

You came by a little later with brunch-time snacks and to take Phil. Black insisted that Phil wasn’t a bother and didn’t need to leave but you saw through his exaggerations easily enough when the evidence was all over his desk.

“Focus on your work and get done what you need to in order for us to all leave tonight. Shortcutting the whole clan is too much which means we have to factor in driving time.” 

“A hassle,” he grumbled.

“A necessary hassle, I’m afraid.” You set down the plate and coffee mug to take Phil.

“I can walk,” Phil complained clearly. His vocabulary was expanding and his sentences were getting longer too, even if he was the quietest of the four. 

“And that just leads us to so many problems,” you hummed playfully. “Help me make lunch.”

Phil grumbled under his breath but nestled his head into the crook of your shoulder just underneath your jaw. “ Fiiiiiine .” 

Black waved as the two of you disappeared out the door and down the hall. Once left alone, he began to tidy the desk and organize Phil’s drawings into the accordion file folder under his desk. 

With his surface area back under his control, he dug into the mess of new and old business, determined to be dutiful about it after weeks of avoiding it. There was a letter from that awful aunt woman, for instance, that he really didn’t want to have to open. 

It would be so much easier to just work on another wing of the house or build up another stone wall around the property to deter wandering animals. He liked physical work. He was good at physical work. The paper pushing was just a necessary evil that he would EXCEL AT AND ADD TO THE MYRIAD OF HIS TALENTS!

But…

That didn’t mean he had to like it.  

He tore open the envelope with a letter opener and pulled out the messy scrawl.

-

Meet the teacher night started early enough that they could go out, visit, and then end the day with dinner at a nice restaurant that also had coloring place mats for the kids, like Chili's .  

“And I can get whatever I want even if Wendy doesn’t like it?” Peter asked for what was nearly the third time. 

“Of course.”

“And it can still be the same as Tron’s?”

“Yup.”

“Can it be chicken nuggets?”

It was cute and forgivable mostly because you realized that Peter had never been to a restaurant before. You made a mental note to take the kids out to Grillby’s one day soon. He had mentioned wanting to see them after you explained what you were doing in the town of Blackberry. 

Black wasn’t a huge fan of take out, and the only reason he even tolerated it anymore was probably because of you. He and Rus were both more than willing to cook a nice homemade meal no matter what sort of day they had. 

Black’s Yucan SUV was the only thing you could all fit inside and he, thankfully , was the only one who was allowed to drive it. Rus was strictly forbidden from ever touching the wheel lest he start GETTING IDEAS .

The drive down wasn’t bad. It was easy going for the first twenty five minutes before the farm and residential areas faded into something more built up. The grocery stores were all chains and there were more than two to pick from. 

Before long the road to the school came up and Black drove in behind a short line of cars that had assembled before you. A few families lingered in the parking lot, recognizing one another or fussing with a pop out stroller. You even spotted a monster couple with their son walking up towards the front. 

“It’s cute, isn’t it?” you asked, looking back at the kids.

Tron just shrugged and Peter made a sour face while Wend starred in mute surprise. Rus followed after you with Phil, bending down slightly to hold his hand as Phil insisted on walking himself. 

Black grumbled as he answered a text before putting his phone away. “It seems Blue and Stretch will be conveniently in the area an hour from now and wanted to know if they could join us for dinner,” he explained when you shot him a look. You accepted a bag of supplies from the trunk as he unloaded the rest using blue magic.

“When was the last time they came this far south without a reason?” you laughed.  

“Never.”

You accepted one more bag of supplies just in time to avoid the trunk closing on you. “They must be lonely. Since Stretch has started working at the plant, Blue’s been catching plenty of side jobs to keep himself busy and unfortunately, that means their schedules don’t always match up with ours.”

“It’s not necessary for them to,” Black huffed loudly, keeping the magic out of his voice. He side eyed you once and then dropped his gaze as color spread across his skull. “Though I will admit to being grateful for his efforts.” 

You were wearing the dress Blue had picked out and wearing Black’s necklace proudly atop it all. You felt a little overdressed when you saw the other families, but next to Black in his military type uniform you fit in just fine.

At least you think you do. 

You find Tron’s classroom and start there, since he’s the oldest and the one with the least amount of supplies. His homeroom teacher was pleasant enough and Tron was his usual polite self so when you left the room with the hairs on the back of your neck raised you…couldn’t understand why. Rus and Black seemed fine so you shook it off and followed them down to Peter’s room. 

It was a little noisy in first grade and the teacher had some concerns about Peter’s reading considering his record from kindergarten-back before he and his siblings ran away from the orphanage. When the teacher asked if someone would be willing to help him at home it finally clicked for you. 

The eyes. 

The eyes of the people in the room kept finding you, sliding over you to Rus or Black, only to come right back to you heavier than before. While there were monster families in the school-almost every classroom had a monster kid or two-there were no mixed families to speak of. And in addition to that, you weren’t nuclear in model. It wasn’t clear who you were ‘with’ if you were with anyone.

When Peter’s teacher asked if you could help him with his reading at night her eyes didn’t know who to land on. 

“He’ll have the help,” you promised her. “He has a big family watching out for him and plenty of helpful uncles.”

Some of the eyes slid off and away, but you could feel the tension still in the air even when it looked like no one else could. There was still a lingering curiosity along with a measure of judgement hanging on.

Black handed over the supplies and gifts and the seven of you made your way to the final stop of the night, Wendy’s kindergarten room. There were more parents there, snapping photos and cooing in awe about how big their babies were. There was an informal Photo Booth area where the teacher had taped up a rainbow colored sky. Next to it was a small table with signs and props. Rus thought it hilarious and took each of the kids through it while you went with Black to talk with the teacher. 

Wendy’s teacher had a line going and while the two of you waited a mother edged in next to you and nodded to the photo booth area. “Is that one yours?”

“Pa-pardon?” you squeaked, a bit taken aback. 

The line inched forward.

“The family there, one of those little ones is the reason you’re here, isn’t it?” the woman asked casually.

You forced yourself to try and relax. You had fought androids and monsters and nightmares alike, but the small talk of adults scared you worse than any of it. 

“Yeah, Wendy’s made it to kindergarten. She’s the one with the braids,” you answered, pointing.

“My, how cute. My son is the one making a mess at the desks with his father. I asked my husband to help keep him in check but you can see how well that went,” she chuckled.

The line inched forward a little more.

“Your son is adorable.”

“It’s his age showing,” the mother jokes. “Hopefully the two of them can be friends in this classroom. He’s not had the attention span for much else I’m afraid and I’ll apologize ahead of time for whatever blunt curiosity comes out of his mouth. He has no filter.”

“It’s his age,” you quipped back, trying on a more honest sort of smile. It would be good if Wendy could make some more friends outside of the family.  

The mother laughed as the line inched forward again, close enough that you could see you were only a family or two away from saying hello to the kindergarten teacher. You were close enough to hear, at least, the couple at the front ask how many monster children their daughter would be interacting with during the day. 

Beside you Black went stiff and you felt cold in your blood as you carefully memorized the faces of the duo. Wendy’s teacher smiled, but it was a thin, strained sort of smile that inspired some hope in your soul. She was clearly displeased with the question. 

“We’re actually very excited to welcome any number of monster children this year, but unfortunately I wouldn’t be able to give you a number.”

“That’s not an illegal question though,” the father complained, sounding like the sort of man that introduced himself as a taxpayer before he started his fights. Beside him the woman was watching the door nervously, but you noticed her eyes flickering over to where Rus played with Phil and Wendy.

“It’s not an illegal question but it's still not one I would answer. All the children are welcome here as long as they’re in need of a school.”

“O-of course, we weren’t sug-we didn’t mean to sound discriminatory. Heavens, no,” the wife laughed. “Our neighbors are monsters even.”

“Well if that’s all, you can let us know if you need any other supplies or snacks in the future. We’ve already signed in so…” the husband tugged the woman along and left the way they came. 

Beside you, the mother who still hadn’t introduced herself whistled low. “Sorry to see them go. It didn’t bother you too much, did it, to hear what they said?”

You felt the trap for what it was but still played off an innocent expression to match your tone. “No, of course not. Why would I?” 

The mother nodded to Black, looking him in the eye first before answering you. “Since you’re coming from a blended family of sorts, aren’t ya? Plenty of people around these parts are easy going enough not to care, but you’ll occasionally run into the old fashioned types. It might be hard on your child too, you know how kids can be.”

Her words were blunt but didn’t ring with any malicious undertones. And she wasn’t wrong. Wendy would eventually come up against the issues you were already dealing with from just walking down the hall next to Black and Rus. While monster integration had become less of a social issue in the past couple of years, interspecies relationships were still another separate issue. Hell, Black had even asked you about it before signing Wendy up for Kindergarten testing and after her request to call you Mommy and him Daddy.

As much as you wanted to shield her from the harsh edges of the world, you knew that letting Wendy grow also meant letting her risk hurt. The two went hand in hand. You knew that like you knew that no one on this earth cherished or loved Wendy and her brothers more than Black and Rus. 

“Yes,” you say, looking back towards the mother with a sharper gleam in your eye, “That will be a concern in the future, but we’re confident in the love and support we’ve instilled in her to stand up to both bullies and children who don’t know any better.”

Black reached for your hand, preening at your confidence as you continued.

 “We’re also confident in the staff and teachers here to help keep the classroom a safe space for everyone. I have faith that with time and patience the other families will adapt as well.” 

The mother nodded and smiled before extending her hand. “I’m Amani, and my son’s name is Asher. Hopefully they’ll be friends.”

You shook her hand and offered her your name before she moved to shake Black’s, meeting his eye lights with her own unwavering stare before letting go and leaving to collect her child and husband from their mess making.

Black reached for your hand again and squeezed it a little just as the last couple ahead of you stepped away. Before you could greet Wendy’s teacher you heard him whisper a soft ‘thank you’ that was only meant for your ears. 

“You must be Mr. Fellswap, I remember your email,” the teacher said, reaching out to shake Black’s hand first before reaching for yours. You repeated your name and she smiled before offering yours. “I’m happy to share my classroom with your daughter. She looks like she’s enjoying herself.”

“She is very social, but she can be a bit of a princess so please don’t hesitate to correct her when she steps out of line,” Black laughed. “But she is very much a fan of your classroom and has told me she’s more excited than scared to start school, so thank you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine.”

Later on in the evening, as you made your way out of the school with a small stack of files and paperwork you would need to complete and return on Monday, Black noticed the looks you were receiving. More than him or his brother, you were the one looked at the most.

You caught his attention and spared him an easy sort of smirk. “We should have role played a bit better if I was just going to get stared at this much.”

Black snorted, coloring lightly. “Oh, and how would you think you’d have fared if that were the case?”

“Hey, if we planned it out ahead of time I’d of killed it in there. Did you see how many of them were looking at my hand to check for a ring, or yours then Rus’?”

“A silly notion as skeletons do not wear rings.” Black waved his phalanges in front of his face and you saw how thin they were. A ring would slide right off unless it was custom made. “I would have gifted you with a collar first, as is the custom.”

“Kinky,” you snorted.

Black flushed darker and then whirled around to check and see if any of the kids were in earshot, deflating only a fraction when he realized they had all moved on ahead with Rus. “N-Not like that. It’s a-it’s not much different from your own customs if you were to think about it, only the placement is changed.”

“So if you were to ask me to marry you, are you saying you wouldn’t get me the biggest gaudiest, most expensive ring you could find and/or make?” you asked with clear disbelief in your voice.  

“Of course I would adhere to both custom-” Black snapped his teeth shut, going rigid as he realized what he had just said. When he looked up at you from between his hiked shoulders, you were smiling wickedly, enjoying his discomfort far too much. 

“You don’t have to get so worked up over it,” you teased in a sing-song voice.

“I AM-am not getting worked up over anything!” he stuttered, almost forgetting to hold back the magic from his voice as he lied to you about his composure. When you reached for his hand he avoided your face, but didn’t pull away. 

“Don’t fret, your majesty,” you teased, watching as he shivered at the pet name. “I’m just being a little silly.” 

Past his shoulder you could see a mother pause in the unloading of her car to stare at the two of you. It made you want to lean closer into Black’s side and make it more obvious that the two of you were friendly . They could infer the rest. 

“That’s your idea of a pet name?” Black chuckled.

“You don’t like it.”

Black smirked. “I can just do better, dearest.” 

“Beg your pardon?” you laughed.

“Feel free to beg, my pearl. I won’t stop you.” 

“Wow,” you snickered behind the curl of a handful of papers, using the forms to hide your smile while Black tugged you along.

“Come, empress of my heart, we’re keeping the family waiting.”

“Black, no, come-on.”

“Enough dawdling my love, do try to keep up.”

“Oh no, what have I unleashed?” you moaned into the papers. 

“Really, my jewel, you should have known better,” Black chuckled as he tugged you towards the open and waiting door.

“You’re worse than Red right now.”

“Don’t be silly, pet.” 

 Like a good gentleman should, he held your hand as you climbed in and winked over your knuckle before pulling away. After the door closed you allowed yourself to melt a little bit in your seat and admit to yourself that Black was far better at amassing embarrassing nicknames than you. When he opened the driver’s side door to climb in you glanced up from underneath your lashes and smirked at how pleased he was with himself. 

Rus glanced your way and from the look on his face you didn’t doubt he knows all about why his brother was in such a good mood. The only person alive more observant than Rus was maybe Stretch, (though that wasn’t saying much since they were both alternate versions of one another.)

Well, if a little teasing pleased him this much it was probably fine. 

You pulled out your phone and texted Blue where you were planning to eat as well as a map so that he wouldn’t accidentally take a shortcut to a different restaurant in the same chain. 

You : Just left, here’s the address if you still wanna eat together.

When Black pulled into the parking lot and saw the pair of brothers your heard his private groan as he complained about ‘interlopers.’ 

“Something wrong, M’lord?” you asked, preening at the way Rus snorted from his seat when he heard what you called his brother.   

“No, nothing amiss at all my diamond. Shall we go join the two of them?”

“Whatever you say… Mr. Blackberry King.”

 

Notes:

My fav comment made on this chapter by Jaylene: "This is off-topic, but black and mc give me some serious sound of music vibes sans (can't help it lol) the nazis" & "omfg he really is captain von trapp"

I did not plan on writing so much Fellswap/Swapfell for this story as they were the pair of brothers I was least confident in my portrayal of, but damn if they're not utterly domestic and adorable. Next chapter is a Papyrus ones and I'll be branching out to more of the boys. Juggling so many precious characters is hard and it would be easier if I cared about any of them less.

I headcannon that Black chose Fellswap over Swapfell as a last name because he minds being compared to the fell brothers less than the swap brothers *coughBluecough* But I've been writing this since September and reading UT stories since then too and I still can't clearly tell the difference between any of the swap/fell mashups. So, forgive me if I mislabel.

Also, what was your favorite nickname? I'm curious.

Chapter 38: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 6

Summary:

Being a monster mascot isn't all that it's cracked up to be, is it?

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Papyrus fidgeted by himself, he was feeling unusually wound up after having to skip out on his regular morning run for the sake of monster mascot business. He didn’t mind a break in routine, he understood that it was necessary sometimes, but his favorite part of the day was when he was with his friends and…he was beginning to realize with more clarity that the ‘friends’ from social media work and the ‘friends’ who were also family were not the same. He enjoyed being with Blue, and even appreciated working with Red and Edge. And especially you.

“We’ll be ready for you in five, sir,” a human with a headset announced curtly before walking off. 

Papyrus stood and posed in front of the mirror, making sure to double check his teeth when he smiled. He had to be extra careful whenever he was on television, since those scenes and moments lived forever. He was actually amazed with how much of him was up on the internet, free for someone to find and follow. 

His manager, a busy woman who always knew what to say or what to wear, had picked out his outfit for the day but it still felt off for some reason. It was a nice suit! Tons of monsters and humans would say he looked dashing, but it wasn’t... him .

 He had told his manager he wanted to move away from the more public persona and focus instead on quieter work. That suited her just fine as a new generation of monsters was coming up and one of them might need her. His outfit for the interview would be one of the last things she did for him.

“One minute!” the stagehand hollered. 

Papyrus ducked his head and stepped out of the small dressing room on the side to get into position. He’d wait in the wings until his name was called. He knew the routine well by now. The way he smiled and waved was something he could do without thinking by this point. In the beginning his exuberance and style was too messy and energetic for the camera. 

‘It’s better to save that for live crowds,’ his manager had explained.  

Backstage the crowd grew silent as the host spoke to the camera and rambled on with a rehearsed bit. Then his name was called and Papyrus was striding forward, steps measured so he wouldn’t cross the stage too fast, smile practiced, wave perfected. 

He shook his host’s hand and settled into the seat next to him, crossing his legs so that they wouldn’t appear too gangly or unusual. They hadn’t pulled out a different chair for him because he wasn’t supposed to be visually bigger than his host. It was a struggle considering the average height of humans. 

“Well I think it’s real admirable what you’re doing with the outreach program. Everybody deserves a home that suits them,” the host loudly praised. 

“That is the idea, isn’t it? Something that fits every person perfectly.”

“Speaking of the perfect fit, what is it we hear about you and Pink Lilly? She’s been dropping your name an awful lot these days.” 

Behind him on the screen there were photos of him with the pink feathered monster who was an ’influencer’ in monster circles that humans really enjoyed following on social media sites. She had started breaking into small time monster music production with MTT records. 

“She’s really quite talented,” Papyrus answered honestly before he could get the cue from his manager. “And to have that in addition to the drive to ‘make it’ is truly admirable. I appreciate the example she sets for all our younger friends and fans.”

“Are you sure that’s all you appreciate?” the host tease with a sly wink. 

Papyrus looked up past his head to where his manager was giving him the ‘wrap it up and move on with something else’ look. There was a ‘high potential for his words to be taken out of context’ and now that mattered more than ever.  

“She’s a wealth of talent and always an example to strive for,” Papyrus carefully answered with his trademark happy smile. “Speaking of talent, I’ve been taking a page out of your book and attempting something seemingly random to not-so-great success!”

The audience laughed along with Papyrus as the host flustered in good nature and then blushed before asking Papyrus what he meant. Then the crisis was averted as Papyrus recalled for the viewers how the host had embarrassed himself dog walking all five of his girlfriend’s dogs at once, only to be the one walked. 

“I need some fitness help!” the host laughed at Papyrus’ imitation of being dragged around on set. It had the audience in tears. “Papyrus, leave your card with me, I need to hire a personal trainer.”

“I don’t work with amateurs anymore,” Papyrus laughed, falling back into his seat with a comical grace that made him seem approachable. 

The host laughed and thanked Papyrus for appearing before the camera rolled off for commercials. Once the screen was off the host dabbed at his face and shook his finger playfully at Papyrus before getting up. “I’ll pin you down with a paramour one of these days,” he teased. 

“Don’t strain yourself, Charles!” Papyrus laughed back. 

His manager was back and guiding him off set to get some snacks before they stopped for his final evening suit fitting. At the end of the day there would be a charity gala on the lawn he was invited to attend.

The suit was just another outfit in the long line of things he’d never wear on his own, but everyone told him he looked handsome in it, so that was good enough for the evening. He’d be able to leave on time to make it home, and then in the morning things could be normal again. 

“I hear the lawn is going to look stunning after sunset,” one of the stylists gushed just past his shoulder. “The lights are supposed to be as stunning as stars.”

“It is sure to be a radiant evening then,” he quipped, almost sounding as bad as his brother for the sake of earning one more smile out of the human. 

“You should make sure to make a wish before you leave,” they urged and Papyrus promised to do just that.   

Once fittings were complete, Papyrus stepped off to the side while his manager worked out some final, financial details with the employees. The signs hanging from the wall advertised mostly human fashions, but because of their unique tailoring capabilities monsters were among the bulk of their clients. 

Several of the advertisements made Papyrus pause, as they displayed humans in clothing that looked as if it was coming undone for someone. The pair of models stared off as more of their bodies were on display for a clothing company. It…didn’t make sense to him how that brand of advertisement was expected to work. 

Someone had once chalked it up to monsters having less of a sex drive than humans, but that wasn’t enterally accurate. Most monsters had a perfectly healthy sex drive, but Papyrus just…wasn’t one of them. He was more emotionally driven, if he was being honest with himself. What his partner looked like or wore didn’t matter as much as-

I t’s a blue soul, it means integrity, right? …it’s one of my favorites. It makes me feel like I’ll be okay.  

Papyrus absently reaches up and rests a hand over his chest, right above where his soul would be if it were to be pulled free and made visible. A normal, boring, inverted soul with no color except for when you felt it. 

He felt cold down to his bones and hunched his shoulders against the sensation. He didn’t like having to wait by himself in the lobby of a tailor’s shop, he didn’t like having to be so careful about how he smiled, how he moved, how he sat. He didn’t like being away from his family. He didn’t like being away from you. 

He… hated it. 

And he felt guilty for hating it because he was living his dream. He had a thousand different friends, and strangers knew his name. People paid him to show up and talk at events or parties, posting photos with him like prized treasures on their blogs and profiles. People called his name when he walked into a room, but nobody made him feel the way you made him feel. 

You felt like home.

“Papyrus, ready to go?” his manager called out. 

And he wanted to go home more than ever.

“COMING!” he called back, forgetting himself for only a moment.

 


 

When he finally made it home a day later the sky was already shaded in bleeding colors of a late sun set. In spite of his weariness he stepped into his home and felt a thousand pounds lighter. 

He stomped his shoes on the mat out of habit, since there was no mud or dirt left on the expensive Italian leather. “I’m home!” 

“Welcome back bro.” 

Papyrus hesitated only a minute to ponder after the smell before his smile stretched wider and he was bounding into the kitchen singing your name. You straightened with a baking sheet in your bare hands, skin black where it made contact with the metal. Blue was also in the kitchen while Stretch snoozed lightly at the counter behind Sans. 

“Welcome home,” you echoed with a soft smile that made Papyrus want to melt. 

Sans laughed and Papyrus couldn’t find it in himself to fluster or deny how happy he was to finally be home, where his family was. 

“Long day?” Sans guessed.

Instead of putting on the bright facade, Papyrus nodded and moved around the counter to help take the sheet from your hands. “Oatmeal cookies with the dinosaur eggs? You remembered my favorite!” 

“We made a couple different types for you to try too, don’t just stick with the one,” you said. 

You wiggled your fingers to turn their burnt color back to a healthy shade before wiping them on the ends of your apron. It was one Papyrus had picked out for you and left in his kitchen, knowing you would use it whenever you cooked or baked in their house. It had a frilly front pocket and a background pattern of those short little dogs with the cute butts you couldn’t stop laughing at whenever you saw them out in public. 

They just wiggle so cute! Look at ‘em go. Waddle little guy, waddle .’

The one Sans had picked out for you was hidden somewhere in the back of the laundry room where he would never find it again because he NEVER DID HIS OWN LAUNDRY so he didn’t deserve to see you in an apron as awful or punny as the one he had picked out. ' Romaine calm and lettuce carrot on ' didn’t even make sense if you were baking!

“How was your day? You’re going to be on tv again tonight, aren’t you?” you asked.

“Oh, we should watch it!” Blue exclaimed. 

Papyrus smiled but felt the familiar knot of discomfort somewhere deep in his chest, nestled in his soul. He…didn’t like the idea of you watching him be that other version of himself on the screen, or be that person who had to dodge dating rumors and insinuations that had no grounds in reality. He helped plenty of people and monsters alike, that didn’t mean he wanted to…do anything with them!

Or ,” he excitedly exclaimed, “we could instead watch the sequel to that movie from last time while I tell you about my day!” 

“That sounds like something we’d all enjoy,” you hummed, glancing into the living room where Stretch dozed. “Blue, wanna go help find the movie? Papyrus can help me set these guys on the cooling rack and find snacks.”

Blue cheered and bounded off, berating Sans and then his own brother as he made his way to the media system. Sans sat at the counter watching you in the kitchen until a face you made triggered a quiet chuckle. 

“Got it, sweets,” he hummed before turning around and shuffling over to the couch. 

Leaving you and him alone. 

“Thank you,” you whispered as he dutifully moved your cookies from the tray to the cooling rack with a serving spatula.

“I’m always happy to help out in my very own kitchen, nyeh he he.” His chuckles were soft but honest and you seemed to know that by sound alone. “But what about you? The kids are in school now. Aren’t you missing them?”

“Maybe a little, but I have other things to take up my time and other friends to visit with during the day. The barn still needs some more work done on it.”

“Anything I can help with?”

Your smile makes his soul beat a little louder and he can feel his magic shoot tingles into his arms and hands the way it sometimes would whenever he anticipated having to use it. Papyrus was quickly learning that the anticipation of your next smile or comment was tantamount to the anticipation before a battle. Humans called it fight or flight instincts. That didn’t make a lot of sense though since humans couldn’t fly and kissing had nothing to do with fighting. 

Papyrus blushed at the thought and turned his face away to hide what little color had made its way onto his cheekbones. He hadn’t meant to let his thoughts wander…like… that

But!

He did wonder all the same. What might it be like to kiss you? He wasn’t sure if you would be interested in someone with no lips but that shouldn’t be as big of a problem once… things were figured out! 

Mismatched monsters coupled all the time. A human and a skeleton were really much more suited than any other pairing he could think of. Humans were skeletons…just with more plump and squishy bits that were warm and soft. 

Papyrus dared a peak at you pulling down different packages of popcorn and monster chisps.  The bones in your wrist and fingers stood out the most. In the light he could almost see where each knuckle sat under the skin. Your neck and collar too, there were plenty of places where you looked like him, or almost like him, enough like him.

“Help me carry these, sweets?” you asked, looking up from the bags you had gathered into your arms. “I’ll pop the popcorn and get us some bowls for those.”

“A most excellent decision,” he absently replied, sounding almost as far off as he felt. 

His head was a bit more meandering than usual and he wondered if that had anything to do with the dissatisfaction he had been feeling in regards to his duties as monster mascot. He had a hard time not escaping to his thoughts whenever he wanted to be somewhere else, but that didn’t make sense for the moment. There was nowhere else he would rather be than right beside you!     

You hummed, setting the timer for the popcorn and then pulling out a few Halloween themed bowls to pour the treats into. He noticed with mild amusement how one bowl had a pattern of skeleton bones and bats around the edges. It had been something you picked out while shopping with Sans. 

“How was it really?” you asked, your voice a whisper as you peered up through your lashes at him with a knowing look that he could never hide from. 

Oh.

Papyrus took a step closer to you and hung his head, feeling silly for acting so childish. He was supposed to be more energetic, more excited about life, more…more…

“I… went to the party but didn’t stay for the end. I couldn’t.” 

You reached for him and he let you pull him towards you. He dropped his face to rest against the top of your head while his arms loosely wrapped around your back. He could feel your arms resting on his hip bones. 

“Tell me about it?” 

“I just stood there,” he breathed. Behind him the microwave counted down the seconds with a dull humming. “I went to the party and I was supposed to greet people and shake hands and mingle but I…I couldn’t remember the last time any of them had…reciprocated. I had nothing to offer and nothing to ask for so I just…stood there to see who would approach me.” 

“And?”

“People said my name, waved hello, and moved on. Everyone there needed someone else. It wasn’t me and I wasn’t needed and-and…I think I’m okay with that.”

A year ago he wouldn’t have been. But a year ago he and Sans were still distant and he hadn’t met you or any of the others. A year ago he had been orbiting around a desire for fame and notoriety that never feed him like one of your smiles did.

“Papyrus?” 

You called his name so softly he wanted to melt into that sound and never become solid again. You were warm and you felt like home. His soul vibrated with the comfort you cultivated in him.  

“I’m okay not having a hundred friends if none of them can talk to me without wanting something. I…I have Sans and he’s like he was before we drifted apart which is sometimes insufferable since he still can’t pick up his socks or cut it with his terrible puns. But, he’s my brother and I’m so happy he is home to greet me and be there when I come back.”

He pulled you closer and closed his sockets, feeling your warmth. Behind him the microwave was nearly finished. 

“And I have you,” he whispered into your hair. “I have you. I’m not trading that for a million empty friendships. Not in a hundred thousand years. I was silly not to want this sooner in life.”

“Oh sweetie,” you whispered into his chest, holding him even as the timer to the microwave went off behind you, blaring and beeping for attention. He held you to him almost swaying as the way you breathed, rhythmic and soothing, lulled him.

“We’re skipping the previews, hurry and get out here with that popcorn!” Blue laughed, nearly making you jump out of your skin. You had been lulled just as well and Blue’s outburst had shaken you out of that. 

“I feel,” you began, reaching back to get the popcorn while you talked, “that you’d be up for a talk sometime later tonight. That okay with you?” 

“Are you staying over tonight?” Papyrus asked, sounding hopeful. 

It wasn’t necessarily his turn but if you made a decision to stay over someplace that didn’t matter. Whoever was next on the cuddle chart would just wait. It felt like it had been too long since he last was able to just hold you all throughout the night, but maybe that was because he had missed you during the morning’s skipped workout time.

“I have a feeling I’ll end up crashing here,” you said while putting another bag of pop-corn into the microwave to pop.

“We have a spare room for you.”

“I noticed.” You grinned up and from underneath your eyelashes you almost looked mischievous. “But I’ll probably just pass out on the couch if it’s all the same to you.”

“…I have a bed too,” he offered before he could consider the implications. 

You were so used to skeletons cuddling and sleeping next to you that it didn’t seem to phase you whenever someone offered you a bed to share, but Papyrus usually wasn’t the one to offer it. Sans was the brash one when it came to matters that could easily turn lewd (even if he tended to bawk when you so much as looked his way). Honestly, when Sans offered it was usually his brother’s bed he was offering up because he was a much better wingman than a flirt. 

Papyrus knew that to humans his offer could sound…suggestive, but it really wasn’t! He just wanted to…hold you and sleep next to you, with his arms around you, close to his side… 

And curses if he sounded selfish but he’d trade all the faces and names of people he had met once he came topside if it was just you that could stay in his arms. All he wanted was you. 

“I was thinking more of a pillow fort?” 

Behind you the second bag of popcorn finished and the microwave blared for attention to remove it. You smiled sweetly once more and he chuckled. “As long as I get to stay with you. We’ll make the most magnificent pillow fort castle together,” he said.

“Oh, that sounds like a deal,” you laughed while pouring out the popcorn. 

Together you carried the snacks out just in time for the movie to play in earnest. It wasn’t as good as the first in the series, but it had enough laughs and moments of action to keep you all entertained until it was nice and dark out.  

Papyrus got up to help clean up their snack bowls while you tugged couch cushions off with Blue’s help to begin to make that pillow fort you had talked about. Stretch showed up in the kitchen a minute later with the rest of the snack bowls, throwing out the crumbs and kernels before passing them over.

“Blue and I heard honey is staying here tonight?”

Papyrus almost felt guilty when he remembered who was supposed to have snuggle privileges with you. 

Almost. 

“It’s more convenient this way. Going home would be a hassle.”

“Maybe, but I know a shortcut.” Stretch leaned against the counter, staring dully at the blank wall beside the fridge, ignoring Papyrus who was an arm’s reach away.  

 Papyrus hummed, washing out the last of the dishes. “You and Blue don’t have a reason to fret. Tomorrow will come sooner than you know.”

Stretch huffed and it sounded like a breath of exasperation. “You must of had a real bad day to not even offer ta’ share.”

“It… can get crowded.”  

Papyrus pulled down a dish towel to dry the bowls on and noticed the look Stretch wore. Papyrus wasn’t dense enough to not know what was going through Stretch’s head in that moment.  He knew of all the skeleton siblings Stretch was one of the more, possessive of their lot, and he didn’t take disappointment well. But he seemed more mellow after settling in better with Black and Rus.  

“Sorry,” Papyrus whispered. 

“No you’re not. Don’t lie, it doesn’t suit you, and don’t apologize either. I wouldn’t.”

Papyrus almost snorted. “But I’m not you .”  

Stretch made a sound but pushed off the counter and dragged himself into the living room to where you and Blue were putting the fort together. He stood behind one of the stripped bare couches to watch and Papyrus could recognize the look on Stretch’s face too well. They were different people with different souls from different worlds, but there were still some ties that bound them. 

Some things were the same. 

“Work in the morning?” you echoed, standing up from the bare bones of the fort and frowning. Blue made a sound as well but reached for you to hug before joining his brother at Stretch’s side.

“Don’t sweat it, honey, we’ll catch up tomorrow night. Your place?”

“I can cook!” Blue offered.

“Or I could do that since you’re both coming off of work,” you laughed. Blue looked ready to protest but you smiled sweetly enough to melt his protests. “Let me?”

Papyrus lingered in the kitchen while you said your goodbye and made plans with the others. That’s how it always went. No one ever showed up uninvited, but the whole process of drawing sticks for the snuggle order was something you hadn’t been notified about. 

Papyrus took a cookie for himself to nibble on while you said you goodbyes, only emerging after the pair of brothers were out. You saw him and frowned, brows furrowed in concern.

“You okay?” you called. 

The expected answer was exuberance, but for once he felt like being honest with the things he never admitted. “I will be. I’m very tired though. Not in my body, but in my soul I think. Things just got a little...loud for me.”

Sans was already asleep inside the mediocre tent but with a little extra help from a tall friend, you were able to prop up a frame for the blankets to drape over.

“Can you tell me about it?” you asked. 

Around you the house was quiet and every creak and groan that came from the old bones of its framework settling seemed muffled as he followed behind you. In the quiet he felt like he could say anything. When you reached for his hand he felt like he could sing if you asked him to. 

“I’ve…felt like this more and more recently with my media work. I’m…phasing out the monster mascot work and turning it over to some of the other monster stars.”

“I remember you mentioning it before. How long have you felt like being a monster mascot didn’t fit you anymore?”

“Not terribly long,” Papyrus rushed to explain, fearing you would worry or think him incapable of self managing. “But, before I took the job with Sans I had been considering a retirement of my position. It didn’t feel right anymore, but it was what I was good at? What else could I do but be a personality for others? Plus… it felt like people almost needed me.”

“There are tons of things you could do,” you laughed. “You’re smarter than a whip, and any workplace would be happy to have someone as positive and pleasant as you.” 

“I don’t feel very positive right now,” he admitted in a mumble that was so out of character he was almost worried you would not believe him, so he forced out a chuckle. “Just…tired?” 

“I’m-don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m glad you can say that to me? It’s amazing how exuberant you are on a daily basis, but forcing yourself to be the bubbly one when you don’t feel it has got to be grueling.” You touched his face with the tips of your fingers. “You deserve days when you don’t save the world with your positivity. You deserve to rest your smile, no one can keep that up forever.”

“Well, a skeleton can because we don’t have any muscle.” 

Your eyes went wide for the joke and he had to laugh at your wonderstruck expression. You called his name like a whine and reached up to hold his face with both hands. He laughed a little harder and reached for you when you were close enough, pulling you to his body and pinning you there with arms crossed behind your waist. 

“I was making a serious point, you funny bones !”

Papyrus just laughed harder, snickers morphing into the familiar ‘Nyah ha has’ that the world would remember him for, even if it was only for you in this moment. 

“Me? You know the funny bone isn't actually a bone at all and I have no ulnar nerves to deserve your- neh -to, snk -to deserve such a vulgar, nyah , ha , such a-a lewd, nyah-haha ha ha !”

What was he getting so mopey about?! He felt light as a feather. He could carry you like a feather and maybe that was it. You were in his arms and you were laughing at him so hard you had tears in your eyes and it was making you hard to breath. 

“Oh, sweetie,” you sighed, resting your hands around his neck instead of on his face. “You know I think you’re the literal embodiment of sunshine, right? Please feel free to be honest about what you’re feeling in your soul with me. I care about you, alright. I want you to rest when you need to.” 

Papyrus rocked gently with you in his arms. “I am resting,” he hummed happily. He felt like a battery recharged with you in his arms. He didn’t want to let you go. As long as he had you he could do anything. “But maybe…stay like this a little longer?” 

“Anything,” you promised so easily.

Papyrus rocked with you in his arms, feeling a rhythm to his movement that wasn’t unnatural or learned. It felt easy to sway with you, listening to nothing but the quiet and your heartbeat. So close he thought maybe he could hear it. 

Human bodies were never silent. Their breathing, their heart beating, their blood pumping…their bodies were so vibrant and your’s was one he was expertly accustomed and attuned to. The way you breathed made him want to try it even though there would never be any relief in it. The more he was around you the more he wanted to mimic what you did. The more he wanted to be a part of you, even if it was a reflection. 

Absently, as if guided by an old habit, he slipped his hands out from behind your back to rest one on the curve of your hip and take your hand in the other. You left your other hand around his neck and he didn’t mind it one bit as he turned and stepped with you. There was no music but he could hear the crack of your fiery red soul or maybe it was your heartbeat, and it was enough to dance to. 

You rested your head on his chest and he felt it when you hummed, it was a vibration that made his entire skeleton echo. It sounded like a song without words when you hummed into his chest, and he felt the steps he took around stray furniture fit in with the way your voice rose and fell. It was a waltz of your own making and he would gladly lead you through it. 

The way you moved antagonized his imagination into picturing the way he would lead you across a ballroom in different clothes in a different time and different place. He’d lead you like this and you’d stay in his arms like this. You’d stay with him from song start to song end, you’d blush and before you could leave he would take you into the steps of the next song, and then the next, and the one after that one too. 

Feeling inspired he stepped over a stray pillow with the ease of his long legs, carrying you over it effortlessly so that your toes never touched the ground. You sighed through a smile and tilt your head back to watch him and he realized it was because he was humming your melody like an echo.

Oh, he liked the way you looked at him. 

He turned with you in his arms once more and you followed, never minding the fact that you were back at the beginning of whatever it was you had been humming. He was happy to take over and take you with him across the room once more, passing his snoring brother under the blanket fort. 

Maybe he was being a little spoiled. He knew better than to believe Sans was really asleep, the snort sounded far too forced after all. His brother was bowing out for this small turn around and on any other day Papyrus might try to guilt his brother into joining them, like he knew Sans wanted to do, but not tonight. 

No. 

Tonight Papyrus wanted to be selfish. Tonight he wanted to take and to receive. He didn’t want to have to share you with Stretch or Blue or any of the other brothers who looked at you like you were their world. Tonight he just wanted to keep you close and maybe believe in the imagination that you were his and only his. 

Just for a moment.

Just for a spell.

Just for tonight. 

“You ever done this before?” you lazily asked, staring up at him through your lashes. Absently, your fingers around his neck tickled. 

“Only in my dreams.”

“They must be nice dreams.”

“I’ll take you there.” 

Your eyes sparkled with an emotion that made him think of all the nightmares that waited for you once you were alone-the nightmares he protected you from.

“I’d like that,” you said in a voice so soft it might as well have been a whisper. 

In the morning, others would be waiting for you, and the day after that still more. You were a freedom he couldn’t pin down, (not that he wanted to!) and he understood what that meant, but… tonight? Tonight he just wanted to hold you like this and forget about all the others, the forced smiles, the camera, the suits that didn’t suit him (heh)…tonight he fit right where he was in your arms and that would be enough. 

Notes:

So I guess this is one of those more atypical chapters, but I liked writing from Papyrus' POV for it.

I thought a lot about what life must be like as an influencer/monster mascot and how that can change a person after five+ years of it. Fame is nice, and helping people is great, but dang if coming home isn't the best feeling in the world when everything else gets loud.

Also, these kids are setting up that poly framework and they don't even know it.

Chapter 39: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 7

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Fever dreams were a trip for most people, but yours were haunting. When you woke up both your eyelids were crusted with old tears, even if only one of them worked. Your head was pounding with the echo of old terrors and making you dizzy. 

But you were safe.

You weren’t...you were out of all that now. That was your past. Not your future. Instead of pits into the dark and tests of endurance, you were struggling with fifth grade math and waking up on time to make breakfast for others. It was exhausting in a new and different way, so it was no wonder you ended up passed out in the field out back.  

Of all the people to find you stretched out and buried among the tall grasses just past the pond, you wouldn’t have guessed it to be Red. He was notoriously lazy and ‘deathly allergic’ to exercising after all. There wasn’t a reason for him to be leaning over you with a stretched out skeleton grin that made his eye lights stand out in their sockets.

You blinked when the bee resting on your forehead got up to fly at Red’s face and then zip away, towards the wild flowers on the other side of the pond.

“Hey, what you gonna call a bee that can’t make up its mind?” he asked you.

“Lost and confused?”

Red’s grin grew wider. “A maybe .”  

“Isn’t it too early for you to be awake?” you mumbled, reaching up to tug out the blade of grass from between your teeth where you had been chewing it. You got your hands under you and pushed up into a sitting position.

Red reached out to pat some of the dirt off your back and elbows, grin never ceasing. “It’s almost noon, doll face.” 

“It was like, nine when I left,” you said around a yawn. “How’d it get so late?” 

“Did you come out here to catch some zzzs?” he asked while reaching for your face to feel it. “Damn, and here I was hoping I’d be the one turning you pink. I think you caught too much sun.”

You groaned, poking at your face and feeling the heat. It wasn’t from sunburn, but the annoying fever you had been fighting back for the past week was flaring up again. No wonder you fell asleep outside after your run. That also explained your lackluster performance for the amount of sweat. 

Well, it was bound to happen after working so closely with children who had just started attending school, or as you affectionately called it, the germ factory . Peter and Wendy had already had a cold each, but Tron was, thankfully, staying strong. 

You pulled yourself up and stood, feeling the stick and grime of your sweat plastering your shirt to your body. You didn’t have the head for it, but you probably looked and smelled awful too. Why was Red still looking at you like you were something worth watching? Or just…someone worth the attention?

“So what are you doing all the way out here?” you asked.

“Would you believe me if I said I could see you from our new digs?”

You pushed the wild mess of hair out of your face before his words sink in a heartbeat later. “New digs? No way. Where?” 

You were pretty far out in the middle of a field you weren’t sure who owned. You knew Black’s property went up and covered the pond, but you had fallen asleep a good way aways from the watering hole. 

“Come on, I’ll show you, just make sure to tie your shoes before we get there. I don’t want you falling for anyone else along the way.”

“Red, even if there wasn’t gravity on earth I’d still fall for you,” you teased back with a playful laugh as you watched for his reaction. 

Comically, Red staggered and grabbed at his chest where his soul would be. “Oh sweetheart, I'm no photographer, but hell, I can picture us together.”

“I think your content is in need of a little development , big guy.” 

Red laughed but reached for your hand and tugged you along saying, “That hand of yours looks heavy, let me hold it for you, doll.” 

You wanted to tease him back, to keep the jokes going, but the sunlight made the world hazy so you closed your eyes for a moment and blindly followed behind Red, trusting him to take you where you needed to go.

It wasn’t far. 

Next to the field there were a number of scattered copses that buffered up a new line of property and one of those properties was the one Red and Edge had managed to secure for themselves after some aggressive refinancing. 

Like Blue and Stretch, the Fell brothers didn’t have a lot of gold to go off of, but they had enough to make a fair living once it went through the conversion process. Edge had busied himself at one of the local Mills as a ‘ man of manual labor ’ while Red juggled a number of side jobs, one of which was shortcutting express pizza and BBQ deliveries door to door. Once you found out you had made it a point to order when he was on call just to see his face.

After a couple of months later it sounded like they were finally ready to split from Sans and Papyrus’ generous hospitality and settle into their own place. Blue and Stretch might get a bit miffed when they heard of it being all official for Red and Edge, since that made them the only brothers still relying on another’s kindness.   

“You off from work today?”

“It’s corn dog day.”

Corn dog day was when he sold corn dogs with a monster twist from a mobile stand…illegally without a food handler’s license. You had warned him about getting in trouble but he just showed you Sans’ old food handler’s license before comparing a photo of himself to the other skeleton. 

“If anyone asks, I mean, technically speaking I am Sans Serif.” 

On corn dog days he set his own hours and worked whenever he felt like it. Still, it seemed like one of his favorite jobs so you were surprised he wasn’t downtown with his cart for the noon rush.

You followed Red through a thin scattering of trees that eventually cleared to reveal a small stone foundation, A frame style house with a few patches and missing shutters around the windows. Outside, there was a picnic table with benches set up as well as a grill and some stump shaped chairs. 

“It’s cute,” you gush before you can worry about sounding like an adult. “And it’s so out of the way too, that’ll be good for the two of you since I know Edge likes his quiet.” 

“Ehh, Boss don’t mind the noise, he just don’t like it when I’m the one making sounds,” Red laughed. We closed on it last week and got the keys and everything. Wanna see the inside?” 

Your smile must have been answer enough since Red tugged you inside after him, holding open the door. Inside the interior was sparse and still needed a little help. It looked like Red and Edge had moved or thrown out a lot of the leftover trash and furniture left behind by who had come before. There were still discolorations and outlines of dust on the floor that marked the absence of objects like ghosts across the floorboards. 

“We still got ta get the place dressed up, but that’s Boss’ job mostly. He’s the one with an eye for design. I just make the messes.”

“I’m sure you’ve been more than helpful getting this place cleaned up.” 

“Eh,” Red admitted with a shrug of his shoulders. “Maybe. It’s fun though how excited Boss has been about the whole project. He did most of the work, tearing things down and pulling things up. He’s got plans to replace boards and knock down walls and fix up the fireplace. He’s been watching too many of those home makeover shows with Black I think.”

“Hey, it’s only too many when they start talking about shiplap on the walls,” you playfully warned, already knowing about Black and Edge’s shared interest in HGTV home reno shows. If Black had the television on while he worked it was almost always set to the home network or food channel that Blue was so fond of.

“Spare me,” Red dramatically moaned. 

“Only if you tour the rest of your new place.”     

“Babe, though you’d never ask.”

 He offered you his arm like he was playing at being some fancy gentleman type but you indulged his joke and latched on as he led you to the exciting empty closet sized room where a washer and dryer would go if they had one , the two downstairs bedrooms rooms, an office space room, the back porch, a door to the basement, and finally the loft second floor. 

“It’s a bit small up here for the Boss, so we’re not sure what to do with the space. There’s a room up here too, closet and everything.”

“A guest suite?” 

Red glanced sideways at you once before coughing. “If we made it one would you use it?” 

“Me?”

Red hiked his shoulders, covering more of his face with the fringe of his jacket’s hood. “Yeah, I mean, you know. Uh, I’s a heard that marshmallow and his brother picked out a room to decorate up all nice and fancy for you whenever you stay over and, ye-yeah the digs aren’t nowhere near as good as theirs, but it’s a…it’s a decent place, yeah?”

“It’s a wonderful home,” you gently affirmed. “And you’re going to make it yours.”

“Just ours?” 

“If that’s what you want, I’ll help out with designing that guest room, but not until you and your brother have your own spaces set up and comfortable. You guys come first in your own house.” 

“You’ll come with the Boss and me to pick out curtains and furniture then?”

“I’d be de-lighted .”

Red’s easy smile split his face and his eye lights wobbled in his sockets, glowing pale red and shifting into fussy hearts or spades as he laughed along with your joke. “Babe, you’re too bright for your own good, you know that?”

You rolled your eyes but spared his pun a small snort. “Now that the kids are in school I have a ton of free time during the middle of the day. We can put something on the calendar for this week if you like, just not Saturday or Sunday.”

“I got it, a day when the kids are in school, that should be easy enough for the boss to manage.” 

“What do you think you need, anyway?”

Red led you through the house layout one more time with suggestions and questions for your opinion. You noticed there were already a number of yellow colored sticky notes stuck to different sections with notes from Edge about repairs he intended to make before the house was ready to decorate. There were a few cracks in the walls he wanted to touch up and there was even a note next to the fireplace about pressure washing the stones(?) to return them to their ‘previous luster,’ whatever that means.

By the time you both made it back to the kitchen, the clock on the newly installed stove said it was 1:20.

“You sure you don’t need to go for corn dogs today?” you asked. 

Red waved your concern away. “I work when I wanna. Something more important came up. I’d rather be here with you. Sides, I make a good deal more at the delivery place.”

“The Slice of Heaven Pizzeria?”  

“Ah no, that’s the other, other delivery place. I meant the one with the packages. I get a nice bonus whenever someone pays extra for the express shipping. I make pennies at the corn dog stand but I like it best so I keep it up.”

“Your illegal corn dog stand,” you playfully mocked.  

“Yeah, that’s me, resident bad boy in a collar. But hey, speaking of food, you wanna go grab a bite with me, say Grillby’s?”

“You ever known a person to turn down Grillby’s?”

“Aside from the Boss?”

Aside from your brother, of course.”

“I was hoping it’d be enough to win ya over. I’ve been dying for something greasy with fries. You mind if I take us with a shortcut there?” He was already reaching for you to pull in closer and hold.

“I’m kinda gross from workout this morning.”

Red laughed and in the filtered sunlight that made it through the grim on the windows, Red’s gold canine tooth sparkled. “You smell fine and look great, sweetheart, trust me, ain’t nobody gonna care about it but you. Don’t you want some protein?”

You rolled your eyes but slipped your arms up behind Red’s head and leaned in. “Lead the way, slick. I know how to keep my distance.”     

You fell in and out of the void as easily as falling asleep-unable to feel the beginning or end of it. And as fast as a shot, it was over and you were standing outside the brick front property that was bustling with lazy business in the early afternoon. It was just after the lunchtime rush, populated by both human and monster alike. 

There were a number of humans who had stumbled in to see what the hype had been about, and a good half of them decided to stay or come back later. The slow pace of life the townspeople were accustomed to suited Grillby just fine and it worked out better for him compared to his place in the city where life was faster than light. 

Still, it seemed the bulk of his clientele were his monster faithfuls.

The door chimed as Red tottered in, playfully stepping in with what he thought was a swagger to get the fire elemental’s attention. Grillby noticed Red’s gold tooth grin and seemed to deflate. More than Sans, Red had made himself a famous face around town for being a mischievous bar fly it seemed. It hadn’t taken very long to build up that facet of his reputation. 

But then Grillby noticed you and the edges of his flames flickered in a familiar greeting you understood. Lazily you waved and the flames at your fingertips crackled like the logs on a fireplace. It made Grillby chuckle, shaking his shoulders so that even the doggo monsters could tell he was happy. 

Red hopped up into a seat first and you followed, sliding onto a stool at the bar beside your friend. Grillby’s flames wavered when he glanced to Red, tone weary, before his attention was back on you, asking how you were. 

“Nothing to complain about. I’ve been good. Looks like business for you isn’t so bad either.” 

Instead of keeping the conversation in the language of flames Grillby put in the effort to use spoken words. “…Not too busy…not too slow… just right.” 

“Sounds like you made it, Goldilocks,” Red chuckled, eyes flashing in delight at the joke. 

Grillby’s shoulders dropped a bit. “…The usual?” 

“Please and thank you,” you answered for both yourself and Red. 

You rested your elbows on the countertop and settled your chin between your hands, cupping your face gently. “It smells great here. The beef, the grease, the fries… I need a candle that smells like this for whenever I’m hungry.”

“Or you know, you could just come on over and show up for the real deal,” Red laughed. “I’ll even treat this time.”

“Nah, I’m good, but thanks for the offer. Don’t you have a tab going?”

Red made a face that could have been a pout if he wasn’t in such a good mood. “Nah, that’s only for the marshmallow himself. The rest of us have to use our wallets.”  

You snorted. “Like you should, you dweeb.” 

Red shot you a wounded look that was almost as poorly put together as his pout. It made you roll your eyes and snicker, but that’s what he wanted, so you can imagine the smile that came back onto Red’s face meant you had pleased him somehow. 

“So says the only human who eats on the house,” he playfully mocked. 

His comment made you shrug, expression a tad shy of smug since what he said was true. You got the ‘Sans’ treatment at Grillby’s though you weren't sure why. 

You tapped the countertop before slipping off your bar stool and making a beeline for the jukebox in the corner, playing smooth jazz the way Grillby liked. You flipped through the tracks before setting up a couple to play with the last wrinkled dollar left in your pants. If you had any leftover change you’d spring for a third track, but you’d be content with September by Earth, Wind, & Fire before something a bit more electronic came on.

You swayed on your feet, gently moving to the soft rhythm that flowed out, stepping when the energy picked up. You didn’t feel up to dancing between the tables, but you had been known to do just that if the mood struck you. It was enough to just sway with the music.

Before the first song was over you heard the plates on the countertop and turned back to see Grillby setting out the burgers for both you and Red, followed by the boat of fries. Red pointed to a bottle of mustard behind the counter and Grillby didn’t even try to stop him from using blue magic to bring it over. 

Grillby shot you a look over Red’s head that communicated perfectly without words the plea for help as he watched Red smother his burger patty in gobs and gobs of messy mustard. 

You offered him a sympathetic smile before sliding into your set.  

“Grillby, this smells divine,” you moaned before picking up your burger to bite into. You melt a bit in bliss before swallowing and flashing him another new smile. “And it tasted just as good as it smells. I’ll never be tired of your food.”

His flames flickered with blue color around the edges before he ducked his face and turned back around to grab the alcohol from the back wall and pour a drink for Red. He turned to you and his flames flickered with the question. ‘ Would you want a drink too? ’ 

“I think…I’ll be fine without today, but thanks for checking. You have something softer but still not water?” 

Never touch the stuff! ’ his flames chirped cutely as he turned to mix you a drink better than any specialty chain could offer. 

You watched him pull something pink down from the shelf and mix it with lemonade and then another bottle of tea. There was a little more flare as he transferred the liquids from one container to the next and from the way his flames flickered proudly you knew he was showing off a little, the way he did whenever he went off menu for you. The drink came together in a frosted glass with bobbing ice that he set down in front of you with a red and white striped straw. It was cute, just the way you liked it.

 You reached for it and made a delighted sound. “What is it?” you asked.

White tea, lemonade, and pink guava. Figured you’d be tired of all the local fruits by now. ’ 

“Ah, well I’m not sick of anything yet, it is nice to have a taste of something new. Thank you, it’s perfect.”

His flames flickered blue around the edges again, but he ducked his face and turned around to busy himself with another customer’s order. 

A table behind you the dogs playing cards snickered at something happening in their game and further down the bar a lava monster girl flirted with a local human. You heard the song behind you replace your second pick on the jukebox but found yourself bobbing along to it all the same. 

You were nearly done with your burger when you called out to Grillby, since he was close to your section of the bar. “How is Fuku doing in school? Is she still at that community college?”

Grillby answered using the language of his flames and you listened as he rattled on about how his poor daughter was too scatterbrained to settle on a major and having trouble picking a field of study. It was so much easier when she was in high school and all her classes were pretty much just picked out for her.

From his seat at the counter Red watched you listen to Grillby, trying to figure out what was being said based off your replies when you didn’t offer a translation. Still, your answers had plenty of clues for him to go off of, so that he eventually was able to add his two cents about picking a major suited to a person’s tastes. 

Then Grillby asked you about ‘your kids’ and how they were doing.

“The-they’re not my kids exactly, I just help out with watching them and take them home after school and…stuff. But they’re good.”

Red inhaled sharply and you caught him trying to hide his snort of laughter behind his hand. You glared at him and tugged the boat of fries closer, out of his reach, in retribution. They were a little cold compared to when they first came out, but you were able to warm them up in your hands with a little fire magic of your own.

 Red reached for some of the newly reheated fries but you tugged them to you again and kicked him lightly to back off because those were your fries!

Grillby chuckled but prepared a new boat of fries for Red to keep him satisfied.

“There’s…less than ‘ers” Red whined when he saw what Grillby set in front of him.  

“…She ...finishes hers.”

You stuck out your tongue, feeling too much like the child that successfully tattled to the parent about something someone else said. 

“I finish my fries.”

“…You and Sans both…leave the sharp ones.”

“They’re stabby fries,” Red protested, sounding like he expected his excuse to be accepted. You rolled your eyes and Grillby’s flames dimmed just a tad. 

“That’s fine, I’ll eat your leftovers.”

Red made another face. “How are you still hungry?” 

“You’ve known me for how long and you’re supposedly surprised about this now?”

“You have a monster’s appetite, babe.” 

Red reached for his fries but hesitated to peak up at Grillby who hadn’t moved on to the next task at the bar. There was a moment of awkward pause where you waited to see if Grillby would say anything. It looked like there was something on his mind, but instead of saying anything Grillby just reached for Red’s empty plate and moved on with it. 

“I think I said something ‘ta piss him off. You don’t think he’s mad I called you a monster. You’re good with that, ain’t cha?” 

“Totally,” you say between sips of your drink. “But I think you’re reading too much into it. Don’t you think it would be weird if he wasn’t a bit pissed off with the guy who keeps unscrewing the salt shaker caps and switching his condiments out on him.” 

“Harmless pranks.” 

You leveled him with a flat look. “ Sure .”

“Harmless, babe, harmless, I swear.”

“I’ve been pissed at people over less.” 

You caught sight of Grillby preparing a patty melt and waited until he was finished serving it up before calling out to him, asking about his thoughts concerning a trade school for Fuku. 

“You said she liked baking, why not go to a culinary school? It’d be faster and right up her alley.” 

“…Trade school?”

“It’s a bit like an apprenticeship like what the monster folks have. Basically it’s a school that just teaches a special trade, like hair and make up, cooking or baking, electrician work ...ahh, I know there are others but I’m not the best person to ask. I didn’t exactly finish school myself.”

“Did you want to?” Red asked, interjecting. 

Grillby watched on and you felt a bit shy to admit your shortcomings. You had a high school level education… that had some pretty significant holes, considering who was in charge of overseeing your education. 

You weren’t dumb, you knew that, it was just... hard to feel smart when no one cared how many different knots you knew how to tie, or how to write twelve different types of codes with cyphers or how to find a person’s weak side. It was all survival education and none of those credits transferred. 

Your own brush with community college had been…less than stellar.    

“Not…really,” you admitted to Red, answering his question from before. “It’s not in the cards for me right now and I feel better not being stuck in a classroom.” Imagining it made the hair on the back of your neck stand up in anxious fear. “It’s just the kids who will be using the school I think.” 

“If that’s how you feel, ain’t no reason to do things differently. It’s not for everyone. Mostly, people just seem to use it to get a job.” 

“Get a good job,” you sighed, thinking with envy of Stretch’s employment to the energy plant where he was making a six figure salary thanks to his expertise. “I’ve had plenty of odd jobs just fine without a degree.”

“…Are you looking for additional employment?” Grillby asked, sounding curious. 

“Not…actively. But yeah, with the kids in school all morning I guess I could use my time a bit more wisely. I’m not working on renovating my place as much, too.” 

“You could work here,” Grillby suggested without the usual pause before his words. Red blinked, just as surprised as you.

“Here? You need the help?” you asked, glancing around and noticing the lazy bustle of regulars and visitors. 

“Just…to wait tables, and bus them…maybe wash the dishes ...so I don’t need to run the dishwasher several times a day.” 

“Makes sense,” you hummed, thinking of all the water Grillby went out of his way to avoid.

 It was something you understood from experience but also something you knew you could avoid. You lived life with one foot on either side of your split disposition; reaping the benefits of both just like you were designed to do. Once upon a time that design had been formulated to combat and fight toe to toe with the monster species, but now…you were taking that curse and making it your own. 

You offered Grillby your best smile and felt Red shift on the barstool beside you, leaning forward to watch for your expression. “I’ll think it over, but that…sounds like something I should be able to swing.”



After getting dropped off by Red, driving down to pick up the kids from school, and checking over their homework, you sat down to dinner and ate…a good deal less than usual. You were smooth about it and no one seemed to notice it as something worth speaking up over. You had a feeling Rus noticed, but doubted he was planning on saying anything about it. 

An hour later you had thrown it all back up and found the fever you had been fighting breaking out across your body. It had been dragging you down and making you slow all day. It seemed Tron would be the only human survivor of this stupid cold that was going through the house. 

‘Stupid public school is a breeding ground for colds like these,’ you mentally moaned.

You took another shower but halfway through it you stepped on the drain plug and let the tub fill up under you so that you could sit in the water, slipping in until it was just under your nose. You cut off the water and sat in your bath, too tired to know if this was a good or bad idea. There were echos of nightmares just behind your eyelids. You had been ill before, plenty of times, but mostly to build up a resistance to toxins and poisons. You knew how to brace for suffering and use the serge of your anger to ride out the pain until it was gone, but this was different than Hightower's willful experimentation. 

When was the last time you got sick with an actual cold? 

You sat in the tub long enough to feel the bath water change from warm to cool before reaching for the plug to let it all drain out. The surface of the water slipped over your shoulders and breasts and down to where your elbows and hips rested against the sides of the tub, but you didn’t move until it was completely drained. Turning over and standing felt like it took too much effort. 

You dried off a few minutes later and dressed for bed, feeling slow and lethargic .You would need to text Black about getting the kids up in the morning, just in case you couldn’t wake up in time to drag them out of bed. Ah, but first you needed to brush your teeth because of the vomit, and then take medicine? No, wasn’t that order wrong? Well, whatever. Your toothbrush was closer. 

You had the brush in your mouth when you heard the first few knocks. A few seconds later there were more knocks and then nothing. Normally you’d shout out that you were coming but it was late, you were tired, and your head didn’t like the sounds your heart was making in your chest. Everything was too loud. 

You spit then left your toothbrush on the edge of the sink and stumbled out, taking the stairs down to the main living space. The front door sounded with more knocks and you heard a pair of voices on the other side. 

“I already did that.”

“You don’t know if she’s able to hear you. She could be running water for all you know.”

“Sh-should we just go in then?”

“Unacceptable! That’s an invasion of privacy.”

“What if she fell or is hurt though!”

There was quiet and then the knocking started up again, more forceful than before. You jiggled the doorknob, getting it loose before you swung the door back and saw Rus standing with his hands held nervously to his chest while Edge stood, poised with his fist in the air like he was prepared to knock again.

What an odd pair.

Edge’s eyes lights went straight to your face and you saw the moment when he realized what he was looking at. “You!” he surged forward and grabbed at your face, one hand free from his gloves to feel your forehead and then your cheek. “A fever! Brother was right.”

“Did it get worse?” Rus worried. He crossed the threshold into your home and reached for you too, grabbing at your elbow.

“I just took a bath, that’s why I’m so flushed I think,” you breezily laughed. It would be easier if they didn’t worry so much. 

“Incorrect. Do not insult my intelligence, especially when I have a literal finger on your pulse, missy,” snapped Edge, sounding upset with your condition. 

He touched at your neck before turning his hand around and brushing his knuckles against your veins. You had seen in the mirror how your coloring had dimmed with the fever and nausea. You probably looked worse in their sight since they weren’t used to seeing such changes in a human. 

“I’m fine. This is normal for a human.”

“Normal doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be taken care of or brushed off so casually,” Rus interjected. “You weren’t so blasé with the kids when they got sick.”

“That’s different ‘cause they’re kids. I’m an adult, my body can handle it better. I’ll be fine.”

Rus’ eye lights didn’t waver as he held your stare, determined to keep you in his sights as he watches for your reaction, trusting it more than your words. “But you’re still in pain, aren’t you?”

“I’ll be fine, I just need sleep.” 

“Not with this wet hair, you don’t. Have you taken medicine yet? What about your blankets? You probably don’t have enough if it’s what it was last week. It’s getting colder at night.”

You pulled up a hand and let the flames leak out of your fingertips and inhaled, feeling the fire in your lungs that grew with every breath. Rus surged, reaching for your hand and slapping his over your fingers, curling his phalanges over the baby flames. You blinked at his hasty action, not expecting it.

“You shouldn’t be using your magic when you’re unstable,” he explained in a rush, looking worried. “It-for monsters we-it is harder t-to control but maybe it ain’t for humans…”

“Better safe than sorry,” Edge said.

You felt Edge’s hand on your shoulder, turning you back inside and behind you Rus pushed the door shut with the back of his boot, latching it shut with blue magic. They led you together, pushing and pulling you up the stairs to the loft and then to your bed. Edge slipped away only to reemerge with a hairdryer. He plugged it into the wall outlet closest to your bed. 

Rus guided you down until you were sitting among your pillows with your back to Edge so that he could get at your hair and blow dry it with the heat. In spite of the fever you were cold through and through, empty and tired, so the heat from the dryer made you feel like a cat that wanted to curl up on the laptop keyboard. You think you made a sound of contentment or something close since Rus snickered in front of you and even Edge chuckled. 

Rus reached for your hands and took them into his, folding your fingers through his- flesh between bones. The way his touches would drag lazily over your finger bones, your knuckles, and then under your wrist, all served to lull you closer to something called sleep. 

The dryer clicked off and Edge ran his hand through your hair once more to fluff it out over your shoulders. You heard him fold up the hair dryer behind you.

“Call your brother and let him know she’ll be recovering tomorrow morning and then tuck her in. I’m going to find some medicine.”

“I’m a little sick, not helpless. I can-mphh.” 

You had started to stand but Rus tugged you back, pulling you until you toppled into his arms, face buried in the fluff of his hood. You could feel his arms around you as he pulled you down into the bed, under the comforter.

“Russssss,” you groaned, glaring up playfully from beneath your lashes. 

“Gotta tuck you in,” he chuckled, tugging you down before pulling back the comforter to better cover you. You let him, enjoying the warmth too much to fight. He pulled out his phone and sent off a quick text before getting up to find some extra blankets. 

“Is this all you have?” he asked a minute later with the throw from your downstairs couch. It wasn’t much of a blanket but it kept you happy during your movie marathons. 

“It’s enough, I’m plenty warm.”

“I’m a skeleton and even I can tell it’s not,” Rus grumbled, narrowing his eye lights. You’re shivering.” 

“That’s ‘cause of the fever.”

“You-you’re still cold then. Here, move over,” Rus said, sounding almost annoyed. 

 He unfolded the throw and spread it out over you before slipping in under the comforter and snuggling up to you, tugging off his jacket to wrap you up in before pulling you into his arms. 

A minute later you felt the bed behind you dip as Edge reached for you, helping you sit up so that you could drink the liquid medicine he found for you. It tasted bad, but you figured that meant it would work.

“I’m really…fine. This is human normal. I can get by just fine on my own. I’ll…probably be fine in the morning,” you said around a yawn.

“Stop saying you’re fine when you’re not. You’re trembling like a wet kitten still,” Rus huffed.

You shivered and he pulled you back towards him while Edge helped you under the covers again, tucking you in before following after you. 

“You’re insufferable. Just let someone take care of you for a change, why don’t you?” Edge groused from the pillow next to yours. 

You felt Rus fold himself around you from behind you while you lay facing Edge. It was an interesting combination, all things considered, but it wasn’t bad. Edge was authoritative and took the lead easily while Rus was as observant as he was subservient. The pair complemented one another more than some other skeleton combinations.  

At least they got along well enough.   

“Sorry,” you mumbled into your pillow.

Behind you Rus nuzzled against your neck, parting the fluff of your freshly dried hair with his chin. “Ya don’t need ta apologize for anything, kitten.” 

“It’s not your fault you caught a cold, don’t say you’re sorry when you really mean ‘thank you.’ Honestly, you’re worse than Red.” 

You yawned again but reached out with your hand to grab for Edge’s wrist, pulling it close enough that you could hold one of his hands in both of yours. “Thank you, both of you. I appreciate it that you’re taking care of me. It’s…nice.”

“Have you ever had a brother or someone take care of you before?” Rus asked, sounding sleepy behind your shoulder. 

You thought of Raven and all the other children who were fed the same promise that never came true. Their faces were starting to blur in your memory, but Raven’s would stay with you forever. “Not… in a really long time. Growing up there was always a doctor right there watching us and monitoring our condition. Sometimes we got sick, yeah, but…that’s normal and we got used to it. It wasn’t a big deal.”

Rus was quiet for a moment more before he opened his mouth to speak. “I think the kids liked it when you fussed over them. You made them feel safe. You make them feel taken care of. That’s…important.”

You felt Edge squeeze your hands back. “You should get some sleep. Rest up now. We’ll be here in the morning when you wake up,” he said before moving over to kiss at your forehead. “So, sleep.”  

You felt crummy and cold from the fever, but you were tired enough to ignore all that as sleep built up behind your eyes. Gone were the horrors, now replaced with soft comfort. Edge nestled closer to your side in bed and Rus held you safely as sleep came to claim you.

You ignored the suspicion deep in your brain, that sounded like fear, that there was something still very much wrong with you, something that had nothing to do with fevers or colds-something you could only ignore with help. Rus' arms around you and Edge's hands over yours were enough to force those fears down.

Whatever came next, you would weather it together. 

 

In the morning they were both still close when you woke. Rus stayed snuggled to your side while Edge helped himself to your kitchen where he could make something good for your breakfast. 

Rus’ phone lit up with all the texts Black was sending to his brother asking about ’their’ human’s condition. 

Your fever broke in the night and you still felt sluggish and crummy, but you made it through the day with only one extra nap before you could say the cold had run its course and you were back to normal…just in time for the season’s festivities.  

Notes:

I feel like Rus and Edge would make a good tag team. Also, Red is way too much fun to write. He's such a chaotic character and I love his relationship with Grillby.

Chapter 40: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 8

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text



When you stood outside in the morning it was usually cold, but after a late brunch with Blue and Stretch, you stood out on the sidewalk of Heritage Street and felt the chill for what it was. 

“Harvest season is in. We’re in the full swing of it,” the woman behind the counter of the eatery explained. “Festival should be soon too. Eh, what’s the day now, Peach?” 

A monster girl with silver freckles and a deer’s face poked her head out to read off the calendar for the store owner. When she chittered it wasn’t something you could understand but the owner seemed to comprehend it. How long had they known each other? 

“Eh, that means the festival starts only four days from now! Should be some flyers about it somewhere,” the owner explained before handing over the receipt for your meals. When the paper passed into your hands the woman smiled coyly and the deer girl snickered from behind the back counter.

You had told the boys you were going to use the ladies room, and you had, but your real reason for getting up had been to grab the tab for your table and pay it before either brother could offer. Stretch had been acting a bit annoying about his new job, complaining comically about how boring it was, and how much money it paid , and how pleasant everyone was. Treating the both of them would take him down a peg and bruise his pride a bit. He’d get you back for it later on, but…that was the nature of such things. You weren’t unwilling to put up with his mischief. 

On your way back to the table on the terrace you saw a stack of flyers next to the newspaper stand advertising the festival Black and Russ had been talking about for the past few weeks. It would be a good idea to take the kids to it, you all figured. 

Taking the flyer back to your table you settled into your seat and reached for your drink, chewing on the straw before taking a pull. Stretch’s lazy eye lights, so dark they barely stood out in his sockets, fixated on you. 

“What did you get on your way back?” Blue asked, setting down his phone. The screen had been left open to a dozen new emails from all his side jobs. It was so rare to catch him with a free hour these days, much less two. 

“You hear about the ‘Blackberry Harvest Festival’ yet?” you asked, turning around the flyer to show off the bright colors of a setting sun skyscape behind a ferris wheel outline.  

“Of course! I’m helping assemble it,” Blue laughed. “They said they’ve never seen it go up so fast, and it’s all thanks to the monster help this year.”

“I’m not surprised. That sounds like something you’d be perfect for helping out with.” You absently tapped the straw against your lips, playing with it before setting your drink down. “But are you planning on attending or just helping out? Don’t tell me you’re working there during the festivities.”

“Ju-just a booth or two,” Blue chuckled, flushing a pretty azure color across his skull. “But I can take breaks, and-and I have one day off I think.” Blue leaned forward in his seat. “If you…wouldn’t be too tired of it after taking the kids there with Black and Russ, I’d love to-to do some stuff there…together.”    

“Then save some time for me, I’ll meet you for some games or a ride or two. Anything in mind for what you wanna do. You’ve never been to one of these before, have you? Or was there something similar in the underground?”

“Not like this. We had festivals and potlucks and gatherings, but the rides and structures above ground are just huge and over the top. I’ve never seen anything like it underground,” said Blue.

“One day we have to take you to a theme park,” Stretch said, sparing a smile for his brother. “If you pick one out we can go next time you’re free.”

“A theme park! Those have the roller coaster rides, don’t they?” Blue exclaimed, eyes spinning into stars with excitement.

“Yeah, I saw you were watching go-pro videos on the internet about it,” Stretch said, eye lights darting your way. “But I’m sure the videos don’t do any justice to the experience?” 

“Why are you looking at me like that? I’ve never been to one.” You reached for your drink again, sucking up what was left at the bottom.

“Why not?” Blue asked, sounding concerned. “They’re not unappealing to you, are they?” 

You refused to look at Stretch while you chewed on your straw and thought back to your bare apartment and the tight budget you had to live off of when you first separated from Hightower and his Embassy home. A trip to a theme park would have broken you and set you back too far to ever enjoy. 

“I’m sure it would be a fun place to visit. It just seemed like a waste of money at the time.”

“You still think that?” Stretch asked, sounding casual.

“Taking the day off now wouldn’t be a problem, so I guess not.” A thrill ran through your heart when you considered it. “It… would be possible.” 

“We should all three go to a park then,” Blue exclaimed with stars in his eyes, “before it gets too cold. Something called Hallow’s Eve is coming up next month and that changes the pricing for some of these places I heard.” 

You glanced out at the trees and caught sight of the gold and crimson stains curling up the edges of some of their tallest leaves. It would be a few more weeks before the world unfolded in those crisp autumn colors, but somehow the season had snuck up on you.

What would Halloween be like this time? What would the holidays be like? Did all the boys want to do Thanksgiving together?  Who would host? What about Gyftmas?

It felt like the first time in a long time you were looking forward to the staples of the seasons instead of dreading them. The clear markers that indicated the passing of another year were now going to be things you could enjoy. It felt so surreal and you were suddenly violently jealous of people who had lived their whole lives loving the holidays. 

“Cool, well, since you were so sneaky and just had to go off and pay for brunch, I’ll cover the cost of our tickets,” Stretch interjected, already pulling up his phone to flip through his calendar, checking Blue’s availability. “You like Florida alright? Apparently they have a big one people think is decent for first timers.”

 

-

 

“Wow, so it’s official?” you asked, leaning over Black’s shoulder to read the letter he hastily stuff under his desk calendar, blushing a deep purple color. It was a rare treat to manage sneaking up on Black, so you were probably smiling too wide or something to get him to stare at you like that. 

“WHA-WHAT DID YOU SEE?” he all but squeaked, forgetting to pull the magic out of his words in his surprise. 

“It looked like the town of Blackberry wants to honor you for all your efforts in supporting the resettlement of monster folks. You’d be the official Mr. Blackberry King,” you teased. 

 The way he flushed at your words never got old. You thought he’d develop some sort of resistance or immunity to it by now, but he was still just as easy to ruffle. The only person who you could get to color faster was probably his brother. 

“No such thing! It’s just a-just a formality, an empty ceremony to waste time on. Blackberry isn’t even a city so there’s no key to give either. Honestly, I didn’t do anything more than the mascot or his brother. I-I’d much rather just remain anonymous and enjoy the festival with my family.”   

Your soul fluttered happily in your chest when he spoke of his family. You knew by now, and had accepted the truth of it, that when Black said ‘family’ it included you. 

He had said it explicitly, more than once. 

I think you deserve it.”

“Hardly! It is an empty honor as I have done nothing significant to earn such gratitude. My financial choices were for my own benefit alone. I am no-not nice . I am a malevolent instrument of fear and terror with a bloody past and a bloodier reputation for unspeakable violence.” 

Peter ran into the room and stopped short. “Daddy, where are my flip flops?”

“They’re put away where they should be. It’s cold outside. Socks and shoes or no outdoor play.”

“Not fair!”

“Shoes are by the door. Your socks are in the sock drawer.”

“But-”

“Safe play or no play.” 

Peter ran out, groaning dramatically and you had to hide the smile on your face behind your hand. When you looked back Black had pulled himself up and crossed his arms behind his back, adopting his favorite resting pose. 

“See? No mercy.” 

“Sure, sure, whatever you say, daddy .”  

You weren’t sure why your teasing was as effective as it was, but when you winked back over your shoulder at Black it made him shiver and turn his whole skull a new color. The eye lights in his sockets went fuzzy and wavered too. It was enough to get you to laugh and run out before Black could use his blue magic to push you away.

Ha!

 

-

 

 The week passed easily and before you knew it, you were getting ready for the Friday afternoon kick off. It was a three day event, lasting the entire weekend before packing up to move on to the next town, but people were saying with the boom in population there might be justification to extend the days and keep the festivities going even longer, ‘ like the ones in the big farmer cities .’

Even though so many different crops and foods can be harvested year round, it’s mostly just the corn and maze that marks the harvest season for the locals. You had learned that people partied hard before going to work and lots of families had relatives that came to stay for the next three months to help out. Many of them were in town in time for the festival. 

“It’s almost like being back in the city,” you mused from your driver’s side seat, eyes fixed on the man directing traffic for parking.

Rus sat in the passenger’s seat of your car with the kids in the back, squished in between one carseat and two boosters. No wonder Tron had elected to leave with Stretch earlier. 

Rus had his phone out and was furiously typing some manifesto-length comment with the most nonchalant expression. If you hadn’t been driving you would have just stopped to watch him and maybe even laugh at how funny it seemed. His phalanges were literal blurs over the oversized phone.  

Out of all the skeleton brothers, he had adapted the best to the smartphone. Back in the underground all they had to repurpose were the broken junk phones with actual keypads and tiny screens that could only read numbers. Sans had been topside for years and he still texted like he was using a Nikon brick some days. 

He glanced up after finishing his mini story text message and noticed the number of cars ahead of you. You could see his surprise in the way his eye lights flashed bright and then shrunk in his sockets; one of his more obvious tells. 

“That is a lot. Is the whole town here?” he asked. 

“Pretty much, and then some. I guess it’s a good draw for those in the neighboring towns and the city. It’s a weekend day so plenty of people can afford to make the trip out.” Something occurred to you as you idled in line, waiting to park. “Have you ever been in such a large crowd?” 

Rus looked your way and tried to grin.  “Underground…maybe? Not with humans though. It’ll be new.” 

“What was it like underground?” you ask, hesitating only when you see the looks he shoots back over his shoulder to where the kids sat, complaining amongst themselves at how long it was taking just to park. 

He met your eyes and managed a smile. “Different.” 

You didn’t doubt it.

Eventually you got slotting into a spot by a youth in a security vest and parked. The kids cheered loud enough to make you stop and look back at each of them pointedly, warning them without words until they were quiet again; still wriggling in their seats, but quiet. 

Rus followed you out and helped untangle Phil from his carseat only to plop the youngest of the bunch up on his shoulders to ride around, far taller than anyone else his age had a right to be. Peter whined about how unfair it was until you pointed out how Phil couldn’t go wherever he wanted, and that there was a bounce house obstacle course he had been dying to try out. 

You crossed the parking lot and funneled into the crowd at the front, producing your paper tickets and getting paper wristbands instead that advertised some of the different businesses funding the festival. Wendy was the only one that got one with Grillby’s on it and she was unwilling to trade so you hurried to distract Peter with talk about the first games he wanted to play. 

You followed him to the ‘Arcade Alley’ with Wendy holding onto your hand, but before you could get far you felt Rus reach for your free hand and grab it tight. Something in his touch made you turn to him and study him closely. You could see the beads of magic on the base of his skull and feel the tremors in his hand.

Different , was all he had said, but you knew there was more to it than that.

“Peter, grab me a map from the stack there, honey. Let’s pull off to the side and make a plan of attack,” you called out, stopping the young boy in his tracks.

“Battle strategy, excellent!” he cried, impersonating Black’s manner of speaking. It was enough to make Rus sputter a chuckle. 

You took the map and ushered everyone over to an alcove Rus could put his back to while you unfolded the paper at Wendy and Peter’s level. While they circled the games they wanted to try the most you watched Rus. 

His eye lights were frantically moving from one human body to the next, scanning each, watching as much as he could and trying to analyze it all before the scene in front of him shifted and moved once more. It was a lot, and you didn’t doubt he was running into some sensory overload after so long on a quiet farm with only his family and friends. He was a fairly social skeleton, hungry for attention and physical touch even, but he was also a very anxious skeleton. 

You hadn’t let go of his hand so you tugged it a little and drew his eye lights to your face. “I’m here,” you said before whispering, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you or the kids, trust me.”

His hand in yours shivered. “You too.”

“Hmm?”

He leaned in closer. “Nothing sh-should happen to you either.” 

“I’m heartier than that, babe,” you chuckled, smiling confidently. “I’ll always be fine.” 

“…stupid,” Rus chuckled, blushing lightly while looking away in bashful delight when you added a playful wink. “Y-you can’t promise that.”

“Watch me.”

“How are you so confident?” he huffed with a playful eye-light roll. 

“I beat Sans up when we first met. You should ask him about it sometime.”

“Oh no, I saw the vids, that’s all on the Embassy database for any halfway decent hacker to help himself to, I know all about that.”

You paused, processing his words. “Oh.” The words still weren’t registering. “You…saw that?”

“Yeah, you put up a real good fight,” he teased and you flushed darker at his tone. “I think you did a whole lot of damage to his ego with all those brutal attacks of yours.”

“If I wanted to he’d have been floor wax, okay.”

“You never want it though.”

You almost pulled away from Rus, unsettled by the even confidence in his words. There was no reservation or hesitation as he picked you apart. He looked at you and it was like he could see right through you, past all your layers down to your scars and horrors. 

Maybe he could

Rus reached out with his free hand and pointed to your chest where your soul would emerge if he called it forward. “I’ve seen you, I know better. You don’t have any honest violence left in you.” 

What’s honest violence?

But the question was only a thought and before you could open your mouth to speak you were interrupted. 

“Here, here, now!” Peter called, interrupting your conversation with Rus by throwing up the map between you two. A couple of the booths had been circled and then crossed out and then circled again in darker lines. “Let’s go!” 

You just barely managed to grab him by the back of his overalls and pick him up off the ground before he could run off out of sight. Wendy stuck her tongue out at her brother when he kicked wildly to be put down. 

Overalls were great. 

“We’ll go together, speedy, so cool your jets or else I’m cutting back on your food budget.” 

Peter complied and Russ laughed but held onto your hand as you subverted most of the crowd and found a back path into the Arcade Alley where booth after booth stood out in vivid color, trying to attract customers. 

Peter, predictably, wanted to try out all the shooting games until Wendy beat him at one and then he wanted to try something new. You guided them to a number of different booths until they saw the face painting one and all sat down to get done up. You teased Rus about it but he backed out, saying it wasn’t fair if you didn’t get it either. 

“I’ve already got some art,” you explained  waving your forearm with the sleeve of your sweater pushed up enough to show off the white flowers. 

Rus reached out to trace the design from one petal to the next, ending at the base of the peony’s stem. “I remember when you said you got this design. You thought they were pretty. Is that…the only reason?”

You shrugged. “There was more thought behind it at the time, but nothing worth explaining now. It’s enough. I like it and have no regrets.”  

“It is pretty,” Rus finally concluded, letting his hand drop as his eye lights fixated on your face. 

The kids finish up in time to complain about being hungry so you leave the games behind and follow the smell of deep fried foods and sugar. Of course each one wanted something different that you had to wait in line for, but thankfully you managed to make some pretty decent time through the different lines, noticing that there’s a monster with several octopus like arms serving baskets of fast food eight times faster than the human beside him.  

You start to look for a place to sit, seeing a clustering of park tables and benches, but Rus tugs you towards the edge of the booths and you find a patch of grass under the lights to sit and eat with your backs to a solid surface. 

Wendy eats what she can but passes off the rest of her chicken tenders to you complaining about being too full from all the chili-surprise fries that came with the order. You’re only too happy to finish off all of the leftovers. You can never find the end to your hunger, no matter how well fed your skeletons kept you. 

“Rides after this would be…not good?” Rus guessed, glancing up to the skyline where the ferris wheel cut an impressive sight against the last traces of light. The white twinkle lights were on and everything seemed to have a sign that glowed or lit up to wash the world in neon colors and carnival hues. 

“There are other things we can do, what about souvenirs?” you asked, reaching for your drink. 

“I want a lightsaber!” Peter cheered.

“Me too!” Wendy exclaimed. 

“Not…something more girly?” Rus asked, glancing in confusion down at the dubbed ‘princess’ of their home who loved all things pink and pretty.

“Lightsabers are for girls too!” she exclaimed before pretending to swing one at her brother. 

“Cool, let’s do that and then get in line for some rides. Our food will be settled by then,” you decided, knowing the kids were still too small to ride anything that would give them trouble later on. 

You found a seller of miniature lightsabers for the kids and a glowing toy for Phil. Russ bought a flower crown for himself that had small fiber optic lights inside the buds that made it glow different colors. “Now we match,” was the explanation he gave you. 

It made you laugh until he presented you with a small bouquet of light roses, his gift to you.  “You spoil me,” you sighed before accepting the gift. 

“Not possible, but I’ll try.”

You find the line for the ferris wheel as long as expected and before you’re halfway some of the first fireworks of the night begin to shoot off. Rus flinched at first when he heard the sound, grabbing for you and Phil immediately, but then when the lights exploded he realized what he was seeing and his awe won over his fear. Different colors burst across the dark sky, highlighting the backdrop of shadows clouds and smoke left in the sky. Every color reflected back on Rus’ face, enhancing his expression. 

“Never seen fireworks?” a new voice interjected.

Rus flinched at Stretch’s proximity when the orange clad skeleton showed up via a shortcut just behind them in line. He had his hands stuffed into the pockets of his jeans and a half finished honey stick between his teeth even though you could still smell the smoke on his clothes. 

“You…what were you doing? I texted you hours ago,” Russ sighed.

“Yeah…sorry I’m late, I was busy not wanting to come,” Stretch yawned. “Next time just text Edge, he’d come.” 

“What were you really busy with?” you asked, flicking the end of his honey stick. 

Stretch glanced your way and the corners of his smile stretched a little, making his expression softer for you. He pulled out from his pocket a rock candy still wrapped in crinkle plastic and tied up with a bow. He tapped it against your lips and you reached for it before he could hit you with it again.

“It's a flavor you like,” Stretch said instead of explaining.

The line inched forward and you moved with it. You pulled the plastic off and popped the end of the candy into your mouth to enjoy. It had been a while since you last needed the candy, but it was a nice treat even if it wasn’t necessary. Stretch must have noticed.

“Is Blue…doing okay on his own?” Rus asked, watching the line inch up.

“Blue isn’t alone, he has plenty of co-workers and makes friends faster than you or me. He’s fine. I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Not that I don’t enjoy that, but…” you popped the candy free and waved it in front of your face, “what are you doing here, Stretch?”

“You need a kiddy break or something,” he sighed, looking to Rus. “I don’t know. It was too many words so I didn’t read it all. Seriously, it was like a novel.” 

“You like novels.”

“Yeah, interesting ones.”

The people ahead of you moved up and you could see the gate, meaning you were close enough to get a seat before the rotation ended. In the sky overhead more fireworks went off. 

“Are you free or not?” Rus asked, sounding exasperated. 

“Yeah, yeah, sure. One rotation though. I guess I owe you that much.”

“Owe him for what?” you ask even as the last couple ahead of you moves up and into a seat.

“Next,” the attendant calls.  

Stretch patted at your shoulder before moving past you and Rus, taking the kids with him as he went up into the carriage big enough for four. Maxed out, the door shut behind him and he waved to you with Peter and Wendy while Phil seemed too distracted by the fireworks to look away from the sky.

“Oh, that’s what you meant by a kiddy break,” you mused aloud, watching their carriage roll away as a new one came down and emptied out. 

Rus tugged you up with him as the attendant ushered you inside and closed the door behind you. Instead of sitting across from you Russ turned you down onto the bench beside him, squeezing you in. Once inside you could feel some of the tension ease out of him. He deflated like a balloon on your shoulder.

“That bad?” you asked.

“It-well, it could be better I suppose. I’m just not used to these crowds above ground is all. I don’t think I’ll be able to come here again tomorrow night or Sunday in any sober state of mind,” he confessed. “Sorry. I’m not very useful.” 

“Everyone has things they can’t do or things that are hard for them. You shouldn’t feel like you need to apologize for that,” you huffed in exasperation. Rus apologized too much. “Don’t apologize to me, please.”

Rus looked down and you watched the color spread across his face. “I thought I’d be…I’d be better at it, a-and having you and the kids here helped I think. I didn’t worry so much ‘cause you just kept distracting me, but I’m still a little broken at the core I think.”

“You’re not broken, Papyrus,” you state firmly. 

He jolts at the use of his real name but it’s another moment before he speaks up. “Just…Rus is fine if it's you.” 

“You’re not broken,” you repeat again, this time softer. “You’re not, so don’t believe that.”

He shivered against your side. “I wanted to show you a good time-a better time, but I was just one more thing for you to take care of.”

“What are you talking about? I’m having a great time here with you and the kids.” You reached for his face when he started to turn away and directed it your way. “Hey, look at me. I’m not lying so you better believe me, I’m having fun with you. I like hanging out with you.” 

He watched you for a moment longer, not saying anything, until a burst of color washed his face in shades of gold and red followed by the boom of another firework exploding. 

“It was different…underground,” he began. “You asked ab-about the crowds and how they were different. Back then I wasn’t any better off but Sans gave me his badge to wear on my collar and that helped plenty, but…but still monsters came up and tried starting stuff. There was so much of it, so much backstabbing, it was kill or be killed most days.”

Rus exhaled his words, speaking like he was desperate to get his confession out into the air between them. You sat beside him and listened as more blue and white colors filled the cabin between you, shading you in hues of aqua and teal. 

“I was mean and that’s how I survived. Sometimes I’d go out and there would be crowds. In those crowds I sometimes got hurt, or ended up hurting others before they could do it to me.” His body shook like the memory was something that could physically move him.

Maybe it was.

His voice cracked but he pushed on. “I can’t be like that up here, I can’t be mean . This is a different world with different rules and stakes so high I can’t afford to make a mistake. I can’t scare anyone away ‘cause there’s no one to scare no matter how badly I expect it and hell if that don’t rattle me more than a set of bared fangs does. I-I-its not the same.” 

“Is that a bad thing?” you ask in a quiet voice, already knowing the answer.

“No.” He bent towards you again. “I have more than I deserve here with you and my family.” 

You could feel your heart breaking for him at the way his voice almost broke with each confession. He was such a good guy but he didn’t see it or didn’t want to believe it because of where he came from. 

“You deserve this. You have enough love and kindness in your heart for all the reciprocated kindness that might come your way. You deserve all the good things in this world, Rus. Don’t think otherwise.” 

You pulled him over and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, keeping him in your hug as more rainbow colored lights burst and sparkled in the sky behind you, coloring the cabin. You pretended not to notice the dampness growing on your shoulder under his eye sockets. 

Outside the sky colored in a rainbow of different lights as firework after firework went off, casting its light over the two of you inside your cabin, nearly oblivious to the rest of the world while you rested against one another. 

Not long after that you finished the ride, you found Phil already asleep and the other two nearly dozing as they waited, quiet and willing on the side of the ride along with Stretch. That was your cue to turn in for the night and Stretch did you one more favor by shortcutting the kids back to the house to put to bed, leaving you and Russ to drive back with three empty car seats in the back. 

As you drove Rus ended up dozing lightly in his seat, head siding down to rest on your shoulder as you made your subtle turns off one road and onto another in the dark. You didn’t mind it so you let him rest against you as you drove to the soft sounds of your turned down radio and the soft headlights that cast their light out into the dark you navigated. 

When the monster run station switched over to a new song you recognized the first notes instantly, even before a single word was sung. The lazy notes danced into the car through the speakers and you couldn’t help but add your voice to Doris Day’s croning when she came on. 

Stars shining bright above you. Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you.” Birds singing in the sycamore trees… dream a little dream of me…

You parked and turned the car off, settling the both of you into the still of night. Rus stirred on your shoulder and you reached up with one hand to brush your knuckles across his cheekbone and the touch helped him settle.

Not thinking anything more of it you helped him to his room. Thankfully skeletons didn’t weigh much of anything, even the tall ones. You hummed to yourself as you left him standing upright next to the wet bar 'where the nighcaps are' to get ready for sleep in your barn. 

As you brushed your teeth and watched yourself in the mirror you wondered absently what life must have been like for each set of brothers before coming to your world. Each one of them came from a different underground, and none of them sounded especially pleasant. Even the swap brothers had a hard time of it considering they were still trapped underground and just waiting for the mythical human to fall and set them free. 

No wonder none of them seemed especially eager to return to their world. 

If some sort of freak accident had pulled you out of your dimension would you be missed? You didn’t have the mother/father sort of family that could miss you, and four years ago you were positive you could end up in a ditch and never be missed. 

But now…

You heard the floorboards creak outside your bathroom and hurried to finish up brushing your teeth. You spit and rinsed before opening the door to see a less frazzled looking Rus looming in his sleeping shirt and long pajama bottoms. He looked ready for bed.

“You still up,” he grumbled, voice gravely and deep like it always was after he woke up. His eye lights were extra hazy with exhaustion. 

“Rus, you alright, sweetie?” you reached up and cupped the side of his face when his eye lights started to shift in their sockets. “Couldn’t sleep?” 

He turned into the hand touching him and made a sound that rolled, rumbled, and made something inside you flutter with anticipation. You called his name again but he didn’t open his sockets. 

You were watching his face so you never noticed his hand reaching for your waist to pull close, or the curve of his heel hooking behind yours. You nearly fell but he picked you up easily and carried you over to your bed. You called his name again but gave up to wrap your arms around his neck when he still didn’t respond. 

He was careful as he approached your bed, pulling back the covers and then climbing in on his knees with you still in your arms before turning around and settling in with his back to the headboard and pillows piled up. You had way more pillows than you needed, but as was often the case, you shared your bed with your friends and they were all, (every single one of them) pillow hogs. Something about skeletons and pillows just worked like peanut butter and jelly. 

Rus settled in and you removed one of your hands from around his neck to tug up the comforter  so it covered the both of you. Under the weight of it he finally seemed to settle. 

“im not gonna let ya go tonight, sorry,” he whispered. 

His breath was heavy and carried the smell of his alcohol. You doubted it was enough to get him drunk, but you were willing to believe it was enough to get him buzzed and loose.  You hadn’t thought the two of you had been parted long enough for him to find the bottom of a bottle, but then you remembered the wet bar right outside his room, fully stocked and easily accessible. His nightcap had turned into something else.  

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“….i was drunk then, you can’t blame me for those.”

“People and monsters all get more honest when they’re drunk, so yeah I can, but I wouldn’t. You know I wouldn’t.” You snuggled in closer and sighed in contentment atop his shoulder. “Besides, I’d be crazy to complain about this.” 

“…ya don’t mind?”

“Never.”

That seemed to appease him enough to settle into the pillows and shift so that he was laying on his side with you still in his arms. 

“sorry about today then.”

You didn’t mind that there was magic seeping back into his words, since there seemed to be something heavy settling on his mind that needed to be addressed first. “Babe, you don’t have a single thing to apologize for. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Rus’ arms around you tightened and his eye lights went fuzzy as he watched you. When he spoke his voice was back and devoid of magic. “Its not so much about what I did, as it is about what I didn’t do. I didn’t…I didn’t protect you or the kids. You were there and I was worse than a dead weight fer ya.”

You opened your mouth to remind him you were able to protect all of you on your own, that he didn’t need to protect anyone, but clicked your teeth shut when you realized this wasn’t about validation. There was real hurt in his confession. 

How many times had you gone to bed only to lay awake and sink into all the terrible thoughts your brain could fill itself with at once. You shouldn’t have left him alone. 

It would be so easy to say he was perfect the way he was, that he didn’t need to change, but those sort of words would only end up hurting him.    

“You want to be better, how? Explain what that means to me. Tell me what you’re thinking. What bothered you so much about today?”

Rus’ voice was a rumble when he eventually decided to answer. “You remember what I said while we were in the ferris wheel?” 

“About what it was like underground?” you reached up and hooked a finger under the collar he wore around his neck, sometimes visible, sometimes tucked away. He didn’t always wear it around the house, but when he left it was always on him still. 

“Yeah, you never saw that side of me. See, bro is the strong one out of the two of us, but I’m not stupid, so I help him out when I can. One of those ways is by being observant. I-eh heh, it’s ah, one of the things I’m good out regardless of the technology I have to work with. I notice things others miss, and I can usually figure out what those things mean. It helped get my bro promoted cause we could find-cuz-ah…heh…well, there were plenty other reasons too, but it…helped us where we were.” 

“Rus,” you called his name softly and it shook him.

He shut his eye sockets and then forced them open again to look at you. “ I found the kids for the barrier. I had-I had the technology for it and I could just short cut over before the canine unit could sniff ‘em out and then-then me and my bro got the credit for the soul before Alphys or any of the other mutts could bark up a complaint.”

You felt the weight of his confession settle in your heart and knew this wasn’t something Rus could admit any other time. It was an aged trauma he had been bandaging for so long, now he was letting the emotional wound breath. You could feel him shaking.

“Is that why you gave up your ability to teleport-to shortcut when you took in the kids?” you asked.

Rus nodded. “Yeah, mostly. It…ah, well, that and I was just messing it up royally. I couldn’t stick the landings anymore and I just flubbed around while I was inside the void, like I didn’t want to get out of it once I went in. I couldn’t use it well once we were topside and bro never blamed me for it, he just…he just took that too.” 

“He cares about you and no matter what you think, he doesn’t blame you.”

Rus laughed bitterly. “I think it’d be easier on him if he did. He was born to be a martyr.”

“He loves you, there is a difference.” 

Russ watched you and swallowed before finding the next words. “He…if you ask him he’d tell you it was necessary, that it was his job or whatever it was he needed to do, cause that’s how he is. He can compartmentalize and just work his way through things that bother him, but I saw…I noticed. He didn’t like the work none and it was getting harder and harder to hand the humans over.”

“I’m sure that must have been hard on you both and I’m sorry you have to live with that guilt.”

Rus smirked down at you and it was a self depreciating sort of look. “You’re not gonna tell us we didn’t have a choice though, are you?”

“That would be too easy and unfair. You had a choice, and you did what you thought was best for you, but you had that choice. I’m not going to justify it for you now and I don’t think you want me to, either.” 

Rus laughed and it shook his body the same way his sobs did. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes I’d have sworn your soul traits were integrity or justice.” He took a breath even though he didn’t need to and closed his eye sockets. “You’re right. We had that choice, and we made it. Now we have another choice and we’re making it.” You felt one of his hands tangle with your hair. “You and these kids, we’re- I’m not gonna let this opportunity go to waste.”

“I know you won’t.” 

His hand continued to trace lines through your hair, scratching the base of your skull every now and then. “I’m gonna get better,” he admitted after a while. “Wait for me?” 

“Papyrus, I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Promise?”

“Easily. No matter what. I’m not going anywhere and I’m not out of reach.”

Rus shifted further under the covers, tugging you along with him. You shifted and wiggled until your back was to his and he happily obliged by throwing his arm and leg over you to pull you closer and snuggle up against.

 When he buried his skull in the back of your neck, teeth brushing past the curls of loose hair, you felt his breath and the rumble of humming that came next. There were no words but you recognized the tune without hesitation. 

Notes:

A couple things worth noting:
Blue's Love Language is Acts of Service.
After Black Stretch is the most sugar daddy-ish of the skellies.
Rus texts novels or one letter replies, there is no in between.
This chapter fought me so much and it's been a taxing endeavor to get to this point, but Rus needed his focal chapter before other things happen.

Thank you so much for the kind comments and wonderful feedback. I'm delighted to know my story did something positive for you. :)

Chapter 41: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 9

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You weren’t sure how it happened. 

You remembered putting Wendy to bed, telling her a story instead of a song, and then you were here, out in the middle of the field barefoot, toes damp and dirty from trekking through the grasses, up to the trees around the pond.  You had to have walked out on your own, all the evidence made you believe that, but…you couldn’t… remember it. 

Overhead the sky was vast, more open then you remembered it ever being and littered with stars. There was little else in the sky, no clouds, no moon, nothing but the far off darkness and the further off pinpricks of clustering lights. 

You took another step and then sat down, leaning up against a tree’s rough trunk. Your body felt drained, more so than usual. You knew you were tired but the weariness that lived inside you wasn’t just a physical condition, it was something that gnawed on your heart and made you into a shadow of yourself. 

In the dark and under the stars you remembered a little bit more about your dream, and the things you had been walking away from in your sleep.  Could you hear the wind knocking the glass bottle wind-chimes together or was that the dream still ?

There had been a darkness far thicker than the one above you. A darkness without stars or sound, a world untouched and untamed, without gravity or density or sight… a place where you died and lived again. 

You hadn’t realized you were crying until you felt it on your chin, falling off to land on the front of your nightshirt. Your body was reacting to the memories even if your mind was numb. 

You hadn’t dreamed of the void in so long, not since before that skeleton monster called Win ripped out your eye and the technology that suppressed mental images and sensations related to trauma. 

There had always been someone there beside you to help you through the night-as unfair as that sounded. The only reason tonight was different was because you fell asleep at the desk in Wendy’s room after her bedtime story. You hadn’t meant to but… that must have been how you ended outside and so far away from the houses and buildings. 

You feel the tingle and taste it in the back of your mouth. There’s a tang of something sour and you tense, senses sharpening dramatically for the present danger. You hear a rustle in the grass far back behind you, and then the sound comes from the opposite side of the lake, and then on the other side of your resting tree! You almost turn to check when finally the magic solidifies in the form of Black, shortcutting his way straight to you. 

He steps forward, calling your name before breaking out into a jog to reach you. In the dark, the purple red color of his eye lights stand out all the more, like neon lights on a black background. You felt him reach for you and almost jerked back, more on reflex than anything. It was enough to make him hesitate.

He called your name again. “Do you know where you are?” 

The answer came to you, sluggishly. “Yeah. Outside the house…by the …pond?”

Black nodded slowly, moving to stand in front of you with his hands partially raised. “Do you know who I am?” 

“Of course,” you breathed, closing your eyes and wincing. He didn’t say anything in response so you elaborated. “You’re Black.”

His posture seemed to deflate. “Yes, good, that’s correct. I’m glad you were able to recognize me. What were you doing out here by yourself? Do you know what time it is?”

“Late.”

“Without a doubt!”

You closed your eyes again and took another breath. “I just went on a walk.”

“Without your shoes?”

“…Forgot them.” 

Black huffed. “A likely story. I didn’t peg you for the thoughtless type.” 

Then he reached out for your face, with movements slow enough to watch and intercept if necessary. When he touched your cheek you felt him trace the path your tears had cut and remembered crying. 

“Also,” he began in a far softer voice that not even the last of the June Bugs or dragonflies could hear, “I don’t take you for the sort of person to cry over just anything.” 

“There’s a lot of dust and dirt out here,” you whispered back, watching him watch you. 

The way his neon bright eye lights burned in his sockets made you think that he was going to call you out on your paper thin excuse for the lie it was, but then his expression went soft. 

“Yes, I suppose there is a lot of that out here. I think you need to get back inside,” he said. 

He held out his free hand and you reached for it after another moment of hesitation. He lifted you up and you felt how sturdy he really was as he was unwilling to let you stumble. You looked the way you had come, seeing the barn and the farmhouse in the distance and marveled once more at how far you’d wandered in your sleep. 

But before you could worry about making the same trip back in your bare and bleeding feet there was darkness and then a bright light from half a dozen lightbulbs over the sink and mirror. You blinked and recognized Black’s bathroom for what it was. 

“Why?” you asked simply.

He huffed and then guided you to the standing shower with the tile bench. He sat you down and then went into one of the cabinets to pull out a first aid kit. That was when you noticed the mess you had trekked in behind you, mud and soil and bloodstains colored your footprints into the shower. 

Oh !

“Sorry, I made a mess. Here, I can-”

“-Sit down,” Black snapped in an unusually stern tone that was the type reserved for when he needed to be firm with Wendy (in spite of her cuteness). You fell back onto the bench and he sighed, looking miffed with you before reaching for the detachable shower head. “Honestly, can’t you let someone take care of you without feeling guilty for it? People care for their precious ones because they want to.” 

He knelt down at your ankles and grabbed your heel to hold it in place before turning on the shower with blue magic. The water came out and washed off the mud and blood, staining his knees in the process as he knelt in his trousers on the tile. You wanted to tug free or insist on doing it yourself, but when he finished with the first foot he grabbed the other one with the same strong grip that wouldn’t let you go.

“You’re getting dirty,” you lamely stated, watching the runoff stain his pants. 

“You think I care about that right now?” he huffed. You thought you saw his eye lights flash with crimson color, the way they often did when his emotions ran up. 

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. I don’t want to hear you say ’sorry’ to me or anyone. Instead just say ‘thank you.’ I’m doing this because it’s you , because I want to.” 

Once finished, he let the shower head go free to dangle on its own while he popped open the first aid kit’s plastic lid. He removed some cotton balls and the disinfectant but winced when he looked at the scabs under your toes. 

“It won’t hurt,” you lied easily. 

“It always hurts. Peter cries whenever I have to clean his cuts.”

You felt a small smile tug at your lips when you remembered the brave face he would put on for you before going to cry in front of Russ or Blue. He was far more sensitive to physical pain compared to Wendy who went stone still and cried without making a sound whenever she was hurt.  You remembered their reactions with bittersweet fondness. Compared to the care you received after an injury when you were that age…

“It won’t hurt because it’s you, because it’s someone who cares about me that’s doing it,” you finally explain. You wiggle your toes in encouragement. “Even if it stings a little, I won’t cry from this. Thank you, Black.”

He stared up at you from where he knelt at your knees and he must have seen the truth in your expression. “If you understand then it’s fine.”

Black soaked the cotton swabs and cleaned your cuts and blisters before dressing them appropriately. You flinched a little the first time but schooled your reactions far better for the other times. It didn’t take him long to finish bandaging you up. He completed his work in comfortable silence but before he could finish you spoke up.

“Are you going to ask me about it?”

“You don’t owe me an explanation for anything. I’m sure you have your fair share of demons haunting you and I can say from experience, they’re not the easiest to… talk about.” His hands stilled over your foot and then you felt him gently stroke the inside of your ankle, trailing down to your heel. “But I would be happy to listen if you needed someone to.” 

It was hard to find the words at first but you did. “That part of my life is over. It’s done. I’m not going back to those awful places and I’m not scared of them when I’m awake, but they’re still there in my dreams. I don’t want to remember things that only wear me down but I can’t… help it. They’re just always there, waiting for me. What did I do wrong? Why am I still like this?”

He grabbed at your heel a little tighter, but not tight enough to be uncomfortable. “Some might say it’s your brain, trying to protect you. Those were times in your life when you were in danger. The greatest of all your instincts is the one to survive, and in order to do that we must learn from such dangers and traumas. But sometimes it’s a…sometimes that doesn’t always work out. I wish I had a better answer for you. I wish I could convince your soul that it’s safe here, that you’re safe here.” He tilted his face down and leaned in so that his forehead touched your knee and rested there. “I wish I knew how to cure you from your nightmares and take away the pain.”

You could feel the honesty and the anguish in his words. The world he and his brother came from was long behind them, but it still had its claws in the both of them. 

Russ’ anxiety had been so bad he had become unstable enough with his ability to shortcut, forcing Black to take on that power in exchange for his natural healing capabilities. You knew that Russ still had nightmares, that he clung to his friends and family physically as a means of grounding himself in a safe moment of reality. 

And Black, for all his strength and supposed malevolence, you knew he suffered hauntings all on his own. You hadn’t seen them, but you remembered the way his soul felt after that first forceful encounter. He was full of a great fear that only grew with the size of his family. More than his own safety, Black was a monster who feared for his family’s safety with near crippling anxiety during his worst nights, though he would never admit to it. 

“Thank you.” 

Black looked up and smiled, though it looked weary. “You’re welcome, my dear.” 

“Honestly, I know what you said, but I’m really sorry I made you have to worry and go out to retrieve me like that. I’ve…not done that before.”

“Is that because you usually have…partners to watch over you at night?” 

You flushed, feeling the heat spread across your face and ears. “N-no it’s, that’s just because it’s more comfortable and there-it helps with the…the nightmares if I’m next to someone.” 

“Ah, that would make sense then. Here, can you stand?” he asked, backing up and holding onto one of your hands.

You used his offer support and hobbled out of the shower space, feeling only a little sore from the freshly treated cuts. You were sure in the morning they’d be fine in the right sort of shoes. 

Before you could get far, the void was around you again, too fast to feel and fear, and then you were stumbling just outside of Rus’ bedroom door where you could hear him snoring lightly. 

“What are we doing here?” 

On the other side of the door you heard the snores cut off. 

“My brother is more than adequate for the task at hand. He may look like a lazy-body, and he is all that, but he is a safe and comforting presence I am sure you could…benefit from. He wouldn’t mind.”

“Wouldn’t mind…Black, are you telling me I should sleep with your brother?”

He flushed enough to catch in the dim light from the basement appliances that cast a green glow over everything. “I-if it would help with the nightmares I think there’s nothing wrong in falling asleep next to someone you trust.” 

He tried to look away, but you grabbed for his hand and he flinched from the contact. “Just Rus?” 

His blush deepened and spread further across his skull. You could see in the dark how his eye lights wobbled in their sockets, threatening to turn into shapes you almost recognized. You still weren’t sure if they were spades or upside down hearts. 

He jumped when Rus’ bedroom door swung open and soft light filtered into the hallway. Rus stood there with his nightshirt hanging off one shoulder and a sloppy smile for the both of you. “You guys gonna stand outside all night or you gonna come in? C’mon, I left the bed warm for us.” 

Black didn’t fight it when you pulled him along after you, or when you tugged him up onto the mattress once his shoes were toed off. Rus slid up easily behind you, wrapping you up in his familiar embrace while you pulled Black down. You tugged him along so that he faced you and could watch you as he fell asleep. Even in the dark his blush stood out.

“Thank you,” you whispered to him in a soft voice. Behind you Rus mumbled something into your back that Black must have understood. 

“You’re we-welcome, of course,” he whispered back before burying his face in the pillow to hide how his crimson violet eye lights spun in slow circles for you. 

 

In the morning you wake up and Black is already gone, having left a hot tea and a set of clothes on the nightstand for you to change into. The price tags were still attached in fat silk loops and gold safety pins, so you could recognize the store they came from. You remembered it being a favorite of his. Knowing Black, he had left first thing in the morning to pick out the outfit for you, brand new and still smelling like the store’s perfume. 

Predictably, Rus is still curled up around you. You groan when you notice the time, but thankfully it’s Saturday and the kids don’t need to be at school, and you don’t need to be awake to get them fed. They could fend for themselves well enough that you never forgot how they had all been runaways at one time. 

You pull away from Rus, managing the task with pride considering how unyielding his grip could be. Honestly, he was almost as bad as Red.

Your feet had been bandaged and taken care of, but you still smelled a little like sweat and you felt gross from your walk last night, so you knew you needed the shower.

 Thankfully Rus had a working shower next to his room, even though he never used it. Black liked to stay clean enough that he at least got some use out of the shower, but Russ was so lazy you bet he counted getting hosed down by the kids during a water fight last month as his most recent cleaning experience. 

You freshened up and dressed in the pretty new outfit left for you, only to emerge and find Black there, waiting in front of the doorway with something in his hands. 

“You forgot this.”

You glanced down and saw the gold chain and ruby stone of your favorite necklace. Black had helped you take it off before bed and had set it down on the nightstand himself, so of course he would remember it. 

“Good morning to you too,” you greeted before gathering your hair up into a wet, but messy bun that held well enough. “Would you put it on for me?” 

He huffed like the request was troublesome, but when you turned with the stray hairs held up off your neck he moved to loop the chain around your neck and latch it. “Good morning to you. Did you…sleep better last night?”

“Infinitely. Thank you.” 

Black’s hands stayed on the latch, hanging onto the chain even though it was safely secured, as if to keep you from turning around and facing him when he spoke. “I…know there are things that still haunt you, but…you’re here now, with people who keep you safe and…and people who care about you. You don’t have to be afraid.” 

You could feel your ears burn a little in embarrassment but you stopped yourself before you could apologize. “I know. Sometimes… I can’t help it.” 

“I know. But we’ll be here to remind you when that happens. No one expects anyone to be better after a lifetime of brutality in a couple of months, love.” 

You giggled at the nickname and turned around. Black’s hands fell to his sides, near limp. You opened your mouth to thank him but he surged forward before you could say anything. 

“And it’s not something you have to thank us for, it’s a privilege to-to be considered close enough to help you like this. Don’t thank us for something so…pleasant.” 

“Oh, so it was pleasant sleeping with me.” 

Black flushed but looked away and hiked his shoulders. You laughed and he recognized the teasing for what it was. 

“Still, thank you for the clothes at least.”

“That required little effort on my part,” he huffed. 

“I’m sure, still, I really like this outfit. You have great taste.”

“Of course.” He preened from the complement, predictably.

From the bed Russ mumbled something and then moaned tiredly into the pillow before kicking at his blankets. He pushed the pillow you had been using off the bed before sitting up and looking around the room. When he found you his shoulders dropped. 

“What time is it?” 

“Time for you to get up and be productive, you lazy pile of bones,” Black roared.

You laughed when Russ flustered and whined about his big brother calling him lewd names in front of you. 

Upstairs you hear the doorbell so you take to the stairs first. Before you can reach the front hallway Black is already there, scowling at Blue who stood so innocently on the doorstep. His starlight blue eyes spun in excitement when he spotted you past Black’s shoulder.

“So you were here! I was starting to get worried when you didn’t answer your phone.” Blue waved you dead phone and then pushed past Black. “I found it in the Barn. Did you forget to charge it then lose it again?”

You grimaced to yourself. “I had every intention of taking care of my important technology but then I forgot about my important technology.”

“A likely story,” Blue laughed before handing the phone over to you. “I had been trying to text or call you to see if you were still free for brunch. Brother is still at work but I have a rare few hours to kill so I thought we could try that new juice bar. But, if you haven’t had breakfast yet then maybe we could eat first?” 

“Yeah, I just got up. I was going to greet the kids first, before I made plans or anything.”

 The only thing you had on your calendar for today was dinner at Grillby’s, since you didn’t work Saturdays or Sunday, (you only ate there as a patron on the weekends). Sans and Red would probably tag along this time as well, but you doubted Stretch would be able to make it if his work went late. Mr. Money bags was working even on the weekends it seemed. 

“Let’s go say hi then and you can decide what you want to do when you’re ready,” Blue cheered, ignoring Black behind him. 

“That sounds like a good use of your time,” Black interjected, standing straighter. “Nothing much will be going on around here and it is a Saturday. You never do anything for yourself on the weekends it seems.”

“I literally go out to eat every Saturday, Black,” you laughed.

“That’s one thing.” 

“It still counts.” 

“It is the minimum . Blue, please make sure she does something outside this house that’s not eating at that grease trap with the other lazy bones.”

Blue startled at Black’s crude language but you just snickered. 

Peter and Tron were building Minecraft worlds together in the bonus room upstairs while Wendy was watching cartoons with Phil. You said your hellos and goodbyes, content with how plugged in and entertained each one was.

 Since school started they had been making an effort to do things and watch shows that the other children in their classes talked about. You were weary about that, but it seemed to be more of a positive thing since the kids were genuinely enjoying the new content and talked about it amongst themselves enough.

Satisfied you left with Blue, not at all surprised to see his motorcycle parked out front. It was the same one Red and Edge had helped him in fixing up and the same one he had driven up into town with you on the back. You hadn’t been on it since the night you borrowed it to drive Sans to where Edge and Red had been stuck, though you knew Blue utilized it often. 

 You slipped on behind Blue, fixing the helmet before looping your arm around his waist. You smelled the broken-in leather of his jacket and the memory associated with that smell was strong enough for you to feel fuzzy on the inside.  

“It’s strange, but I feel like it’s been a while since I felt like this,” you confessed before turning your head to the side and resting it on Blue’s back. You breathed in a little deeper, soaking in the scent as much as you could. 

“Felt like what?” 

“I don’t know. Like we’re starting out brand new all over again. That feeling from back when we still had the bus. It’s strange, isn’t it?” 

“What’s so strange about it?” 

Maybe it had been a silly thing to confess, since it didn’t make sense. You saw Blue all the time. You had snuggled up next to him and slept between him and Stretch a couple of days ago. It wasn’t accurate to say you missed him, but there was a sense of something unnamed that beat inside your chest. 

“That was months ago. So much time has passed since then.”

Blue pat at where your hands hung onto him and you pulled yourself closer. He turned the key into the ignition and you felt the bike kick to life underneath you. When Blue answered you he had to yell to be heard over the rumbling.

“Yeah, but it’s been a while since it was just the two of us. I love seeing you taken care of by the rest of the guys and knowing you’re safe, but it’s really nice when it’s just me getting this with you.”

That was another true fact. 

“Yeah,” you admitted softly before speaking up. “So…is that new ‘juice bar’ another Starbucks or is it really a juice place?” 

“Just because I like their specialty drinks doesn’t mean I think they’re a juice bar!”

You laugh and Blue turned the bike to the road and pulled out, smiling in spite of his outburst. 



When you leave for Grillby’s you decide to walk and end up being a little later than intended. It wouldn’t be the first time you arrived last, but it was still rare enough that when you stepped in both Red and Stretch glanced up from their drinks while Sans turned around in his seat. They weren’t at the bar this time, but they were still easy enough to find.  

“You walked, sweetheart?” Red asked, grinning easily when you pulled out a seat next to his to sit down in. “I would have picked ya up if I’d of known.” 

“It’s a nice day. I don’t mind walking.” 

Your feet hadn’t hurt enough to keep you off them. A few bruises and blisters were nothing or maybe that was just you being a little self destructive. You dropped your backpack purse onto the back of the last empty chair and slid in. 

“We ordered for ya but Grillby said he’d wait to see you to get started. Didn’t want to serve up a burger cold,” Sans explained. 

You waited for the pun at the end of his sentence but he reached for his drink instead. You noticed he had switched from ketchup to tap beer and the same was true for Red, but Stretch’s drink of course was still water. Out of the three of them he was the lightest of all the lightweights. The only other one worse was Rus. 

“Glad you could join us this time, Stretch,” you said. “How’s work?”

“It’s working out just fine, you could say,” he snickered. You relaxed a little, used to the sound of his jokes and giggles. 

“Heard you had quite the night, Sleeping Beauty.” Red interjected. “Sleepwalking?” 

“Black told you that?” 

“Nah, Rus squealed to this guy over here.” Red explained. 

Stretch grinned. “Rus don’t look it but he’s the ‘I have to run my mouth or I’ll die’ type with some things.” He then pulled up his phone and showed the screen lit up from the app messenger. There were several novel sized texts from ‘Monster Candy’ about his night. 

“Oh yeah, that sounds like him,” you said. 

The way Rus gossiped was different from the way Edge gossiped.Edge was worse than a invalid grandmother with a window. He had so much dirt from the townspeople about who was doing what and seeing who and getting into debt with. It was one of the reasons he liked his pulp fiction paperbacks so much. 

“Next time why don’t you walk into my dreams, baby doll,” Red joked.

“I was just restless. It’s not like it’s a habit and I haven’t done it before.” 

“Huh, never? Why’d humans usually walk in their sleep?” Stretch asked.  

“Stress?” Sans supplied.

“Restlessness?” Stretch added.

“Bathroom,” you cut in.

Stretch nodded absently. “I forget you flesh bag types need to do that.” 

Red snapped his phalanges and then adopted a look of exclamation. “Shoot, sweetheart, that makes me think back to a couple of nights when I woke up from you trying to get outta bed. I just figured it was for the bathroom but when I asked ‘ya bout it you were asleep and gave it up too easily.”

“Look,” you groaned while reaching for San’s beer to drink from while you waited for one of your own. “It’s not a big deal. Humans do it all the time. The kids get up and do it from time to time too.” 

“How are they doing?” Sans asked, leaning onto one arm and supporting the side of his skull as he watched you finish off what was left of his beer. 

The flow of conversation lulled and picked up and switched from one topic to the next. Grillby came over not long after seeing you come in and he had your regular ready with an extra heavy boat of fries. He made the rest of the skeletons get up and approach the bar to get their drafts refilled but brought your first one over to you himself. 

“It must be nice being the candle stick’s favorite,” Red teased when it came time for you and Sans to pay your ‘on the house’ bill. 

“Wouldn’t know what you’re talking about,” Sans hummed good naturally, chewing on the end of a soggy fry that still dripped ketchup. 

Good naturally Sans pulled out a thin fold of bills and left them on the table to cover both Stretch and Red’s meals. Red glared suspiciously and Stretch frowned, wallet already out and ready. 

“What’s the supposed ta be for?” Red all but growled. 

“Stealing a march.”

“Stealing a what-” 

But Red’s question got cut off in the blink of darkness as Sans tipped you back into the void and then out again. You were standing on a hill not far from his house, next to the rock outcropping that he liked to set up his telescope on. It wasn’t dark enough for star gazing yet, but the fireflies and night bugs were already buzzing.

“Sans?”

He sweat a little at your stale tone and flat expression. He knew you weren’t a fan of surprise shortcuts. “Sorry, sweetie, but I wanted to ask you something where we wouldn’t be overheard and figured if the other two were here you might feel outnumbered or uncomfortable.”

“Why here then?”

“Stretch will look for you at your place and Red will check mine. They might find this place here eventually, but not for a while.” 

You crossed your arms and leaned back. “Okay then, so are you going to explain why you had to drag me here, alone? It must be something reeeeeeal important to have risked a stunt like that.”  

Sans sweat a bit more. “Ah, aww don’t sound like that. It’s nothing too scary. I was just…the sleepwalking thing. You do that too when you’re with Paps and me.” 

You uncrossed your arms and let them hang at your sides, feeling limp down to your fingertips. “Sans, I already said it wasn’t a big deal though.” 

“Nah, just cause that’s plenty true for most humans, don’t mean it is going to be true for you. Can you say you’re like most humans?”

You don’t say anything to that. 

“I just…I had this feeling I wanted to tell you something someone told me a while back when the reset nonsense got real bad.”

“Someone…you mean Grillby?” He was the only other one who knew about the resets and anyone who knew both Sans and the fire elemental could see that between the two of them Sans took the experiences a little rougher.

His voice went soft. “It’s something that you sleep with every night. And it’s going to keep haunting you until you face it.”

I n the Dark.

The darkness can touch you.

It’s cold.

So cold. 

You’re going to freeze to death.

And that’s where the true horror lives.

The thing you needed to forget-you needed to forget it otherwise it would live in your mind!

“You…sure that didn’t come from a fortune cookie?”

“Not this time, cupcake.”

You felt the way your nails bit into the flesh of your palms and the sting helped to ground you. “There is no facing it . All of that is behind me now.” You swallowed and tried again. “I’m happy now. I’m so damn happy. I’ve never been this happy before in my life. I wake up every day and I look forward to what’s going to happen. It doesn’t make sense to be afraid.” 

“You got a lot more to lose now, cupcake. I get them too.”

You feel the panic in you, tight as a fist, let go and smooth out. Sans looked at you dead in the eye and you remember all the stories he told you, whispered like shameful confessions behind a screen in the dark. All the histories he had to make peace with, while none of them were real. 

“What do you do about it?” you ask.    

“Wake up?” He shuffles from one foot to the other and then elaborates. “That’s how I face it. It's not an all or nothing war at the end of the world sort of effort, but it’s a little battle every morning that has to be fought. And…and you’re not alone, so you don’t have to face it on your own or pretend it ain’t there, least not all on your own.”  

It’s enough. 

You deflate and Sans reaches for you, cradling your elbows. You turn your wrists over to hold him back and just stand there in the dark under the stars. 

“I want to believe that.” 

“Trust me, cupcake, you’re going to be just fine. You kicked my ass god enough that I know there’s not much that can stand up to you.” 

His easy demeanor almost makes you chuckle. “Sans…you’re a skeleton. You don’t have an ass.” 

 

Notes:

So here is a question for MC, how long can she run away from these nightmares? We shall see!

I loved writing all the hurt/comfort interactions with the boys and I can't pick a favorite. I mean, Black is tender AF and Sans is a sly tart while Blue is doing his absolute best.

Also, a few chapters back Sans was doing some shady texting at the end of a chapter. It was him setting up a chat with all the others who remember the resets, (minus Rus because he's still too nervous to go out for himself). The weekly dine-in at Gillby's is the result.

The last official chapter of the arc "Hold Me Tight, Or Don't" wraps it up next week. Stay tuned for what comes next.

Chapter 42: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 10

Summary:

Violence and mild body horror warning at the end of this chapter.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Blue was impressed with his ability to pin down his brother. Since settling down, (and since the job especially), Stretch had grown notoriously elusive and Blue had allowed it at first…but now wasn’t one of the days when he felt like abiding by his younger brother’s secret keeping and aversion tactics. 

Blue turned the lights on and Stretch jerked awake, rolling off the couch in his clumsy panic.

“YOU HAVE A BED AND A BEDROOM,” Blue said, voice booming with magic.

Stretch slowly pulled himself up. “yeah, guess i do.”

“YOU’VE BEEN BUSY, BROTHER. I WAS WONDERING WHY YOU WERE UNABLE TO MAKE OUR DINNERS ALL LAST WEEK UNTIL THE OTHERS INVITED YOU TO THE GREASE TRAP.”

“its tradition and i’ve been missing the last few. but blue what is this about?”

“YOU ARE VERY OBSERVANT, BROTHER, EVEN MORE SO THAN I, BUT YOU ARE STILL MY BROTHER AND MY BABY BROTHER AT THAT, ONE I RAISED FROM A BABY BONES MYSELF! SO, WHILE I MAY NOT HAVE YOUR TALENTS FOR OBSERVATIONS, I CAN STILL READ YOU LIKE A BOOK.”

Stretch had begun to sweat. 

“…o-oh?”

“YOU ARE GOING TO TELL ME ALL ABOUT YOUR MEETING WITH RED AND THE COMEDIAN -AS IT PERTAINS TO MY INTERESTS.”

“bro, that’s not-”

“DON’T THINK THAT JUST BECAUSE I AM NOT ONE OF THE UN-RESETTABLES I CAN’T BE A USEFUL SOURCE OF INFORMATION IN TACKLING YOUR PROBLEMS. DID YOU EVER STOP TO CONSIDER AN OUTSIDER'S PERSPECTIVE MIGHT BE USEFUL? HMMM?”

“it’s a little bit more complicated than just that. we didn’t think it a good idea to let this get out, you know.”

“WHAT EXACTLY?”

“magic stuff?”

Blue crossed his arms and Stretch began to panic.

“re-re-repressed memory stuff! rus said she was sleepwalking and red noticed it too, but i figured it out since i saw her like that once before.”

“WHEN?”

Stretch rubbed at the back of his skull and explained how you had changed the first time after implanting memories into the minds of those men who harassed Edge and Red’s hometown. After you had done the deed Stretch had noticed your shift in behavior and it wasn’t so different from how you were when you slept. It was getting harder and harder to keep the nightmares at bay, even with one or two other bodies in bed holding you back. Something about your memories was persistent and traumatic. Something that had started intensifying within the last week. 

Blue kept his thoughts to himself, listening  without interrupting all the way until the end. 

After he had finished, Stretch asked a question of his own.

“is that the reason you took her out to the juice bar?”

“I DIDN’T KNOW THAT WAS THE REASON FOR HER UNREST. I JUST… WANTED TO MAKE HER DAY A LITTLE BETTER. I…DON’T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH A HUMAN’S TRAUMA.”  

“…that was why me and the guys were talking about it.” 

The implication made Blue frown. “BECAUSE YOU ARE THE ONLY ONES WHO ARE AN AUTHORITY ON THE TOPIC?”

“hey, we thought three heads was better than one but then it got kinda crowded.”

“OF COURSE IT WOULD FEEL LIKE THAT, SINCE YOU’RE ALL ALTERNATIVES OF THE SAME SKELETON WITH THE SAME CHARACTERISTICS, AND LIMITED BY THAT SHARED MINDSET. INVITING SOMEONE IN FROM THE OUTSIDE WOULDN’T BE STUPID. 

Stretch hung his head. “wasn’t my call to make, sorry bro.”

“YOU HAD A VOICE.” Blue sniffly nodded and then relaxed his stance, looking away from his brother like that would ease some of Stretch’s guilt. “NEVERTHELESS, I DO NOT BLAME YOU.”

“so, we good?”

“GOOD?”

“…are you still mad at me?”

Blue huffed and dropped his shoulders. “I WAS NEVER MAD AT YOU. YOU ARE MY BABY BROTHER. DISAPPOINTED ISN’T THE SAME AS MAD.”

“no, but sometimes it feels worse.”

“THEN I WON’T CHASTISE YOU FURTHER. YOU SEEM TO HAVE LEARNED YOUR LESSON. IN THE FUTURE, IF IT IS A MATTER THAT CONCERNS OUR HUMAN IT CONCERNS ME. PLEASE KEEP THAT IN MIND EVEN IF YOU DON’T THINK THERE IS ANYTHING I CAN DO TO HELP. YOU MIGHT BE SURPRISED,” Blue exclaimed, striking a dynamic pose. He looked like a superhero missing his cape. 

Stretch rubbed at the back of his skull, flushing in childish embarrassment. “you got it, bro.  next time for sure.” 

The timer on Blue’s phone went off and with a huff he dropped out of his pose to scoop up his cell from the nearby table and open the timer app to stop the sound of a mechanical robot transforming-a sound from an anime he was fond of. 

He frowned at the time and then dropped the phone into the back pocket of his pants. It was time for work and the notification couldn’t have come at a better time. Stretch would need some processing time to go through everything they had talked about and internalize it. Without that, Blue might as well have been talking to a cup with a hole at the bottom. 

“I AM NEEDED AT THE CINEMA, BUT WE WILL HAVE DINNER TONIGHT. REST UP UNTIL THEN.”

Stretch saluted playfully. “you got it bro. knock ‘em dead.”

“AS A TICKET COUNTER PERSONAL THE ONLY THING WE KNOCK DEAD ARE OUR POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE RATINGS ON YELP.” 

Stretch chuckled, knowing well and good just how dedicated his brother was to a flawless customer service rating wherever he worked. ‘If you can do a job perfectly why wouldn’t you?’

“cool, cool, do you need a shortcut there?”

“NO NEED, I HAVE MY BIKE!” 

Blue’s grin stretched impressively wide and his eyes spun into stars in delight. Before Stretch could say anything more, Blue was bounding out the door, laughing in glee as he prepared for the drive down to the town’s historic styled cinema. Stretch watched his brother go, waving from the window as Blue peeled out of the driveway and turned off down the road. 

After all that…it was probably best for a nap since he had a double shift tomorrow. 

He just needed to make a phone call first. 

 


 

It was too early to leave to get the kids, even if you did want to be the first in line at the pick up, but you figured you could do some shopping first before heading over to the school. It made plenty of sense considering how close the two places were. 

It took twenty minutes from driveway to door to make it to the Bi-Low, and another twenty before you had everything you needed. 

But…that was odd considering how few items you picked up. 

You didn’t even have a cart, just a basket half filled with a few items.

There had been…something bothering you the whole time you were inside the store. You could feel it on the back of your neck and tongue. There was a tingle in your mouth you didn’t want to recognize. 

It was only when the cashier scans the rock candies do you realize you’ve bought them. You pay with the card and take your things back to the car, walking faster than you need to. You dump the rest of your items into the trunk then tear into the rock candy, fingers fumbling, as you pull out the sugar treat and bite hard on the end. 

Your mouth fills with strawberry sweetness and you calm. Turning around you sweep your good eye over your surroundings, catching nothing out of place. Then you sit on the edge of the trunk and close your eye to better access your mental map.

The world went black and the neon lines lit up, showing you where you were, where the buildings around you were, the largest objects, and all the people you knew the names of. You zoomed out a little more, holding your breath and telling yourself you were being paranoid for no reason. You were safe. You were happy. There wasn’t going to be-

FiveG -Thrive

FiveH- Tank

TwoK Esperanza (Espera)

They were…too close to be a coincidence. 

The sour tingle in the back of your mouth was evidence enough of that. 

But it was only the three of them. You would be okay. Espera, the one with the title TwoK was way weaker than you. Tank and Thrive were…oh, they might be a problem together. 

Who was free?

You scrambled for your phone and tried calling Edge, Red, Black…. All busy at work. Papyrus and Sans were out of town for a conference. You couldn’t bother Rus with this, Blue was also at work and Stretch wasn’t answering either. 

And that was fine. 

People got busy, it happened. 

A second later Edge called you back, but you knew he was probably stepping away from whatever he was doing at work to take his free time for you. 

You picked up and heard him call your name. “Is everything alright?”

You take a breath before replying. “Yeah, so far so good. I’m in the Bi-Low lot and I can sense three kids from the Embassy nearby and I think they know I’m here. I tried calling the others but-”

“Stay there, don’t move. We’ll come get you. Did Red not answer his damn phone?” 

“He’s in the city selling right now, it’s probably off. It’s fine. They’re not on my level and I’m pretty confident in being able to talk them down but I can’t let-I can’t pick the kids up so I was wondering if I got tied up, someone else could come down and do me a solid. They’ll be out soon but I don’t want to mix up my past life with them.”

Does he know you’re lying?

Edge was quiet for a moment before answering. “Don’t do anything stupid, please. We’ll be there soon.” 

“You got it.” 

The call ended and you checked your map again, only to flinch in fear when you realized the dots were moving closer to you on the map. You dropped your phone into your back pocket but tossed your purse into the trunk before closing it and jogging to the edge of the parking lot, away from your car, away from the store, away from anything that could catch fire. 

You passed through some trees and then those fell away for a dirt and gravel lot that stretched and stretched. 

Not the perfect place to hide. 

Perfect place to let loose.

“Done hiding?” a voice behind you called out, feminine and rough.

You turned on your heel and dropped your phone into the dirt behind you, recorder on. “I don’t know, you done running after me, Thrive?” 

The girl grinned and you could see the way years had changed her. She had been all but a youth the last time the two of your sparred, but she was a woman now, strong and tall with pride in her eyes and teeth bright as pearls when she smiled. Her dark, cloud like hair was free around her face and the piercing through her left brow still flashed in the sunlight. 

“Thought we’d be chasing you for years. Kinda sloppy if you only lasted four months.”

Behind her Tank, the taller broader brother with the same dark hair and proud eyes stopped behind her. Further back Esperanza lagged behind, nowhere near as physically fit as the two siblings. 

Years ago you remembered standing next to the three of them, glancing sideways at how your brother and Thrive shared their own private glances that promised something you had never understood. Before the monsters surfaced Raven took chances for Thrive he wouldn’t for anything or anyone else. Before the crisis of identity Thrive had been closer to you than a sister.

But now?

“What are you doing here?” you shouted out. “I can’t be worth that much time and effort. So what? I couldn’t do a simple job for the old man. Not like anyone else could either.” You twirled the rock candy around in your mouth, sucking harshly. 

“You selling yourself short?” Thrive taunted.

“I doubt the Embassy would make this worth your work.”

“You must have heard we’re not with the Embassy. Any organization like that might tolerate us and Hightower for our insight but it would never condone our actions. We are our own group now.”

“And those actions are…”

Thrive smirked. “You’re going to play dumb with me now?” Beside her Tank stood straight but didn’t speak. 

“You… wanna take me back? That doesn’t sound smart. I was pretty much useless to you when I did believe in your cause. It’s a whole new story now.”

“Believe me we know, but chasing after your brother isn’t yielding us anything as long as he’s able to shortcut his way out of any conflict. It's about time we made him come to us.” Her smirk lessened. “But you know this isn’t…personal, right?” 

You remember the girl in front of you taking your brother’s face in her hands and pulling it down to kiss so softly you swore you could hear the way their hearts beat as one. You can't say you knew what love even was, but you wished you could believe in it for their sake. 

“Not personal?” you echoed dully. “How is it not? Raven was-”

“He’s a traitor to everything we believed in!” Thrive snapped, eyes wild. “Just like you. He just lied a hell of a lot better about it. So shut up and just-” the ground under you rumbled, “come with us!”

You jumped back in time to avoid the vine the burst up out of the ground. You fell into the dirt and rolled, feeling the flames behind your empty eye lid flicker to light as the scars under your floral tattoo began to open and vent fire. You sprang out of your crouch and spit out your rock candy to breath fire at the vine. Once it caught you left it to writhe to death and charged at Esperanza, easily the weakest of the three. 

Tank met you head on and you burned hotter. He could block your punches but they still burned. As tall and thick as he was, he wasn’t any faster than Papyrus and you had tangoed with worse. Edge was a beast when he got serious and in comparison, Tank was slow. 

Something hit you from behind and you staggered. 

Oooooor maybe he wasn’t that slow. 

You tasted magic in the back of your mouth and grinned, realizing what he had done. 

You matched his speed, pouring your own magic into the muscle tissues and sinews, making them faster than they could ever hope to be otherwise.

You reached for Tank and caught him this time. Forehead to nose, you hear the wet crack as cartilage crumples under bone. He screamed but recovered quickly, swinging angry. You caught a glimpse of horn poking out of his scalp, petite but defined along the ridges of his skull; two points.

 You matched Tank blow for blow but dodged wildly when Thrive came up behind you. Between the two of them you had to pull out something else, so you made fire between your hands and then threw it like a javelin their way. It exploded upon impact but Tank’s magic kept him safe while Thrive had pulled up a shield of what looked like plant bark. 

“This isn’t really fair is it?” you taunted with a new javelin between your hands. “You know I could take on five of you, right?” 

The second javelin exploded just like the first but you surged forward right behind it and swiped at Tank’s magic made shield, cutting through it with the magic of your hand like it was weaker than wet paper. You breathed fire onto his chest and it threw him back. You could smell the way his skin and hair burned. 

Thrive screamed at you, cursing. She grabbed your arm and her nails scratched your skin, but you flared fire magic through your body, burning away any poison she might have tried to introduce into your bloodstream. 

Up close she swiped again and turned into a blow, only to reel out of it with a thorny whip in her hand that snapped right in your nose. Without your magic it would have skinned off half your face. You exhaled more fire and she retreated, but not before dropping something that bloomed and smoked. 

It was your turn to retreat, jumping back and getting as far away from the green and yellow clouds that smelled like candied oranges. The only other person those poisons wouldn’t harm apart from herself was her brother.

You scanned the field for Esperanza and saw her hanging back, looking worried with a data pad in her hands. She had never been one for combat support. 

“You’re the one who needs back up here,” Thrive called out from beyond the smoke. “There’s only one way this can end and you know it.”

“There are plenty of ways I can end this,” you shouted back, flaring more fire from your hands. 

“You might outclass us, but your LeVel is still stuck at one for a reason.”

You turned, watching the edges of the toxin cloud for shadows that betrayed movement. You refused to listen to her words. She didn’t have a point. 

“Are you really planning on killing us?” Thrive laughed as another smoke bomb went off, leaking noxious purple smoke. “Knock us out maybe, but we’d wake up and come after you again, you know.” 

Instead of a javelin you made your hands leak coiled fire that cracked when you snapped it in the air. A whip of fire in each hand, you turned towards the voice, tracking with your map. 

“You’re so pitifully outclassed that’s what you came up with? I’m shaking in my boots over here,” you taunted. For good measure you snapped the whips, one right after the other. 

“Go ahead, underestimate us,” Tank called out, speaking for the first time. “See where that gets you.” 

You saw on the map how the both of them backed up as more and more flowers along the way released their toxins. You coughed and snapped at the air, pulling away from it. You needed to get away from the clouds. It was getting harder to breath. 

You dropped you whips and channeled the fire elsewhere, into you back and then out. You felt the flames lick greedily at the air and then the feathers manifested. You beat two of the four wings first and then all of them. Feathers grew from the vents in your arms and then around your ankles. You felt them mix in with your hair too. Like your brother could, you manifested wings out of your magic and rocketed away from the ground-

-And straight into something metal. 

You fell back to earth, sucker punched. 

You fell gasping, tears in your eyes from the shock of it all. Something sparkled as it broke from the chain around your neck and hit the dirt but you didn’t notice. 

 Your magic fell away for a moment and you struggled to manage it again. But in that split moment several more metal arms grabbed at you and held you down. You pulled and flared with fire, but then one of the androids had his hand over your nose and mouth. A vent in his wrist gasses you and it wasn’t fair how fast you fell into sleep. 

The last thing you taste is the magic in the back of your throat from the androids that Esperanza had controlled. 

You shouldn’t have underestimated them.

 




You have no idea how much time passed. 

You wake up and then wish you hadn’t. 

There was something in you, something heavy and thick and sickening as candied oranges. 

You blink and manage to see by enough light to realize what it is. Thrive’s plants are growing inside you, crawling out through the vents on your arms and breaking the skin in other places. Small white flowers bud between your fingers and there are more you can’t see under your collarbone. 

Then you see where you are. 

“This isn’t the embassy.”

Hightower looks up from his seat and regards you with a bored look. “You think they would let me do what I wanted forever. Even they have their limits.”

You tried to turn your head, to call up your magic, but the plants living inside of you now feast on your reserves and leave you drained dry. You’re as good as neutered. You try again, knowing it's useless, and some of the flowers along your arm bloom pink. 

“They’re lovely, aren’t they?”

“Where the fuck are we, Hightower? You don’t have any right to keep me here like this against my will.”

“Hence why we are no longer with the Embassy you dull girl,” he sighed, sounding like he was tired from talking to a child. “Don’t you recognize the off site location.”

“They all looked the same.” 

Hightower stood from his chair and pocketed his phone. 

Behind him the room stretched on and on, narrow but long. One of the longer sides of the wall was see-through, exposing the cellmate to a hallway’s worth of curious onlookers. They had said this was supposed to be the place where they kept the captured monsters, after they surfaced and brought war with them. 

‘Aren’t we supposed to kill our enemies?’

‘We will need to keep some alive to better learn their weaknesses and how they work.’

You recognized it well. 

Across the hall there is another cell-no two, that look inhabited. A black fire elemental in a bartender’s uniform slouches against the wall and your heart skips out of time. 

“What the hell?” you whispered in shocked anger. 

The Grillby from another world doesn’t look up. He can’t hear you, just like how you can’t hear anything on the other side of the see-through plastic. 

“He’s a criminal we brought to justice. One of the few we managed to nab,” Hightower explained in slow words. “Came from a brutal world and would likely bring that cruelty to ours in due time, don’t you think.” 

“You’re sick, Hightower.”

“You’ve always hated me, but that’s no reason to be so dumb.”

You flared your magic and more flowers bloomed, breaking through the skin of your wrists, your neck, and under your shirt. You seethe in anger, barely able to move from the poison still in your body. 

“Thank your brother for this. He was the one who brought them here. Yet he didn’t care enough to lift a finger in aid when we captured them. His kindness isn’t as fool-hearty as yours.”

“You’re all so stupid, none of this makes sense. There is no war but the war you make here,” you yelled, feeling hot all over. 

“I would hardly call it a war like this.”

“You dumb fucker!”

Hightower clicked his tongue in disapproval. “ Language , child.” 

You hadn’t been a child in a long while, but that didn’t matter to a man who never noticed you past your usefulness to him in the first place. You were worse to useless to him now, you were a hindrance to his plans, whatever they were. 

Did he really want another war with monsters? To what end? The glory wasn’t worth it. Did he want more child soldiers? For what? He was just rolling the dice on making another hindrance like you. He didn’t make any sense and it irked you to be caught in the confusion of it all when all you wanted to do was burn and rage.  

“You’re not going to prosper this way,” you snarled. “There is no good ending for you like this.”

“Blame your brother for it. He was the one who started all this nonsense in the first place. I’m seeking to correct the imbalance.” 

Hightower approached the door and you tried to get up, onto your feet, but you struggled too much. The plants growing inside of you didn’t help much either. He didn’t stop or look back but took his time getting to the door. Once there he slipped out and touched a panel on the wall to ease the opening shut from the top down. 

He was leaving you!

“Get back here,” you screamed before the door could shut all the way. “You can’t do this to us. You can’t!” 

You made it to your feet but stumbled fast and loose, banging the see through wall enough to make it vibrate. Hightower watched, unimpressed as you lifted your fist and banged again and again.

On the other side of the hallway the black flamed Grillby watched from where he slouched but he didn’t move. In the cell next to his one of the two figures in the back looked like they were getting  up to draw closer, prompting a secondary figure to rise up further back. 

You didn’t doubt the wall was all but soundproof but you banged and screamed regardless, screwing your voice as the magic turned into thistles. 

“Hightower! Get back here! I’m really going to kill you this time,” you screamed. You flared what you could of your magic and the blossoms spilled out of your empty eye socket and between your fingers, but you continued to bang. 

You had places to be. You had people who would worry about you. You told Edge you were going to be fine and you messed up! You shouldn’t have messed up that bad but you did. You outclassed them and they won when you had so much more to lose!

You smelled the noxious smell from the plants breaking through your face but you swore you could still see straight. Your legs gave out and you watched all the way down as Sans and Papyrus approached their cell’s see through wall, but something was wrong about the both of them. Hightower had done something, Sans was hurt with a hole in his head and Papyrus’s face looked broken in. His teeth…

“Hightower!” You screamed one last time before the rose thorns tore into your throat and left you gagging.

Notes:

The final chapter in 'Hold Me Tight, Or Don't' for (hopefully) some obvious reasons. :D I think I said something about story arcs changing whenever a time skip happens or when a new character shows up, (or a pair of new characters).

The fluff train has derailed and won't start up again for a little while. We're back on track with plot.

Chapter 43: Hold me Tight, Or Don't 11

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Edge was nothing but panic from bone to bone. He hadn’t stayed long to explain, but he hadn’t needed to. Once his coworkers saw the worried expression and heard his panic they had waved off his early absence and he had made a beeline for the car. Red wasn’t picking up but he was only one of his may, many problems.

“If you have a cell phone you should use it,” he huffed in frustration as the next call to Stretch fell through. The last one who could use shortcuts was Black.

Edge was a good quarter of the way to the Bi-Lo when someone finally picked up.

“He-hello?” Rus answered hesitantly. “Edge?”

“No one is answering their damn phones. Where is your brother. I need him.”

“He’s out back trimming lumber, he-I don’t think he could hear his phone over the saw. Wa-what’s the matter?”

Before he can make sense of it Edge blurts out you name and the fidgeting sounds on the other end go still. “She called me and said she was being followed. I told her to wait for help but I can’t shortcut there on my own and no one who can is answering their damn phone. Get your brother, now!”

“w-w-ait-what?!” Rus asked in a panic even though Edge could hear him moving in the background, getting up and climbing out of that basement no doubt. “are you sure-what about the kids?”

“Someone will need to pick them up, naturally.”

“oh, i-i can I can help with that i just-” There was the crunch of gravel as Rus reached the outside and then more running before the far off sound of power tools running.

Edge left his phone on speaker and took the turns more carefully, forcing himself to slow down to safer speeds. He refused to get into an accident if only because it will keep him from reaching you faster.

“sans!” Rus screamed, voice heavy with magic. The power tool sounds cut off and Edge heard Black curse and complain about being called that name in this world or something along those lines, it was hard to hear if they were to far away from the phone. However, the complaining didn’t last long. It must have been the look on Rus’ face or something nonverbal, because Black shut up real fast.

“What happened?”

“She’s…” The voices cut out but Edge paid more attention to the road. He could see the town up ahead. He was closer now, over halfway.

“You said the Bi-Lo, right?” That was Black’s voice, closer to the phone and loud enough to indicate his question was more for Edge than his brother.

“That’s what she said last.”

Black cursed on the other end. “She tried calling me too! There’s a message here asking me to pick up the kids from school. Damn, and at this time too they’re-”

“Then pop over to the Bi-Low, drop off your brother, and blink over to do what you need to do. Rus is observant. He’ll be able to help out if,” Edge almost choked on the rest of his sentence, “if we need those types of skills.”

“I can shortcut to the grocery store itself with my brother. How far out are you?”

Edge glanced at the clock on his dash and then out the window. “I’m five minutes out.”

“Rus won’t be alone long, then.”

Edge let the phone go dead and accelerated through an amber light before it could turn red. He knew his way around town enough to take a few necessary risks, and before four minutes were past he was pulling into the parking lot hot, seeing your car from the road. Rus was there, leaning down and looking at something.

“What is it?” Edge asked.

Rus stood with a spare key and opened the trunk for Edge to see. “She left it here. She set it down neatly too, and then locked the door behind her. She wasn’t dragged off.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Edge growled, sparing a look for their surroundings. It wasn’t busy but it was populated enough for a kidnapping to be noticeable.

Rus observed the area a little more closely before picking a direction to walk in, behind the store and away from the roads. Edge followed wordlessly as they headed into the tree line. A few paces in he could see on the other side of the small woodlands an open lot of dust and dirt. Before they were out from between the trees Edge could smell the burning.

“What is that?” he asked out loud before he could stop himself. He didn’t need an answer. He already knew.

“Fire…was used here,” Rus answered, voice faded and distant. He stopped at the edge of the woods and looked out at the open lot, expression distant. “They fought here.”

“We don’t know if it was a fight though.”

Rus ducked his head and inhaled deeply. “No, we do. More than one magic was used here. The stones are burned in places too, look.”

Edge had excellent vision, but it was nothing compared to Rus’ phenomenal eyesight. Edge had to leave the trees behind him and cross half of the first field before he found the evidence Rus had pointed out. There were black streaks of soot, the burned remains of stray weeds, and plenty of messy shoe marks in the dirt to investigate.

“Shit,” Edge whispered in fear.

He felt cold in a way that didn’t make sense. It was chilly, but Edge had endured worse and felt better. There was something in the horror of his revelation that chilled him deeply in a way he couldn’t put to words other than to say it happened in his soul. He felt… cold. Empty. Something was gone that had once been a part of him.

He heard his shivering before he felt it. Edge looked down and saw his hands shaking, bones rattling against bones as his anxieties mounted and it was just like back there-back underground. He felt it like he felt the familiar curve of a broken in pair of boots.

This sensation was what came when he first learned how to lose someone. He hadn’t reacted so poorly since…since the first time. He blinked when he thought he saw the cave walls in front of him, when he thought he smelled the mildew of stagnate water pools, the blood and bodies of his comrades and subordinates…

Shit!

Where were you?

He was not going to go back to the beginning in some stupid panic haze when he needed to concentrate and focus on finding you. He was good about that.

Rus…less so.

The thinner skeleton slouched even more than normal and stared off into the distance, holding his elbows. His eyesights were bright in contrast to their usual dimness, at there was a slack expression on his face.

Edge almost said something but his phone buzzed in his pocket and he cursed when he saw who it was before accepting the call.

“What is the point of a phone if I can’t reach you through it!?” Edge bellowed, angrier than he had a right to be with his brother.

While Edge huffed angrily Red sounded like he was trying to get his bearings. “…Boss? What’s going on with you? I’m at work but you and the tiny tyrant keep sending me messages-”

“SHE’S GONE.”

“-wh-what?”

Edge choked his words and squeezed the magic out of them before speaking again. “She’s gone. There was a fight behind the Bi-Low and-”

Crack

Edge looked back in time to see Rus pull a familiar looking cell phone from the overturned rubble. It came apart in pieces.  Edge could only hope you had fared better than your technology.

“The Bi-Low, shit, hang on, Imma be right there. Give me a sec.”

Edge let the call end as he crossed the distance to reach Rus. He stopped when Rus offered up the phone to see better. “not much left, is there?”

“Can it give you any clues to where she might have gone?” Edge asked.

“i’ll check it out, but more importantly, the security cameras for the parking lot might have picked something else up. i’ll get those and-”

Pop

Red materialized violently, coming out of the void messily and nearly missing the landing as he tottered to catch his balance. “Where is she? Wha happened?” Red rushed to say, wobbling.

“We don’t know yet,” Edge admitted.

With his brother next to him Edge felt a little saner. It grounded him to know that there was someone next to him. If he was alone he might just fall apart, but if his brother was beside him and relying upon him, Edge could keep it together.

Red looked first to his brother and then to Rus who still cradled the broken phone close to his chest. His eyes scanned the dust and dirt past both of them, no doubt spotting the scorch marks left from someone’s fires.

Your fires.

The evidence of a struggle was all around them, impossible to miss.

Red rubbed at his face with both of his hands. “I just saw it too, she tried calling me earlier. It wasn’t too long ago. What could have happened in that time?” 

“She said it was the ones who left the organization, the renegades,” Edge explained. “Rus, if you get those security feeds we can cross reference the photos, can’t we?”

“Something like that.”

“How long would that take?” Red asked.  “And will it tell us where they took her?”

Edge grimaced, hating how easy it was to read Rus’ expression to Red’s question. No. They were too far out. Nothing would be caught on video here. You had probably picked the spot yourself to avoid involving bystanders or to give yourself the advantage of more room.  From training Edge knew you benefited more from the openness of the terrain when you used magic. But he also knew you were a good fighter, even outnumbered…so….

“Where does that leave us?” Red asked in a voice too thin and high to be normal.

“Keep looking for clues. Spread out, see what you can find,” Edge said. “Rus can get to work on tracking video footage of the surrounding area. Maybe something got picked up.”

“I actually might need help with that,” Rus said, looking to Red. “Can you shortcut me back to my room and cover one of the monitors? The more eyes we have looking…”

“Shit, yeah, yeah-I-I can do that,” Red quickly responded.

Like his words, Red fumbled over to where Rus stood and grabbed at his arm before they blinked out together. Edge could only hope their trip was smoother than his brother’s verbal delivery.

With the others gone Edge stood alone in the quiet of the empty field, feeling the weight of his loss double down on his soul.

Your absence had teeth.

Like a solider Edge forced himself to pace, tracking the burn marks and prints left in the dirt. He counted two other prints across from yours, and then a third set removed from the mess; most likely a support member or long rang fighter.

The scuffle in stones and soil told him that you had done well. It didn’t look like you had been overpowered on the ground. There were dead plants scattered in between the rubble and when he examined one it smelled strongly of something that might be toxic to humans. Did that mean you had run from the gasses? No, your prints didn’t point to that. Your tracks ended in the center and then…nothing.

He heard a pop behind him and turned, expecting to see his brother, but instead Black stood blinking at his surroundings.

“You’ve been here before?” Edge asked, drawing the shorter skeleton’s attention.

“Yes…I…own this parcel of land technically. It’s not slotted for development so…ah, this would be an ideal location for a brawl,” Black answered in a distracted tone as his eye lights flared neon shades of purple as he scanned his surroundings. When his sights landed on Edge he stiffened and folded his hands behind his back and barked out. “Status!”

Edge sneered, recognizing the tone and wording he would use on his own underlings. It was distasteful to have Black boss him around like some sort of lesser, but he could deal with the slight if it meant getting Black’s help faster.

Priorities.

“There was a sustained fight over three fourths of the terrain. Two close range assailants and one long range, possibly support. Tracks and burn markings suggest she was holding her own against the two before toxins were used.” Edge gestured to the patch of land behind him. “The trail ends here. Her phone was recovered in pieces about there where you’re standing. Your brother has it.”

“Where are the exit tracks for the other two fighters she was engaged with?”

Edge pointed to the tracks and found more of those noxious bulbs, dead and withered in between the gravel and dirt, most likely to cover their retreat. Black followed out to the tree line and then broke off to trace it back to the last place those tracks overlapped with yours while Edge went on into the woods.

A minute later Edge heard a sound and jogged back, stopping dead in his tracks when he saw Black, knelt in the dirt with something glittering in between his fingers. Edge stilled as he watched the professional demeanor of a ’tiny tyrant’ who had cut his teeth in a cruel underground melt into grief. The anger from before fell away as Edge forced himself to watch the way Black lost his composure over a tiny red gem on a broken chain. It made Black’s hands shake and his voice pitch.

The necklace didn’t tell them anything new but it was still devastating to see. To Black it must have looked like a shard of your soul he had to dig up out of the dirt or… or the last thing left after a dusting.

Humans didn’t die the same as monsters. When a monster died it dusted, and after that there was no body to hold or miss. Wind and the elements would take care of the remains before long and plenty of monsters in history had dusted without anyone there to witness their ending.

If you died there would be a body.

Right?

 

The pair gleaned as much as they could from the rubble before leaving. Black offered to shortcut Edge back before hearing about the car being left behind. Edge drove himself back up to the farmhouse and Black followed close behind in your car, unloading the groceries and even carrying your purse in with him like it was some mechanical routine he always saw to.

Inside there were the sounds of children running upstairs and for a moment Black paused in the kitchen, staring up at the ceiling like it was something he could see through.

“What do I tell them?” he asked, sounding tired.

Edge wanted to feel better about seeing the other skeleton so defeated, but he couldn’t find it in his soul to glean any measure of joy from the situation. The situation was horrible and everyone was going to suffer for it.

“Tell them what we’re doing. We’re looking for her and trying our best to bring her home,” Edge answered. “Blueberry should be with them. They’ll be fine.”

“Yes, I left him with them…he’ll want to know what’s going on. He only knows that she needed help picking up the kids.”

Edge made a face. “He doesn’t know she’s missing? You-who is going to tell him?”

Instead of answering right away Black rubbed at his face. “We’ll explain it when he comes down, maybe when Stretch comes over to help Tron with his homework.”

“Two birds with one stone.”

“Precisely,” Black sighed.

“Then who is going to tell the Classics? They’re not even in town. There’s no way they would know.”

“There’s no rush. We can mention it once we have more evidence to offer up.”

We?” Edge echoed in petty disbelief.

Black shrugged, but it was less mocking than some of his usual body taunts. “You were the first on the scene. It’s only fair.”

Edge held back a groan. As much as he loathed having to talk with the originals, he couldn’t deny that they were the most experienced with the Embassy programs and the people who you had previously worked for. They might have connections that end up being exactly what they needed.

Edge didn’t have long to worry about that uncomfortable conversation for long, as the stairs echoed with lightning fast footfalls and then in the next moment Blue was sliding into the kitchen on socks the way Peter had taught him how to.

“You’re back!” he exclaimed, tone chipper. “Do you need help unloading anything?”

“We are fine. Is Stretch still at work?” Edge answered when Black didn’t.

Blue checked his phone for the time before replacing it in his back pocket. “He’s got a shift that goes till late tonight, so he won’t be home for another couple hours. Why, did you need him for something?”

“No, but having him here would alleviate some of the tension of this conversation,” Black interjected. He moved to set down your purse on the table and that’s when Blue realized your absence.

“What…is going on?” Blue asked lowly, eye lights fixed on the purse like metal on a magnet.

Black didn’t speak up first so Edge took the plunge. “You got a call earlier, didn’t you? I managed to speak with her before she sent out those texts. Apparently while at the grocery store she ran into some people from her past. I drove down as quickly as possible but the result was-”

Blue’s eye lights shrank into pin pricks but never wavered off the purse. “Where is she?”

“We got there as soon as we-”

WHERE?” Blue breathed, interrupting Edge’s answer with a single broken word.

“She is missing,” Black answered sternly. “She was taken or chased off but at this moment we do not know. We’re working to track her down now.”

Blue took a half step back. In the room no one moved and the silence stretched between all three, thick and heavy enough to be something near physical.  Black held himself with his arms crossed behind his back, his posture stiff, and his eye lights unfocused while Blue processed everything he had just heard. There was a dull look on his skull while Edge watched on.

Edge knew better than to think Blue wasn’t running every terrible senairo over in his head right now, and worrying about each one.

“We have-you have to go look,” Blue explained, snapping out of his daze long enough to turn and start heading for the door to the garage.

Edge grabbed the smaller skeleton by the shoulder, stopping him. “Not a good idea until we know where to look.”

“What about where she was last seen. There might be some clues!”

“We just came from there,” Black explained.

“When?”

“Just now,” Black answered without flinching. “When I asked you to watch the kids here it was because I needed to go there.” 

Blue flushed angrily, glaring sharply back over his shoulder at his counterpart version. “You knew but you didn’t tell me until just now? You knew?! Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped in the search.”

“We were covered,” Edge sighed.

“You-you don’t know that for sure. Maybe there was something you missed. I could have done something more!”

“You did do something, you watched the children.”

“But why didn’t you tell me then?!”

“There was no merit to sending you off to worry early and needlessly. We already had enough eyes scanning the field, we found her phone and several other useful tracks but nothing else,” Black bit out, sounding harsher and crueler than he had in a long while.

“You mean…” Blue’s voice was angry but thin, “there was no reason to call me there because I would have been useless?”

“You have your uses, Blue, don’t misconstrue my words.”

Blue glared first at Black and then up at Edge. “But isn’t that what you mean? That there was no use telling me until just now because I wouldn’t have been useful to you there? That’s what you’re saying!”

“You’re upset,” Edge said, deflating at the sight.

Poor Blue had a right to rage, even though neither he nor Black regretted their decision to leave him in the dark a little longer. There was logic to their decision, but the world wasn’t made just for logic. Blue’s soul was crying out in pain, loud enough that Edge suspected even the other brothers down in the basement would be able to hear it.

“I’m not as useless as you think I am! Tell me where, now!”

Edge didn’t need to clarify what Blue was asking for. “The lot behind the Bi-Low store. You’ll recognize it when you see it.”

Blue barreled past edge, going straight for the garage. A minute later the roar of his motorcycle echoed before he let loose and tore off onto the main road. From the window they could watch him, a silver and blue streak through the evening light.

“He’s not going to find anything we didn’t,” Black huffed.

“Let him have his moment to grieve. He hasn’t processed it all just yet and he’ll need his own time to sort things out,” Edge explained.

He recognized a bit too much of his brother and himself in the way Blue raged. It had been hard for the two of them to adjust and learn to vent their angers more productively. Blue was always so positive, it must have really rattled him to see him react so strongly. 

“Now, an update on the phone restoration would be nice,” Black sighed.

Edge looked back to watch the shorter skeleton head off down the stairs to Rus’ living quarters and lab. Red was down there too, but no one was upstairs watching the kids. That was something everyone else seemed better at than him so Edge sat down at the kitchen table and started a draft to the Classic and Original. Classic was the one you called Sans and Original was Papyrus, but Edge and his brother were the only ones who used those nicknames. 

Original would drop everything and rush over, only to make a mess of whatever he left behind. Classic was…well he had more tact than that, as loathed as Edge was to admit it. He really didn’t like the smirky bastard marshmallow and likely never would. He could make nice and play pretend, but he knew the jerk felt the same way about him.

Still….

He picked up on the fourth ring like the lazy bones he was.

“Hello. You loose a bet?”

Edge ground his molars but forced his voice to work. “I didn’t think you would answer. Weren’t you busy?”

“Not too busy to see what the Edgelord himself is calling for.” In the background there were muffled, far off voices-most likely those from the conference he was in attendance for.  “So…what’s got you so rattled?”

“She didn’t call you then?”

Sans’ line went quiet.

Edge took that as his cue to explain.

“She’s missing. Someone from the old Embassy ran into her and we found signs of a struggle and her phone. We thought you should know.”

Edge hung up and tossed his phone onto the kitchen table, too tired to hold himself together anymore. He crossed his arms, elbows on the table edge, and bowed his head between his hiked shoulders. Everything seemed so much colder and he wasn’t sure how he was going to deal with it if they didn’t bring you back soon.

This wasn’t the underground and he wasn’t who he used to be. No amount of cruelty was going to save you tonight. All he could do was wait on the others and hope they had more luck.

All he had were hopes and dreams.

 

Notes:

These poor boys.

Chapter 44: Champion 1

Summary:

The horror bois have arrived

Notes:

I'm just young enough to still believe, still believe
But young enough not to know what to believe in
Young enough not to know what to believe

If I can live through this
If I can live through this
If I can live through this
I can do anything

Champion
-FOB

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

How….

long…

???

 

The thorns didn’t scratch as much anymore. You had managed to figure out a trick or two in pulling back your magic and calcifying its exterior so that the pants inside you couldn’t feed on it. The upside to that was the flowers and plants rotted and died off you, flaking like old skin. The downside, you were unable to touch your magic so long as you wanted to keep those plants dead.

Still, without your magic there wasn’t much hope of getting free, much less of bringing the others with you, and there was no way you were springing free without them.

But then to what end?

Hightower and his mini army were still going to be constant thorns in your side, chasing you down and doing worse than what they already had. First they had come for you, but then it would be the boys, or the kids…

How many people stood between you and your happiness?

It was depressing to even think about. You couldn’t even confidently make a move for fear of retaliation on the outside world. You weren’t the best at hiding. You weren’t your brother.

You rolled off the bed and reached for something to throw, but the only thing you have is your pillow, so you grab that and hurl it at the glass wall in frustration. No one is surprised when the pillow bounces harmlessly off. Across the way the black flamed Grillby watches you, silent as ever, and the injured Papyrus tracked your movements with his smaller than usual eye lights. You wonder if he has trouble seeing.

Bastards. They could help with something like that. Why didn’t they?

You knew the answer.

“You’re looking better.”

You stiffen at the voice and turn to watch Julie, your old nurse, walk up with an android flanking her on either side. One carried a box with food trays slid into it and the other watched on with artificial eyes that never stopped scanning. The woman looked haggard and you hoped she was.

“You are the last person I would have expected to see here,” you hissed.

When they stopped outside your door you backed up to the bed, waiting for them to pull up the panel they could walk through. Julie took one tray and walked in while the others waiting outside.

Julie managed a smile. “Please don’t try anything. My ability to visit you again depends on your behavior.”

“What makes you think I want you to visit me?” you asked.

“The fact that you’re going stir crazy with no one to talk to. You’ve been down here a couple of days already.”

You file that information away for later, knowing that you had been unconscious for most of it and unable to accurately measure the passage of time. How long had you been missing? What were the others doing? How long would they keep trying to find you?

“Why are you really here?” you asked, bowing your head and folding your hands in front of you, submissive enough for Julie to approach and set down the tray with food. “I thought you were better than the rest of them.”

“If I wasn’t here who else would stand in this role?” She put the tray down and dared a step closer. “I do what I can. It is my way.”

You feel her hand on your shoulder and you stare up through the bangs and dark lashes to watch her. “I’m not staying here, Julie. You know that, and you know that Hightower is a fool to think he can keep me here.”

“He’s always been a fool, honey.”  Julie leaned in closer to whisper. “But its important that you’re here.”

You felt your heart skip and sputter in your chest as she pulled away and started to leave. She was almost at the door when you stood.

“Wait, what about my health?”

Julie stopped and the androids watched you, most likely recording everything.

“Yes?” Julie asked.

“I…I feel sick. I…I have shakes and I can’t sleep well. It was bad before I was brought in too.”

Julie watched you for a moment longer before replying. “That…is troubling. I will see about scheduling a checkup at some later time. What were your symptoms?”

You floundered for a moment, glancing past her shoulder to where the other monsters watched on. “It was…it was from before even coming in here, but it has to do with my magic being out of wack. I feel sick from it. Ever since I lost my eye…” you touched the shut lid that hid from view an empty socket. “A normal doctor wouldn’t do my any good so I didn’t bother with it but…if it’s you…”

Julie glanced sideways at the android who wasn’t carrying anything. “We’re not cruel here, but I’ll see what I am allowed to do.”

“You don’t think Hightower wants to know?”

Julie inclined her head. “I’ll see what I can do.”

The panel slid shut behind her and you sat on your bed, watching as she distributed the trays of food to both the Grillby and skeleton brothers before being escorted away.

Oddly enough…

This time you could hear sounds from both of the cells. Grillby didn’t talk much, (no surprise there) but you could hear the clink of his spoon or fork on the metal tray while in the other cell, Papyrus was boisterous enough with his voice to have it carry across the hall and be heard by you. Julie must have done something to the sound proofing. Did she do something to the audio recording devices? What about the cameras?

You remembered this site and location. It was one of the older ones, and only specific wings had the fancy updates while the rest was left to the cold war era technologies. If something happened to your wing they’d have to move you there…

“-THINK YOU CAN.”

You looked up, drawn out of your thoughts by the louder than normal voice. Papyrus was looking at you, smiling and waving.

“SEE, BROTHER! I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD BE ABLE TO HEAR US NOW. IT’S DIFFERENT. HELLO, HUMAN, YOU CAN HEAR ME NOW, CAN’T YOU?”

“I can hear you just fine, Papyrus,” you sighed, feeling a measure of warmth flicker in your soul from the familiarity of this stranger. He wasn’t your Papyrus, but he was still Papyrus. 

“YOU KNOW MY NAME!”

“Something like that. It might be hard or me to explain how I know that. How much do you know about the world you’re in right now?”

“WE’RE TOPSIDE, WE SAW THE TREES AND THE SUN AND THE SKY. WE EVEN SAW THE STARS. BUT THEN THE HUMANS FOUND US AND-” he gestured to the space around him.

“That sucks. This world is topside, yeah, but isn’t not the same as the world you came from. This is an alternative version of your world, and as such there are alternative versions of you and your brother already existing in this world. I know them, so that’s why it feels like I know you. I’m good friends with this world’s Papyrus.”

“FRIEND!” Papyrus gasped in what you hoped was delight.

Before Papyrus could say more a hand on his shoulder tugged him back. Behind him, Sans stood up and approached the wall. Once out of the shadows the full visual horror of his appearance was there for you to see. The hole, the scars, the empty eye socket, the angry red color of his remaining eye light. 

He looked just like your Sans, more than even Red, but he was big, larger around as well as taller with a whole hell of a lot more scars. He looked like something spat out of the blender and you suspected the dried red stains on his shirt weren’t from ketchup.

Beside him Papyrus didn’t say a word while Sans stared you down. Even Grillby in the next cell over seemed tense as he waited for what would happen next.

You didn’t look away from Sans as he assessed you.

“alternative world you say?” when he finally speaks his voice is angrier, rougher version of the one that came from your Sans. “explain.”

So you do.

You don’t leave out the part about being a child solider. You explain what humans had been doing in secret and talked about the nature of the bunker you were all trapped in. You spoke about the day the barrier came down, about how the monsters found a way to live peacefully with the humans. You told him about the other kids, about you and your brother Raven, about the distance between you. You told them about the job Hightower had set you out on, and about the monsters he sent you with.

Papyrus interjected a few times to ask questions, mostly about the other skeletons, while Sans listened and watched, unmoving and unspeaking until the very end of it.

You finished with a shrug and an excuse. “But I’m not sure what it is Hightower wants from my brother aside from his powers. To what end he plans on using them its’ not clear.” 

“YOUR NAME.”

You blink, caught off guard. “What?”

Papyrus flushed briefly before shaking his head. “Y-YOUR NAME. YOU NEVER TOLD US IT EVEN THOUGH YOU KNOW OUR NAMES. I COULD ALWAYS STIL CALL YOU HUMAN BUT THE OTHERS SAID IT WAS DISRESPECTFUL.”

It was an easy question compared to all the weight that came with explaining everything else. You were happy to share your name with Papyrus, and happier to see his delight grow as a result of it. “You can call me that or you can keep calling me human.  I don’t care.”

Surprisingly enough it was Sans who spoke up. “if you got a name you should use it, no sense in holding it back.”

So you told them. You heard Papyrus repeat it and then smile. Behind him, Sans echoed the name over and over and over and over, looking away like he was concentrating on a puzzle he couldn’t solve.

Papyrus called your name again and this time it was to get your attention, so you look up.

“WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO WITH US NOW, OR WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO WITH YOU? IT’S BEEN DAYS BUT THERE  IS NO CHAGE. NO ONE VISITS US AND OUR MEALS ARE ALL DELIVERED WITH ROBOTS-“

“androids.”

“WITH ANDROIDS INSTEAD OF PEOPLE. I TRY ASKING BUT I GET NO RESPONSE. DO YOU KNOW WHY WE ARE HERE?”

Behind him Sans scoffed. “bro you know why we’re here.”

In his cell beside the brothers, the black flame Grillby stiffened.

“BUT, THIS IS A NEW WORLD. EVEN IF WE ARE TOPSIDE AND ABOVE GROUND THAT SHOULDN’T…IT…” Papyrus looked from his brother to you and you could tell his expression was one of hurt and confusion, even in the dim lighting.

“Don’t feel too bad about it, these people don’t care for justice and aren’t holding you because you’re criminals or saints. It’s because you’re monsters and they need enemies-so you’re the easy scapegoat.”

Sans’ chuckle is dark and sarcastic to match his mocking expression. “oh that’ rich, pal, you don’t even know what you’re talking about or what we’ve done.”

“It doesn’t matter right now,” you say, even though you feel a roll in your gut when he stares at you with one dead socket and a manic grin. You couldn’t help but worry.

“He’s a criminal we brought to justice. One of the few we managed to nab,” Hightower explained in slow words. “Came from a brutal world and would likely bring that cruelty to ours in due time, don’t you think.

Hightower was a sick racist but he seemed too pleased with some warped sense of justice flavoring his tone when he told you that the other day. According to human standards the monsters in the cells across from you had done some terrible things…

But they were still Sans, and Papyrus, and Grillby.

And the world they had come from had been a terrible one-that much you knew.

“Will you tell me about it?” you asked in a soft, voice.

There is silence in the space between you and Sans scoffs, reaching up to tug on the edge of his good socket, like he needed to feel it was still there, buzzing with magic. Papyrus dropped his face and couldn’t lift it again.

“I-I AM SORRY HUMAN, BUT THAT IS A-”

“They ate people.”

You glanced up at the black flame Grillby as Sans and Papyrus turned to stare at the wall separating them from Grillby. They couldn’t see him, but they heard him perfectly. Sans looked pissed while Papyrus’ expression crumpled. You got the feeling Sans’ rage was more for the emotional hurt his brother had to endure and less for the fact that his secret was out.

“Please,” you called out again, edging closer to your wall. You can’t go any further but you press your hands to the glass. “Please, you can talk to me.”

“You might as well. They’re going to tell her on their own sooner or later,” Grillby growled. His voice sounded more like gravel than what you were used to hearing from the fire elemental, but you suspected that had something to do with the fact that this Grillby was speaking so much at all while yours was far more reserved. “Just tell them what it was like in your world.”

“You weren’t there?” you asked, looking to Grillby.

The fire elemental looked your way and then shook his head. “They called it the SwapFell world. You ever hear of the Tiny Tyrant and the Mutt?”

Your brain tripped back to Black and Rus with a painful throb. “Oh!”

Grillby hummed and nodded. “I guess that answers that. If they know you’re missing they’ll spill blood for you-don’t know if they’ll find you but…last I heard the two of them had been doing…well.”

“Yeah,” you whispered. “Really well.”

Grillby nodded, looking down. “That’s good then.”

You kept your hands against the glass but pushed against it more than before, desperate to get closer to the skeleton brothers. “Please, I don’t mean to offend you, but I know your world was a desperate one. Please, I don’t want to judge.”

Sans had already retreated to the furthest corner of the cell and was crouched down in the darkness. You could see the glow from his single red eye light but little else. Papyrus was shuffling backwards and it hurt to see your friends-or skeletons you already thought of as your friends, pulling away from you when there was nothing you could do. You couldn’t use your magic, you couldn’t start an encounter, you couldn’t reach out and touch them… You felt so helpless.

“I AM SORRY, BUT MAYBE ANOTHER TIME WE CAN SPEAK OF MORE PLEASANT THINGS,” Papyrus called back weakly.

Shit, you messed up. You shouldn’t have tried to press the issue. You shouldn’t have asked. You wished you could take it back but knew better.

“Next time, yeah, but please, don’t…go,” you lamely replied.

Papyrus managed a weak smile. “THERE IS NO SUCH OPTION FOR US, NEW FRIEND.”

Papyrus looked like he wanted to pull away but he stayed by the wall, close enough to hear you and respond. You almost felt guilty for trying to talk with him further. He sounded upset but he couldn’t leave, even if he wanted to. He was trapped.

What was the best thing you could do for him?

“You wanna hear a story?”

He perked up. “A TRUE STORY?”

You tapped the glass and though back to all the bedtimes with Wendy and the kids. “Nah, just a made up one.”

“A…PLEASANT ONE?”

“I’ve got those.”

“THEN,” Papyrus turned back around to face you fully and straightened up. “I THINK I COULD GO FOR A PLEASANT SORT OF STORY.”

The black flame Grillby turned away and it looked like he was resting, but you didn’t mind. You were thinking back for a good enough story to share.

“Once when the land was still young there was a girl who loved her foolish father very much…”

Papyrus sat and listened in rapt attention as you told the story of a girl who’s father was tricked into losing all the land and money meant for his children. In their poverty they spurned him and left as soon as they could, all save his youngest. In the days of her childhood she struggled greatly, but her kindness and compassion were her greatest allies in the world of wild and wicked wonders. 

Time after time she helped a creature in distress and was promised a favor she never bothered to remember. From the king of the catfish to the lord of the birds, no creature was too small or insignificant for her help.

When news comes to their hut in the woods of an enactment that has fallen over the youngest seventh son to the king, she is a maid who has helped as many souls as there are stars in the sky. Naturally, she sets out save this soul too, not knowing of the consequences or rewards.

“WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PRINCE?” Papyrus asked, already hooked on the story.

“A sorceress had fallen in love with him and did not want to see him grow old and age, for all things that grow old and age will die, but she was immortal and despised death.”

“SHE DIDN’T WANT TO MARRY THE PRINCE FOR HERSELF?”

“No, just to keep him young forever. So, to prevent others from trying to break her curse, she spirited the prince from his bedchambers to her hall under the mountain. When the daughter reached the castle the king was in despair to learn of his son’s abduction, for no one had seen it happen. No one…but the mice who lived in the palace walls and dark places underground.”

Papyrus gasped, remembering the part of the story when the girl had helped the field mice. He listened intently as the story tumbled on, practically telling itself. Every kindness done came back to bless the girl as the mice told her where to go, the birds flew her there, the fish, the fawn, and the snake all finished trials for her. Finally she stood before the sorceress with the rights to the prince won, but the enchantment still held him, bound in eternal slumber. 

“The enchantress whispered words of temptation in the girl’s ear, promising twice what the king had offered, wealth and riches for her poor father that could never be taken away. She promised him an older prince to marry in another kingdom, if only she left the boy behind,” you said.

“SHE WOULDN’T DO THAT. SHE DIDN’T EVEN TRY TO HELP IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE SHE WANTED MONEY, SHE JUST HEARD SOMEONE NEEDED THE HELP.”

“Very wise, Papyrus, that’s exactly how it happened. She took the slumbering prince back with her, and set him up in his own chambers where she watched over him for a year and a day, reading and caring for the prince who could do nothing but dream.”

Papyrus’ expression crumpled, even as he listened. 

“In that year and a day, in the moments that wen’t spent helping others, she knit for him a shroud of back horse hair. By the time it was finished, she had aged a year while he had not, so she did no hesitate to throw the shroud over the prince and trap his curse in it. The curse struggled and the girl took it like a catch of fish in her nets, and wrangled it from the prince until it was separate from him. Then the black bear that waited under her window stood up to open his mouth and eat the curse like fresh dinner. When she turned back the prince was rousing from his slumber.”

“AND DID THEY LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER?” Papyrus asked, nearly surging forward.

It sounded far too cliche, and when you told it you often changed the ending to be ‘they were good friends for the rest of their days’ or ‘she was knighted official helper to the kingdom and awarded riches to last a lifetime while he married a princess’ because those endings sounded more practical, but… Papyrus face was open and pleading in spite of the cracks and scars and disjointed pattern of teeth. He looked like someone from a horror movie, the kind of monster main characters ran from, and your heart hurt to know he had suffered so.

He deserved a happily ever after.

“Yes,” you quietly admitted. “He fell in love with her in a look and she realized her love for him just as well, so the two of them married and they lived… happily ever after.”

Papyrus’ smile stretched. “I LOVED IT. I’VE NEVER HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE.”

“I made it up. Next time time I’ll tell you more.”

“MORE?”

“If you want to hear them.”

“I WOULDN’T MIND THAT AT ALL.”

With nothing else to do you asked him about the stories he liked, only to be surprised when he admitted to loving the fairytales he could find whenever the materials containing one fell down from the surface. He adored the stories with knights the best, going on about their gallant deeds like they were things to be admired. You knew a couple stories with knights in them and offered to share them next time, after you practiced them over in your head a bit.

And Papyrus never spoke about what sort of world he came from, throughout the rest of the conversation, but you gleamed details in between his words that helped you create a patchwork idea of what you thought their world might be like. 

Dinner came and you were grateful to see that there was enough food for all of you. At least whoever it was in charge of managing this location wasn’t skimping on the meals. Instead of Julia or another human a pair of androids, (maybe the same ones from the morning) made the delivery. While one was inside setting up your food the other approached you and ran a device with a rolling component over your head before flipping it around to prick at your finger for a drop of blood with the sharp end.

“That all necessary?” you snapped.

Neither android responded.

You didn’t respond with anything more but sat idle on your bed while they exited. You didn’t make a show of watching when they dropped off food for Grillby and then the skeleton brothers. None of them were examined in any such way and you wondered if that meant Hightower was planning to leave them alone so that he could focus on other things. Starting a file on three new monsters was more work compared to just updating yours.

But work didn’t mean anything to the old man. What mattered was what sort of benefit that knowledge would give him. What did he have to gain from updating your file? What about the other monsters, did he care about them?”

“YOU SHOULD EAT,” Papyrus called worriedly across the hall.

You glanced up to see him and his brother eating their monster food rations with hunched postures, as if protecting their food from others. Was it just you or did their bones seem less healthy? Were they malnourished?

“Thanks, I will,” you say before hopping off the bed to collect your meal.

“keep your energy up, kiddo,” Sans said.

“You’ll need it,” Grillby added from his cell.

 

 

It was many hours later, after you had fallen asleep on you cot, when someone came to get you. The same two androids as before but with a third human that had a familiar face you couldn’t place. They tugged you out past the cells where the monsters sleep, unaware.

You followed them through the long, dark hallway, lit only by the emergency lights. Before you were there you thought your recognized the layout. It was similar to the one under the Embassy. 

Inside you there were still the plants, waiting to suck up your magic and feast on it, and they stirred once you entered to room and saw Thrive there, along with Esperanza.

Esperanza waved off the androids and they stepped back, leaving you in the middle of the new, blank room with plenty of space between you and the two other girls.

“Even without my magic, I’m confident in my ability to take you both down,” you mocked, “Especially now that it’s something I want.”

“Can it,” Thrive snapped “We didn’t call you here to talk smack.”

“And since when have I ever been the person who does what they are told?” you sneered.

“You’re dumb but you’re not hopeless,” Thrive laughed with a sneer of her own. “You should still know what’s best for you after all this time.”

“Punching you in the face sounds pretty good to me.”

Esperanza rolled her eyes before moving off to stand to the side with her androids. You didn’t doubt she had more than just the two hiding out somewhere nearby. A surprise attack wouldn’t get you very far considering how resilient Androids were to magical and physical attacks.

“You’re such a bitch when you want to be. A dumb bitch.” Thrive threw her hands up and shook her head. “I can’t stand you right now. Wake up and spell the fertilizer already. You’re an idiot. You think you’re doing the right thing?

“I’m holding myself back from removing your teeth with my fist, whore,” you snapped.

Monster fucker.

“Ha, try again, but this time, show some effort, ya dollar store reject.”

Thrive’s lip curled and her nose wrinkled. “You seriously-ughh! You have any idea who those two did? They ate children. They killed and ate the children who fell into their underground like wild animals. You wanna defend them now, oh so holy, enlightened one?”

“Heard that story already, but it sounded too much like something humans did a couple times in the past. I might have failed a lot of school but I remember my ‘brutal histories’ well enough. You ever figure out why these monsters ate humans or did you jump so fast onto the judgment train you forgot to check your ticket?”

“Children! You fucking id-children!” Thrive sputtered with wild eyes. “They were kids and they ate them. We raised the kids here, you and me. We-you sang them to sleep and told them stories with me. We did that. They killed and ate them. How can you not recognize that?”

“Me? What about you?”

Thrives’ face smoothed out and her eyes narrowed. “What about me?”

You felt like vibrating at the memory of it. You didn’t care how you were shouting anymore. There was no point to keeping your voice in check.

“You don’t remember what it was like in the beginning, once we had our magic? We’d exhaust ourselves and they would watch to see how long we could go without ‘sustenance’ just so they could record for their data our limits. They starved us for their answers and you felt it! You felt the hunger that pinched you up inside and gnawed on you like teeth.”

And you realize that’s exactly what must have happened to Papyrus and Sans from that other world as you shout about it to Thrive. It explained so much, like their deformities and malnourished appearances as well as their behaviors.   

“I AM SORRY, BUT MAYBE ANOTHER TIME WE CAN SPEAK OF MORE PLEASANT THINGS,” Papyrus called back weakly.

Oh man….

“I can’t forgive them for it,” Thrive hissed, voice tight and eyes hard. “Those were kids and they ripped them up and ate them for food like one damn side dish. If it was up to me they wouldn’t be alive.”

“But it’s not up to you, is it?”

“That’s enough,” Esperanza interjected, speaking up. “You’ve squabbled enough, now we ask and you answer.”

“By all means, ask,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes.

“Where is your brother?” Esperanza asked.

Unlike with Thrive, Esperanza was a head shorter, skinnier by far, and fair colored with blue eyes that never seemed anything but dull. It was so easy to get heated with a person like Thrive who would shout back, curse, and swear as good as you, but Esperanza never had that sort of energy to her. Maybe it had something to do with her magic levels being so much lower, (she was only a 2 while Thrive was a 4 and you were a 7, after all.) Whatever the reason, when Esperanza stared you down the bite left your words.

“Not here.”

Thrive rubbed at her face, snarling in anger. “Use the damn map and find out, skank.”

“It doesn’t go that far, you know that.” You shook your arms to emphasize the floral tattoo on your forearms. “Plus, someone made damn good sure I couldn’t use magic.”

“I’d let you use it for this.”

“I don’t trust you,” you scoffed.

Thrive raised her hands, fingers curled and nails poised to dig in frustration. She screamed and then dropped her arms when Esperanza stepped in between you two.

“That’s enough for tonight,” the blond began in a tired tone, ”I’ll have those two take you back to your cell. You’ll be more willing to consider the offer in the morning.”

Bitch.” Thrive added.

“Don’t hold your breath,” you snap, eyes focused more on Thrive.

Behind you the two androids approach and one even grabs for your arm. You yank free but don’t pout up a fight more than that. You would walk back to your cell without struggling… this time. You weren’t strong enough yet.

They led you back to your cell in the dim light and pushed you in roughly enough to make you stumble. When you turned back around the guide lights in the hall were already off and the only thing you could see in the dark was a single red eye, dilated and fixed on you until that too went out.

 

Notes:

I'm very happy (sorta) to be at this point where I can now write the horror brothers. I love them and I'm excited to be at this point.

Chapter 45: Champion 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Hours somehow dragged by too fast and too slow all at once, leaving each of the boys feeling exhausted. Every minute that passed had the potential to bring with it a development or new, vital information, but at the same time every minute that passed was a minute where you were stars-know-where being subjected to stars-know-what. 

There was something for each of them to do, but it never felt like enough. 

Rus stayed glued to his computer doing what he could, scanning and searching and hacking what he could of the Embassy’s digital assesses and their affiliated accounts. Black claimed that was most important before delegating himself to watching over the kids with Blue’s help. 

After getting the call, both Sans and Papyrus had cut their business short and headed back citing a ‘family’ emergency that the public never heard about (thanks to a fantastic PR manager Papyrus needed to send a nice fruit basket to later on.) 

With them came a new plan.

 

“It’s stupid,” Edge grumbled to himself, hating how Sans stood in the middle of the room with something to say. “Did you forget how you parted with them? You remember that whole elaborate, staged falling out?”

“I’m aware,” Sans growled. “But it ain’t like we cut all ties with them. Paps and me can at least show up and throw some weight around.” 

“And you think this would be worth it?” Stretch asked, looking up from something on his phone. “We don’t know how involved the Embassy officially is.”

“The three we identified are the same that went rogue a few months back. They ain’t officially affiliated or nothing,” Red added, looking to Rus for confirmation. “At least, not anymore...right?”

Sans looked to Red, eyesights shrinking to pinpricks. “Yeah, but what is your gut telling you?” 

There was a moment of tight silence before Red whispered his answer. “It’s fishy as hell.”

Stretch nodded along. “They’re shady and there are a lot of pocket cells that we’re uncovering the more we look into it; dummy accounts and fake businesses Hightower personally uses to funnel official Embassy money. We don’t know how much the Embassy actually knows since it looks like this is all his pet project stuff that never got disclosed.”

In the background Rus nodded along, recognizing much of what was being said as it had been his efforts to dig up so many of the dummy companies and fake offshore accounts that were connected to businesses that didn’t even exist. The more he dug the more he found, stretching back to before the barrier even came down in this world. 

Sans waved his hand, pacing back and forth. “Yeah, the Embassy is an entity on its own, and it sanctioned and supported Hightower’s pet project for years, but after the surfacing, all that funding dried up within a year and Hightower had to get resourceful.”

“And those three split from the Embassy…” Stretch said, eye lights darting. 

“But did they split from Hightower?” Red asked, snapping his fingers. 

“Doubtful,” Stretch huffed, pocketing his phone and standing to face Sans. “You said you and your bro were going to go knocking on the front door?”

Blue looked up, breaking out of his self imposed daze as something sounded like it could apply to him. “You have an idea?” he exclaimed in hope.

“There’s more than one door ain’t there?” Stretch asked with a roll of his shoulders before glancing back to where Rus sat. “I’ve been in there before. I can shortcut around the cameras if someone helped give me some cover.”

“Oh hey, I ain’t been there but I bet I could do some damage,” Red chuckled with a near manic grin that stretched across his skull.

“I doubt damage is the purpose of this endeavor,” Edge sighed. He pointed to where Sans and Papyrus stood. “They distract so those who can shortcut bounce around and look for hard clues, the kind not found on digital files.”

“If it is shortcutting then,” Black stepped forward with a dangerous look in his neon violet eye lights that made his grin all the more maniacal. “I can be of service as well. Get me in there and they’ll be none the wiser.”   

Blue looked from Black to Edge and then to his brother. “But what about the rest of us?” 

Rus would stay behind to interfere with the cameras from a remote location, but for Blue and Edge there wasn’t much more they could do until something they could hit showed up, since neither of them could shortcut or provide any other form of support. 

“I’ll stay behind with Rus to support him,” Edge said with a dark expression. “You could benefit from someone who could help organize your searches if you plan on splitting up.”

“And I’m not the best at multi tasking people,” Rus softly admitted. “That’s… tactical stuff…” 

“You’d be great at that, boss!” Red laughed. “We got a plan now.” 

Black turned back and clapped a hand down on Blue’s shoulder. “I will need your help here. The kids have been asking about her far more often. They’re not satisfied with what we’ve said and thus their anxieties have redoubled. You’re the best one here to help hold down the house and keep them safe.” 

“Emotionally as well as physically,” Rus added. 

Slowly, Blue nodded. “I…can do that.” He swallowed, more so to feel something than because he needed to. 

Across the room Stretch watched him with a knowing sort of look so Blue found the strength to lie through another blinding smile that could fool the best detectives. “You can rely on me. Focus on finding something that will help us all!” 

“We will,” Papyrus said, eye lights going soft for his friend. “Thank you for your part here. I know it might not feel as important but it’s something only you can do.” 

“Indeed,” Black barked, arms crossed behind his back. “I can devote myself to the search and not worry for what I leave behind.”

“Speaking of the search,” Red began, looking to Sans for an answer, “when did you and your bro want to go distract the front door?” 

Sans looked to Papyrus who held up his phone. “Worry not! I already scheduled something for tomorrow afternoon. We’re requesting official financial aid to help support some of the monster residents here in Blackberry. Some of them never used Embassy funds when they came topside and we'd like to see if we can claim those funds even though the time period for paying out those monies has come and gone.”

“You’re asking for money?” Red barked a laugh.

“You’re going to be there all day,” Edge added.

“That’s what we’re hoping for,” Sans said. “It’s a long drive, so get your rest now boys.” 

 

In the morning, well before the sun was up, Sans and Papyrus set off with the others in the backseat. Papyrus drove while Sans dozed. By noon they were still too far away to make their appointment but Sans woke up in time to shortcut everyone, car included, far enough to make it the rest of the way in time. 

Red was the only one who admitted how impressive San’s ability was, since he didn’t think he could shortcut so much extra ‘baggage’ so far. Black said nothing while Stretch laughed nervously. 

Sans got another hour long nap out of it before Papyrus pulled them up into the parking garage. Before any of them could filter out he made sure everyone in the back had their microphone clips on. The only one struggling with it was Red. 

Black made a face of exasperation before grabbing the stouter Sans and roughly inserting the section of the microphone clip onto the ear cavity on the side of Red’s head. Red squeaked a high pitched note of surprise as it brushed up against his interior magic, but pulled himself together enough to thank Black. 

“Don’t be such a baby about it,” Black snarled back. 

“It felt weird!” Red whined.

Child !” Black scoffed. 

“Can you hear us?” Rus asked over the audio channel. 

Each of the three skeletons sounded off saying they could. 

“Very well,” Edge spoke up next. “I will be communicating with Papyrus directly via text messaging about your status. There may be some delay in his response time depending on the situation, but thankfully he is such a media star, few will think twice about his constant phone checking.”        

“Got it,” Stretch answered. “When do we get to blink out?” 

“Hang on, the others have to walk out and then I can freeze the cameras,” Rus explained. “I’ll let you know when it’s safe to move.” 

“Copy, copy Bone Base,” Red said.

Sans chuckled along with Stretch but Black turned a horrified face Red’s way while Papyrus groaned from the front seat.

“Bone base?” Black hissed in rage. “What lunacy!”

“…this is bone base, over,” Rus said over the audio channel, making Red’s grin stretch while Black’s expression turned dark.

“I may dust you after this, you dim-witted, moronic influencer of the youth,” Black hissed, his eye lights flashing scarlet. Red continued to chuckle, giving Black’s threat little to no weight.

Focus . You can kill my brother after I’m done with him, for now we need to keep our priorities in check. It’s time for the Vanilla-Wafer and his brother to disembark,” Edge said over the radio. 

The nickname that Sans couldn’t hear made Stretch, Red, and Black all grin.

“Can we leave yet?” Papyrus asked with a worried tone that matched his expression.

It was Stretch who waved to the pair of brothers to get going, and Papyrus didn’t hesitate to spring out and stretch dramatically outside the driver’s side door while Sans ambled, sleepily behind his brother. The nervousness from mere moments before was safely locked behind a camera worthy smile and dramatics to match. 

A few minutes later Rus’ voice came over the line with a crackle.

Go .” 

 So they did. 



-




They came more than twice a day, before breakfast and then after lunch again. You expected them to come one more time after dinner to try one last time. 

To your surprise it was Julia who visited after dinner, not the pair of androids you had oh-so-fondly nicknamed Twiddle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber. 

“Well, they haven’t started hitting you yet, so there’s that,” Julia sighed before stepping into your cell with you.

You watched your former nurse from your spot in the corner. You were on your back with your legs up against the wall, stretching them backwards over your head to keep loose. 

“I almost wish they would. I’d rather be hurt than annoyed. Ugh, their stupid little arguments and self righteous attitudes are driving me crazy,” you mumbled.

You stretched both your legs back, far enough that your knees touched your nose and your toes almost touched the floor. You pulled them back and then folded once more, using the momentum to flip yourself up and onto your feet, facing the wall. 

“I’m still allowed to be glad to see you in one piece,” Julie sighed. 

“That makes one of us,” you mumbled. “What are you here for this time?” 

“Oh, take a guess.” 

You made a face and then pressed both hands to the sides of your mouth, forcing your lips to pucker comically. “You think I’m close enough to you to  sell out my brother?” You blew a raspberry and Julia dropped her shoulders. 

“They don’t expect much. I volunteered for this.” 

You dropped your hands and turned away to pace back and forth across the back of your cell, stopping to lunge with every other step. You were restless and you didn’t care if it showed. You were used to being a lot more physically active since working out with Papyrus in the mornings. You needed to move or else you felt like you’d end up tearing out all your hair in frustration. There wasn’t even enough room to run. 

You wanted to run

“How many days have I been here now?” you asked. 

“I’m not allowed to tell you that.”

“At least three,” you mumbled. There were scratches on the wall for every breakfast they came to serve you, but you suspected you had slept through at least one full day in addition to the ones you were awake for.

 Three days and still no one had come for you. 

That was fine.

You were going to be just fine.

You forced your eyes to meet Julia’s and held her stare when she called your name. “I want to talk to you about why you’re here.” 

“Then talk.” You looked away and continued with your lunges. “I can hear you from here.” 

“Please help Hightower.”

You missed a step. “What?!”

When you looked back to Julia you saw the look on her face and recognized it in an instant. It made your gut churn and soul burn. You wanted to claw at her face and tear out the look in her eyes like a layer that could be peeled free if only you could just get your nails under the edges of it. 

There was no way she felt that way about that guy. 

Hightower? 

He was worse than a monster. 

“Don’t you dare ask me something so insulting. Do you not know where I am right now? You know who put me here? You know who made me like this?” 

“I’m not asking you to help him because he is a good person, I know better, but because he needs it and you haven’t seen all of it.” 

You laughed. “That’s rich! Oh, oh, ohhhh, he’s not a good person? I’m glad to hear you’re not delusional at least. What does he need so terribly that my brother could give him? He’s not been able to give me an answer and I don’t believe the theories anymore about him wanting to go war with the monsters.”

“It’s more complicated than that.” Julie nodded, eyes encouraging. You recognized that look too. She wanted you to figure it out. She wanted you to solve the puzzle.

“I’m tired of playing your damn games like this. Tell it to me straight this time, what does he want with my brother? I’m not going to ever help you find him and he’s not sentimental enough to risk it for me even if he did know where I am.” 

“They’re figuring that out.” 

You threw your hands up and scoffed loudly. “Didn’t think it’d take you this long, but there you go. That means they’re going to quit annoying me with Thrive and Esperanza themed playdates?”

Julia smiled sympathetically. “Likely not.” 

You cursed colorfully under your breath and Julia just sighed. “Sorry, but my influence doesn’t expand so far. The most I can do is hope to show you something.” 

You turned around to watch Julia, waiting for her to pull something out or expose something, but the woman’s hands were empty. Instead, she stood and approached the door. It opened for her and two androids (who were not dumb and dumber), arrived to escort her. She faced one and spoke to it. 

“Permission to move subject SevenA to Port 3,” she spoke, sounding far more authoritative than she had with you.

“Processing,” the AI chirped. 

You approached the window, keeping back from the opening so the AI androids wouldn’t register you as a threat and issue you their butt annoying verbal warnings. 

“Permission denied,” the AI finally answered, making Julia frown. 

“Permission to move subject SevenA to Port 3 observation deck with assistance,” she tried again, sounding more stern even though it wouldn’t have any impact on the ultimate decision. 

“Processing.”

From across the hall you could see the black flame Grillby awake and watching you. From his perch at the edge of his room Papyrus watched as well, but his facial expressions were easier to read. He was worried.

You glanced in his direction and gave him an encouraging nod, hopeful that it would be enough to put him at ease. Behind him, Sans stayed in the corner where it was darkest, lone red eye steady in the shadows. 

“Access grated. Please wait for further assistance before proceeding.” 

You jerked up at the sound. Julia turned around and beckoned you out, but you waited for Dumb and Dumber to show up before you dared stand outside your cell.

“This way,” the first one beeped before the rest turned and headed out in the same direction, keeping you and Julia boxed in. 

They led you down the hall and you didn’t look back to see if Papyrus watched you go, because you knew better. You tried to keep your back straight and shoulders squared so he wouldn’t worry any more, but doubted he was foolish enough to believe your farce of a strut. 

The hallway branched out and you took a set of stairs down to an elevator that took you another couple of layers down. There was one more level below you when you stepped out of the metal box with your entourage, making you nervous. You didn’t like being so deep underground even though it was easy to forget that was where you were. The ceilings and walls all looked the same but it was something you sensed that you couldn’t see that made you think you were underground.

That and all the off site locations were underground.

“In here,” Julia said before gesturing to a set of doors that slid back when they sensed someone outside. 

Another set of doors required a password before you could pass, and the android input it for you. If it had been something less than 22 characters you might have been able to memorize it based on the beeps, but Julia laughed at your horrified expression once the android punched in either the 40 th or 43 rd number that unlocked the door. 

“Even those of us who know the code don’t try it. There’s too much room for human error.” 

“I’ll bet,” you grumbled before following her into the long room with one of the four walls left black glass. There were plush chairs, a long couch, and foot rests in the center, while the back wall was choked with control panels.

One of the androids approached the panels and clicked something that made the darkness on the black fade. 

You staggered when you saw the empty space big enough for two football fields.

 “What the hell?” 

In the center of the room there was a sunken metal patch with star shaped seams that indicated it could be opened like the door to a missile silo. 

“Let’s open it a bit.”

There was the sound of buttons clicking behind you, but you stayed rooted where you stood. 

There was a beep that made your heart pinch and then the metal sheets began to open. 

“Don’t,” you whispered, already knowing what was behind the metal.

The beep grew louder and the metal groaned as it began to roll back like the fractions of a circle. In the innermost center you could start to see what it was beneath the floor.

“Stop,” you choked.

The metal continued to roll back and even so far away, protected by the glass of the observation deck, there was no way you wouldn’t know what it was you were looking at when you felt all the fear your body had learned over the years wake up. Your brain screamed at you to run and your soul all but fell out of you as the darkness of the void began to fill the field below you. Your blood was ice and every hair on your body stood on end.

“No,” you managed to say as you watched another pit into the void where you had been killed and reborn opened up.

“The pit under the Embassy is only a fifth the size of this one, and so much younger. Did you think that was the only one?” Julia turned back and waved to the androids. “Close it up again.” 

You didn’t dare look away as the metal groaned and then slid back into place. A secondary sheet pulled itself up over the fractions and with a click the room was bright once more. 

 You felt like you could breathe again, but only just barely.

Shakily you called out to Julia, not caring how bad your voice shook.

Julia grabbed for your arm and pulled you close. Her mouth was next to your ear. “It still haunts him and as long as these holes stay open he’ll never be himself again.” 

You shook yourself free and fell back against the glass, bracing against it. You couldn’t make enough sense out of the words in your mouth. “You’ve got a fu-fu-what the hell?!” 

 “Hightower wants your brother because he is the only one we know that can manipulate that,” Julia said, nodding to the hatch.

“Hightower never wants anything good, ever,” you hissed, gut rolling. You were so proud of yourself for keeping your food down. “Never. He-he-he wants Raven for something bad, something with that…” 

Julie’s eyes were bright again, begging you to figure it out. She didn’t answer.

One of the androids reached for you and you went limp for it. The second one came over to help drag you out by your arms. You didn’t care to pull yourself up or try to walk. You watched Julia’s back and tried to make sense of your panic but your head was a cloud. 

The void was how Hightower made his soldiers. 

The void was where kids went to die and reset time so they could live again.

The void was not a place where anyone or anything could survive for long. 

The void was a place that would eat you alive. 

Hightower was- ‘Haunted by the void.’ 

You shut your eyes and saw your friends before and after their trips, of the three that didn’t come back, or the one bloody harness that came back shredded that they hid from you and the others. 

Raven brought the bosses over to keep the resets from happening. 

Raven could manipulate the void in small amounts. 

Did Hightower think he could do anything to the void? Did he think he could close up the pits they used? Or was there something else you didn’t know about? Something you couldn’t remember? 

You weren’t looking forward to the nightmares that would, no doubt, be waiting for you once sleep arrived. 

“Thrive and Esperanza will summon you in the morning. Try to get some rest before then,” Julia said before the hands around your arms dropped you onto the floor. 

You didn’t get up even when the door shut behind you. You didn’t get up even when Papyrus called your name and knocked on the glass. You didn’t get up even when the tears spilled out from behind your eyelids. 

The more you learned the more confused you seemed to become. 

You weren’t sure for how long you lay there on the ground, but the lights turned out and Papyrus’ calling had ceased. Instead, there was a new sound. 

You put one hand on the ground under you and turned over, facing the wall. Grillby was awake too, watching the wall between his cell and the boys’ with a conflicted expression. The sound was coming from there, from Papyrus specifically.

He was humming. 

In the background San’s lone crimson eye light dropped and went fuzzy, like eye lights would right before sleep, while Papyrus continued to hum something close to a lullaby. It was low and soothing and reminded you of something you had never heard before, but still somehow knew. 

You pulled yourself up and leaned against the glass, watching as Papyrus nodded along with the melody. It looped back in on itself, repeating like a chorus and then a verse and then the chorus again. 

You listened until you were sure you knew it before forcing your voice to vibrate. You hummed along, an octave lower, matching his soft hums with ease. Papyrus looked up and Sans glanced up in the darkness, but neither stirred as the lullaby looped again and again.

In the dark, you weren’t sure how long you hummed along with Papyrus, weaving a lullaby together, but it was enough to ease you into something close to sleep.

 

And the nightmares came, like you knew they would.

But you didn’t wake screaming.

You awoke with tears dried on your face, fear in your heart, and something stronger in your soul.  As lost as you were, you knew enough to know that there were others you had to take care of. Whatever Hightower wanted with the void and whatever in it that still haunted him, you weren’t going to let him use you or anyone else to see it through. 

“SevenA,” the AI at the door called out. “Breakfast. Stand back.” 

You crawled up off the floor and shuffled far away enough for the android to enter, leave the tray, and exit. You figured you had an hour before Thrive and Esperanza would summon you again.

“ARE YOU FEELING BETTER?” 

You glanced back to see Papyrus already up and eating. Sans had his back to you while he faced the wall. The way he moved made you think he was eating his breakfast as well. You were glad he had food, that the both of them were being fed in spite of how some of the humans felt about the pair. 

You rubbed at your face and then combed back your hair. It was a mess that would need a wash soon. There was a sink but it was nowhere as useful as a shower and this was already day four (five?), so you weren’t sure when they expected you to clean yourself.  

“Just fine. You’ve got a lovely singing voice there, Paps.”

Papyrus chuckled and then flushed a cute color across his cheek bones. “YOU ARE TOO KIND! YOUR OWN VOICE COMPLEMENTED THE MELODY NICELY, I SHOULD SAY. DO YOU SING?”

“Sometimes when I feel up to it,” you said. The breakfast tray had been left on the edge of your unmade bed with a short glass of water. You picked at some of the food, chewing slowly. With your magic cut off, the hunger was so much weaker inside you.

“IT MUST BE NICE TO KNOW SO MANY HUMAN SONGS. I ONLY KNOW THE SOUNDS TO THE MONSTER ONES.”

You looked up to meet his gaze. “No lyrics?” when he shook his head you whistled low. “That’s interesting. I guess you just need to make up some of your own, don’t you?”

“M-ME? MAKE UP MY OWN LYRICS TO SING IN A SONG LIKE SOME SORT OF AUTHORITY ON THE SUBJECT? I COULDN’T .”

“Is it not something you want to try?”

Papyrus looked at what little was left of his food, scrapping with his fork to get at the scraps. “I WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO ANSWER YOU, AS I HAVE NEVER TRIED TO SING BEFORE. I CAN ONLY HUM.” 

“You can’t sing?”

“I DO NOT KNOW ANY OF THE SONGS WITH WORDS.”

“But I do. What if I said I’d teach you?”

From where he sat with his back to the wall Sans went still. 

Papyrus sat up so straight you were afraid something had stung him, but his smile took up almost all of his face as he gasped out loud and then clapped his hands. “PLEASE, PLEASE,” he exclaimed with childlike excitement. 

You couldn’t help but laugh. As shitty as the situation was and as scared as you were inside, Paps  and his excitement was an oasis of emotional relief. You felt right when you talked to him. Your situation hadn’t changed any but you felt better about things-like you were capable of handling things. 

“What would you like to learn? Any requests for a type of song?”

“SOMETHING YOU ENJOY WOULD BE A GOOD PLACE TO START. MAYBE SOMETHING SHORT AND SIMPLE. I CAN REMEMBER A LOT BUT…TO-TO START WITH MAYBE SOMETHING EASY-AAN-AND HAPPY?”

“I can do that,” you chuckled, feeling your heart pinch for the sweet, sweet skeleton who just wanted a little drop of happiness to share. “Hang on, let me think about it for a second.”

You sat back and tried to remember which songs were short with simple lyrics. You wanted something that would be fun but not too challenging. You remembered singing Wendy to sleep and nodded along as a familiar melody danced into your head. 

“DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING IN MIND?”

“I do. Let me sing it to you first. It’s a song about singing, actually. When we sing we use different pitches or sounds and those pitches can be organized into a musical scale, or a pattern of notes like this.”

You sang a simple do re mi fa so la ti do scale for Papyrus. He clapped in appreciation and you laughed. 

“I COULD HEAR THE DIFFERENCE!”

“I’m glad, because the song I’m thinking of is a song about the scales that’s there to help you remember them. Let me sing it for you next.”  

You skipped the first part of the song and went straight to the most memorable chorus where every note got its own little description. You started with Do and went all the way down to Te. 

“That will bring us back to Do, oh, oh, oh

When you started over again with the same lyrics you heard the hum from across the way as Papyrus matched pitch with you. The third time around the pair of you were singing together and somehow, without even noticing it, the magic had been pulled out of Papyrus’ voice so that when he spoke there wasn’t the echo of it in your brain.

Do- A deer, a female deer Re- A drop of golden sun Mi- A name I call myself Fa- A long, long way to run So- A needle pulling thread La- A note to follow so Te- A drink with jam and bread. That will bring us back to Do, oh, oh, oh.

Sans was half turned around when Papyrus started to sing the chorus all on his own, leaving you to hum on pitch. You didn’t pay him much mine and figured if he was bothered by the sound he would say something. His silence was your invitation to continue. 

You motioned for him to pick up your humming while you added the next part for him to memorize.

“When you know the notes to sing… you can sing most an-y-thing.” 

You could feel the smile on your face in spite of your circumstances, and it only grew when you saw how happy Papyrus was with his new song learned. You felt light, like you were going to be okay.

Knuckles on the far end of your glass wall made you flinch back. Thrive stood there looking sullen. “Time for your appointment with us,” she grumbled.  

Behind her the two androids moved to help you out. 

Notes:

First off, I'm sorry if these chapters are reading rough. My eyesight has been shot recently and I'm waiting to see a doctor about the migraines and distortions, so I'm sure I'm missing those finer details during edits. I've been spoiled and need to cut back on my screen time like an adult, I guess. :(

But here you go, a chapter with a lot of breaks in it. (I hadn't realized how many breaks untilI I was editing it.)
For those of your concerned, it won't come up in story but so far Horror Paps and Sans have been fed three full meals a day every day of their capture and they've not been taken out of their cells or tortured, so they're doing better than you are at this point.
Not seen here, Paps tried to make friends with every android that visited their cell for the first week and is still kind to them by thanking them for the food and wishing them a good day. The androids are unlike the possessed robot bodies he is used to interacting with underground, so they don't respond.
Sans does nothing but sleep and eat mostly... for now.

The rest of your family is working together to try and bring you home! Team work makes the dream work!

Chapter 46: Champion 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Rus nervously watched the cameras, one after the other, hoping that Edge would catch whatever he missed. He was stressed enough that he suspected he wouldn’t miss anything too important, but he had never been good at multitasking. He felt overwhelmed too easily.

“They’re fine, you can relax a little. Do you best work and don’t stay so tight,” Edge barked.

Rus almost jumped at the sound of Edge’s words. It was surprisingly easy to forget the brash looking skeleton was in the room with him. Apparently he was as good at stealth as he was managing the home base. No wonder he made it as captain of the royal guard in his world.

“Y-yeah, yes, you got it.” Rus refocused on the multiple screens, split to accommodate for the multitude of devices he was managing. On one half he could see what was really happening, and on the other half he saw the frozen stills of what the people at the Embassy could see.

On one of the microphones the sounds of Papyrus’ voice came through speaking at length about all the virtues of the few monsters he was advocating for. A couple of times now the human had tried to interrupt him to speak, but Papyrus steamrolled her with even more energy and showmanship. He was working the room like a true movie star.

“He can’t keep that up for much longer,” Edge growled before reaching over Rus to push a button on the soundboard that was labeled with orange tape. “ASHTRAY, WHAT IS YOUR STATUS?”

On the other end of the audio feed Stretch cursed before clicking in to respond. “No luck, edge lord. I’ve finished with my section. No sign of them.”

“Yes, funny how Hightower isn’t on location,” Edge growled in annoyance before pushing a button labeled with red tape. “BROTHER, STATUS!”

“Nothing to report, boss. Eh, is that good or not? At least she’s not…”

“BLACK!” Edge screeched, cutting his brother off while punching the button labeled with black tape. “YOUR STATUS!”

Rus held his breath, waiting to see what his brother would say. He knew Sans-Black didn’t appreciate anyone talking to him like that, even if it was someone he begrudgingly respected like Edge.

There was silence over the line before Black’s voice came through. “I am certain they are not here. I’ve recovered documents on my brother’s flash sticky he might find useful. They were from the devices here not connected any outside system.”

“The flash drive!” Rus exclaimed. “Good work. Those are the files I couldn’t hack. Start heading back if that’s all you can find.”

“I shall do as I please.”

“BLACK!” Edge boomed into the microphone.

Across the channel Rus could hear his brother grinding his molars. Even if he was rude about it, Rus knew that no matter what Black would do what he needed to do to ensure the mission a success. He was just being…vocally difficult.

“Don’t command me. I will do what I must,” Black snapped.

Rus and Edge listened as the conversation from Papyrus’ phone shifted. The woman was talking and it sounded like she was offering Papyrus everything and more than what he had asked for at first. Papyrus was starting to tap into the waterworks as he thanked her. Rus and Edge both exchanged a look at the suspicious turn of events. Why would the Embassy go above and beyond on donating money they didn’t even owe?

Edge pressed all three buttons for the boys and spoke without the authority and magic in his voice this time. “Time to head back, shortcut into the SVU if you can and sound off when in position. Starman is out of lines.”

Stretch and Red snickered at the nickname for Papyrus but took a short cut out of their hallways- one after the other. The SVU didn’t even rock with their extra bulk dropping in.

“BLACK….” Edge’s tone was one of warning.

As if to spite the other skeleton Edge lingered in the empty office a moment later before he blinked out of focus and the SVU filled up with one more body. Rus switched over the cameras so that his frozen feed no longer ran 

“Bro, you got that laptop I left for you in the backseat? I really want to see what is on that flash drive but I don’t want you plugging that in until you are out of the parking lot and a good distance away from the building. Standby, please.”

“Very well, Mutt,” Black huffed.

“We gotta wear these damn ear clamps or what? I can take mine off, right?” Red asked.

“Yes, just keep them close,” Edge answered. “You should all stay in contact until the other two brothers are driving you out to safety. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

“So no one really found anything,” Stretch grumbled, voice sounding soft and faded even over the audio channel.

For a stagnant moment no one spoke.

“That,” Black began after a pause, “is yet to be seen. There might still be something that comes out of this trip. We confirmed she was not on the property.”

Red breathed heavy into his microphone. “Yeah, we scrubbed it top to bottom, even the off limits corners. I guess it pays to be paranoid, ashtray.”

“Don’t call me that. I don’t even smoke around any of you.”

“We can still smell it,” Red chuckled.

“Keep that filth away from the children when we get back! I don’t want them exposed to such harmful stink.”

Stretch made a sound of annoyance that Rus recognized for how similar it sounded to his own huffs and grunts of frustration. Sometimes it was uncanny how alike they were. “I told you I don’t smoke around any of you, it’s just on break when I’m at work because the humans there do it. S-she didn’t like it in the first place.” 

Rus shifted uncomfortably in his seat, reminded like a old wound acting up what was at stake.

“It’s vile and completely inconsequential at this point in time,” Edge cut in when no one else could, not even Black. “The others are in the elevator. Standby.” 

The cameras showed Sans and Papyrus stepping off the lift and ambling down the last hallway to the parking garage. A minute more and they were at the SUV, slamming the doors behind them and turning over the engine. No one spoke while Papyrus guided the vehicle in reverse out of the parking spot. The shift of gears was audible as he pointed it towards the exit and drove out.

Once they were out on the road Black sat up in the backseat first, then Red and Stretch.

“That was a waste of time,” Sans grumbled from the passenger’s front seat. “They wanted us out of there and gave us a bunch of money to get lost though. You fellas find anything?”

“I am checking that now,” Black barked.

“We didn’t find any sign of someone being kept on the property,” Red elaborated.

“Shit,” Sans cursed, sounding tired and worn out. That one shortcut he had pulled to get them all to the Embassy was still weighing him down. There were shadows under his sockets and a lack of vibrancy to his skull tone.

“It was not a complete waste of time,” Edge growled over the audio channel. “You confirmed she was not at the site and picked up on another potential lead. Look into what Black found.”

“What did you find?” Papyrus asked as he carefully merged with traffic.

“It is encrypted.”

“Of course it is,” Stretch sighed, sounding almost as exhausted as Sans. Out of the three of them running around, Stretch had done the most since he was the only one with any history inside the building.

“Hang on, I’m working on it!” Rus squeaked, switching over one of his monitors to show what was on Black’s laptop screen. “The decryption algorithm is working on it. It-oh-it um…it looks like it might be a couple of hours before it finishes.”

“Perfect,” Red huffed. Not caring who complained he pulled out a cigar and tossed a second one to Stretch. “Someone crack a window, I need to air myself out.”

“I think we could all stand to take a short rest for food. We’re on empty,” Stretch complained. 

Papyrus looked from his brother to the rest of the skeletons in the backseat. “I agree. I do not think we’ll be able to drive the rest of the way back in one night, but we can’t put off food and rest any longer. There are some decent monster targeted establishments in the city we can take advantage of.”

“Grillby’s!” Red exclaimed in new delight. “He took it over from the other guy. Hey, we can stop for some classic underfell style eats, whadaya say, eh?”

Black sneered, eye lights narrowed. “You sound far too jovial to trust the quality of such filth.”

“Eh, it ain’t filthy, and you’re not going to find anything better for recovery magic than Grillby’s. If you’re tired that’s where we should go.”

“There should be a lodging establishment near that location if my memory is correct,” Papyrus added. He spared Black a pointed look in the rearview mirror before adding, “We could rest for the rest of the night before heading back and of course take advantage of the room service.”

“Acceptable,” Black gruffly barked.

Edge stepped away from the device board and monitors to rub at his face and turn back towards the stairs leading up out of the basement. “I think that is enough for both you and I as well. You did well and managed multiple responsibilities. Rest now. The Algorithm will alert you when it finishes, correct?”

Rus checked the status of the decryption. “Yeah, but that’ll be in a couple of hours.”

“Then it would be best if you rested. Maybe you could even eat something,” Edge said with a glare. His hands fisted over his hip bones and he stood at his full height in his heeled boots. “When was the last time you did that?” 

“…before they left?” Rus almost squeaked when Edge’s glare turned cutting. “But if had snacks since then-I had plenty of snacks!”

“I should hope so. You are not at your best when you do not take care of yourself. For the sake of others, not just yourself, you should properly maintain your well being. Thus you may also be a help to those in times of aid,” Edge said, sounding like he was reciting something long ago memorized. “It’s something my therapist and I have been discussing during our bi-weekly video chats.

“You see a therapist?” Rus echoed lamely. “I didn’t know that. How…how do you like it?”

“I HATE IT!” Edge snapped with a foot stamp. He crossed his arms and then looked pointedly away. “But she keeps me honest and I know her consul is good for me. It has been hard to go some days, but I never regret it after our secessions. If-it is not for only my own sake I go, but for my family. I owe it to my brother to be better and make myself into the best version of myself for my loved ones.”

“That sounds…brave.”

Edge might have smiled. “No, my brother is the brave one. I am the driven one, but thank you for the compliment. I shall accept it.”

“And I’ll go get some food.” Rus pushed himself up out of his seat and hobbled partway before stretching out and standing up to his full height when he saw the way Edge glared. “Right, good posture…I remember,” he whispered.

“Find some food. Blue will be home with the children soon if he isn’t already. You can get your ‘cuddle battery’ recharged or whatever it is you call it.” Edge waved over his shoulder and took the steps two at a time before exiting the basement.

When Rus reached the ground floor’s kitchen he was surprised to see Blue already there, making something on the stove that smelled like ground meat. At his side Peter watched on while Tron sat at the table, reading Wendy’s homework to her. Phil was left on the floor to play with his own toys.

Rus bent down to scoop up Phil and cuddle close to the child who squealed in delight when he saw Rus.

“You’re home!” Tron exclaimed, looking up. Wendy lit up and even Peter turned around to smile wide when he saw Rus.

“It is a friendship taco sort of night,” Blue explained with a knowing look. “Why don’t you help set the table? We should be finished in just a few more minutes.”

“Great timing, we were missing you,” Wendy chirped, cheeks dimpling as she smiled wide. Rus pinched one of them and she laughed.

Right.

He had a family waiting for him…a family he had decided he was going to take care of…a family that loved and cherished him in return.

“Friendship tacos sound great. I-I just need to text Edge something real quick if he’s not here anymore. Did you see him go?”

“You just missed him. Something wrong?” Blue asked.

Rus knew what the fluttering feeling in his chest was but didn’t bother to put a name to it. There were more important things he could do while he waited for those files to finish. “Nah, just wanted a referral. I can get it later. Uh, table needed setting, you said? Phil can help me with that.”

Two hours later the kids were all fed, dressed for bed, and sent off to brush their teeth. The file had another twenty minutes left so Rus took his time reading to the kids before helping them each into the beds with Blue’s help. No one wanted to sleep but it was a school night and they knew the rules. (Peter would try to sneak out, but he never got far.)

Once the two of them were alone Rus waved for Blue to follow him down into he basement.

“You’ve had a look,” Rus explained. “I could tell you were dying to ask about it.”

“Ask about what? Did you find something?”

“Not what we wanted, obviously, but at least the boys were able to confirm something; She’s not there.” Rus motioned for Blue to shut the door behind him before defending the rest of the stairs to get to his computer set up. The file was on its last leg and beeped with completion before Rus had finished sitting down. “But we got a little something out of it.”

“Something useful?” Blue asked.

“I hope so. I’m checking it now.”

Rus clicked through a few things and pulled out the files to spread across his desktop. Most of them were written plainly, but a few files only had names to identify them. He clicked through a few and saw they were property details.

“These are the properties owned by the dummy companies, at least the address is the same. This makes it look like there is more to it than a one story office complex,” Rus breathed.

“More locations!” Blue exclaimed. “She could be at any one of these. How many are there?”

Rus clicked through some more of them.

“Not including the Embassy, there are five sites, but I don’t think they’re all the same. Some look more impressive than others. This-this is good!” Rus cursed softly under his breath. “I think this is what we needed.”

Blue was already typing the addresses into his phone behind Rus. “Which one do you think is the one they would keep someone locked up at?”

Rus clicked out of one file, leaving it open in the background so that he could open another file and look through it. At just a glance he absorbed the bulk of the information, but he would need more time to really comb for the rest of the details. Some of the properties had subterranean plans and that just struck a cord with him. If he was planning on locking up humans or monsters he’d want to do it underground.

But what if the other properties had underground bunkers that weren’t on the plans? How old were these designs anyway? He’d have to check next.

“I’ll have to look more at each of them. When the others get back tomorrow we can make a plan and hit each of them in pairs.”

Blue’s typing stopped. “When the others get back? Aren’t they still in the city? They won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest. That’s…that’s a lot of wasted time.”

“We don’t have a choice, really. We’re all exhausted.” Rus rubbed at his face. He hadn’t done nearly as much as his brother but he was still stressed and spent. “I’ll stay up to analyze these properties and…and in the morning we can figure out what to do.”

“…Yeah. Fine.”

Rus turned in his seat and frowned at the expression on Blue’s face. It looked so wrong for someone normally so cheerful and pleasant. Rus wasn’t the type to go around encouraging others, but he felt wrong when he looked at Blue and a part of him wanted to fix that wrongness. He didn’t know what to say-he wasn’t Edge and he wasn’t his bro-but he figured Blue needed to hear something comforting.

“Hey, she’s going to be okay. She’s strong and…and it doesn’t make sense for them to want to hurt her.” Rus tried to make his voice sound encouraging, but he doubted he did a very good job. “We’re going to get her back. We…we’re no good to our families unless we’re good ourselves and we need rest.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Blue sighed, eye lights growing so dim they were nearly out in his sockets. His shoulders sagged. “I… I just can’t stand not being able to do anything to help her. It’s been…days. I feel so lost. I just want to bring her home as soon as possible.”

“We all do.”

Blue nodded numbly. “I’m going to head home first then. The kids…they’ll be-um, I have work in the morning. Should I call in late or-”

“Edge or I can take them in. Actually, the neighbors use the bus and it wouldn’t kill them to try it for one day. I’ll update the bus schedule for them. You’re fine. Deal with work. Maybe that will keep your mind off this until we can all meet and discuss.”

Blue managed a small smile but it looked all wrong. “I think so too. They keep asking for her, you know.”

“Yeah, I hear it from them too.” Rus nodded encouragingly. “Thanks for your help. We’ll speak tomorrow when everyone’s back here.”

Blue flashed two thumbs up and tried another smile that looked better than the last, but still fell short of his usual cheerful expression.

Rus watched him go before turning back to the computer to give the rest of the files another read through. There were five properties to look into. He didn’t think the first or the fifth ones were likely since they didn’t have subterranean levels on file but…

So engrossed, Rus never noticed the hours trickle by.

 

-

 

You were tired but not so tired that you didn’t want to talk to Papyrus some more. There was nothing else for you since Grillby kept to himself and Sans seemed nonverbal at times. Papyrus waved it off, saying his brother could ‘get like that’ but he always ‘came back.’ 

Papyrus was always looking on the bright side of things. He hadn’t told you what had happened in his world, even though you knew the most horrific detail of it, but you were willing to listen anytime he started to explain something.

Their king had been killed, the human had fled with a monster soul, and his wife Queen Toriel had stepped in to take over the throne. Whenever Papyrus mentioned the queen or Toriel Sans seemed to perk up. If you remembered you history lessons correctly, your Sans and the queen had been close at one point.

“BUT THAT DIDN’T LAST LONG,” Papyrus explained before he remembered what he was talking about and he stopped suddenly.

He’d apologize and got quiet until you steered the conversation away from his history. Sometimes you had to sing in order to get him talking again, not that you minded. 

He enjoyed singing maybe more than you, but he was alway quite vocal about requesting private concerts since your voice was ‘UTTERLY DIVINE’ according to his expert tastes. You sang all the happy songs you could remember, and he hummed along whenever he could.

Though his definition of happy wasn’t always your definition.

“IT’S ABOUT A HEART THAT WAS BROKEN, HOW CAN YOU CONSIDER THAT A HAPPY SONG?”

“Its about surviving a heartbreak, that’s literally the title of the song, ‘I Will Survive.’”

“YOU WOULDN’T NEED TO SURVIVE IN THE FIRST PLACE IF THE RELATIONSHIP HAD WORKED OUT. IT IS A TRAGEDY.”

“Paps, you’re a romantic at heart, aren’t you?”

Papyrus huffed and turned his chin up. “I ENJOY A GOOD ROMANCE LIKE ANY OTHER SELF RESPECTING MONSTER WITH TASTE WOULD.”

“I figured as much,” you laughed, remembering his love of stories that ended with ‘happily ever after’ whenever you told them.

You couldn’t find it in yourself to dislike that part of him though. After coming from such a grim world he still had it in him to believe in sweet things like love and happy endings.

“I think I know another song you might like.”

“A ROMANCE SONG?” he guessed.

After whatever terrible fate had taken place in his world, inanition to his teeth taking damage, the Papyrus in front of you had smaller eye lights and sockets than your Papyrus. It wasn’t a big detail, but after days of staring at him you could tell, especially when his sockets went wide in surprise or excitement.   

“A romance song, yup,” you chuckled. “It’s super old but I guess it gets the job done.”

But before you could start your singing the androids, dumb and dumber, were at the end of your wall, Thrive standing between them with her famous scowl in place. Sometimes Esperanza walked with her, rarely Julia was there, and you hadn’t ever seen her brother Tank since coming to this site.

“Time,” Thrive barked before waving to the androids to fetch you.

Like all the other times you got up and walked out on your own, hands up in the air, docile as a lamb while Papyrus watched with worry from his cell. His song would have to wait until next time.

Thrive tried the same insults, used the same threats, even hit you this time, but there was nothing she could do that would result in you bending your will.

Julia came in before Thrive could hit you again and she glared at the taller girl for getting physical. “You said we weren’t going to hurt her.”

“Nothing else works, doc.”

Julia took your face in her hands and then turned it to the side to inspect. “Maybe there is something else we could offer you.”

Thrive scoffed.

“I want a pony, a chocolate ice cream, and a million bucks,” you joked dryly. 

“Not for you,” Julia said, standing back and dropping her hand. “I can fix your friend’s teeth.”

You felt cold all over as Thrive turned on Julia in rage, spitting and sputtering her curses at the older woman. “Over my dead body, you crazy! They killed kids.”

“Interested?” Julia asked, ignoring Thrive. “I have the authority to make you this offer and his surgery could be done in an hour, maybe two tops.” 

You watched Julia a moment longer and felt the fear in your heart bottom out. If Julia was making an offer to help Papyrus, the opposite was just as easily within her power. How long until they started to threaten to hurt the boys to get you to do what you wanted?

You remembered Julia turning off the sound proof layering in the first place.

Your gut rolled with rage.

“Bitch,” you hissed low and angry.

“I’m offering to help you,” she sighed. “Please, let me. Don’t force my hand otherwise.”

There was little point in denying her now. You could try…but poor, sweet Papyrus…so in love with love and romance and happy songs… The though of any more tragedy happening to him made you want to vomit. You couldn’t let that happen.

“Just…to use my map and look for Raven?” you hissed, eyes narrowed.

Thrive flinched, glancing between Julia and then you. “Shit, you really are a monster fucker, aren’t you?”

You wanted to bite out Julia’s throat and then turn onto Thrive but you swallowed down your rage, knowing you couldn’t and wouldn’t do such a thing. You swallowed once more for good measure before opening your eye to face the pair of ladies.

“How soon could you start?”

“I could begin now if you wanted to work with us.”

You stood in the middle of the room but you crouched, falling down as your knees folded all on their own. You pulled at your hair and growled. “Then fucking start.”

“You’ll do it?” Thrive asked, stepping up.

“Keep your damn plants in check and you’ll see.”     

Thrive looked down at you and then waved her hand. You felt the shift inside your body as the seeds moved up and out, slipping out through the cracks on your arm, chest, and back. They stayed on the edges, ready to dive back into you if you turned on her.

You cracked open a small shell of magic and drew from it, closing your eyes to better see the map in your mind. You heard Julia leave out the side door but ignored her. You focused instead on the world and searched.

You started with a zoomed in view of your room, then the building underground, and then the surrounding landscape. There wasn’t a lot else nearby, making it the perfect secluding location to get away with whatever illegal activities they wanted to play at.

You kept zooming out, little by little, not willing to give yourself a headache too early. After enough time Thrive kicked at your knee. “That’s enough. Show me what you saw.”

You glared up at her but dropped the memory into her mind, taking your time to compile it.

“I thought you said you couldn’t see so far with your map?” Thrive said.

“You know I could do at least this much,” you grumbled, playing at looking tired. You swayed a bit and fell back out of your crouch to land on your butt.

“Fine, fine, go back in. Go to the places you think he might be.”

“Oh, is that all,” you laughed sarcastically. “We’re in the middle of ass nowhere.  Anyplace I think he might be is going to be nowhere near where we are.”

“Try. Your friend is still in surgery.”

“Give me a minute to catch my breath. You know how taxing this can get on a near empty stomach.”

“We feed you.”

You made a face to match her dissatisfied expression, wrinkling your nose and pitching your voice to sound annoying. “Yeah, after you take me. I need energy now, slut”

Thrive grunted but signaled fr one of the androids to get something for you. They returned with an energy bar that tasted like sawdust.

You stuck your tongue out. “Tastes like shit.”

Thrive barked in laughter. “That means its good enough, now back in, bitch.”

You nodded, looking tired, but accessed your map again. You stretched it out a little more ways, looking more in one direction before snapping back and stopping to give Thrive an update. You kept at it, repeating the process again and again. You used your map to scan the old route Raven had taken, back when you and the boys had just started out on the bus. You followed it all the way to the arcade where Winn had plucked out your fake eye after your first encounter.

You saw nothing of your brother and you didn’t suspect to. He wasn’t working alone and as bastardly Winn and Dee had been, you suspected them of being capable.

“It’s been over an hour, what else can you see?” Thrive said while you paused to sip at your mango flavored fruit drink.

“I’m doubling back. The old trail is empty, you saw already.”

“You’re just taking forever.”

You scoffed. “I was on a bus for a couple months trying to track this guy down. There is a reason he’s been able to avoid you all this long. What? Did you think you would have more luck with your abilities?” You took another sharp swig of mango drink before slamming the cup down. “You think he would come back for me, or for you?”

Thrive’s face went slack and you saw real hurt in her eyes before they hardened again. She knew better than to believe in confessions between teenagers in secret. Whatever Raven, your brother, had felt for her once upon a time, it didn’t matter now.

“Just go back into your damn map.”

You looked on the map once more and saw where you were and zoomed out all over again, going and going until you were at the edge of the town. That’s when you stopped and cut the map off suddenly. You shook your head and groaned.

“Shit, that’s not your limit is it?” Thrive hissed.

“I…I just need a minute. I’m tired. Let me try again…just…” you closed your one good eye and winced. “Give me a minute to stop the spinning.”

Thrive threw up her hands and stomped away, tired after the hour and a half you had already been at it together. You covered your face with your hands and peeked at the map once more, watching the bright blue dot inch closer and closer. At the rate it was moving…at that speed…

You had maybe another fifteen to twenty minutes before Blue reached your location on his motorcycle.

 

Notes:

I really like all the little bonding moments between the boys. It was much harder to write scenes with all of them at once earlier on, but right now it's almost second nature.

Chapter 47: Champion 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You had fifteen minutes before Blue reached your location on his motorcycle.

You were sure of it now.

You pulled up your map again and watched him move for a little longer.

Now it was more like fourteen minutes.

“I think I’m tapped for the day. I can try again in maybe ten or so minutes to see if I can see anything, but not right now.” You played at holding your head. “It still hurts.”

Thrive rolled her eyes. “Boo you whore, see if I care. You can try again in five minutes. I’m not giving you any more time. I know you’re better than this.”

You growled in true annoyance. “I haven’t had to use my magic for anything in years. I’ve not kept up with my training.”

“You put up a good enough fight when we tried to bring you in,” Thrive laughed. “Or was that my imagination. If Esperanza hadn’t caught you off guard you would have overpowered us easy, SevenA.” Thrive stressed the ‘Seven’ part of your name.

Thirteen minutes.

You felt your lip curl before your insult slipped out. “Using a mental map is a little more complicated than burning up and kicking low class ass.” 

“If this low class ass was able to bring in your sorry ass, what does that make you?” Thrive laughed with a glare that was only partially mocking.

Lucky.”

“Shut up and rest. The sooner your can go back into your map the sooner we can move on with our lives. I’m sick of having to wait on you like some damn princess. What a joke.”

“I’m sick of having to be here where you wait on me like Marie Antoinette post French Revolution. I was minding my own business and you show up and stir the shit pot. Don’t complain in front of me.”

When Thrive doesn’t immediately retaliation with her own verbal barb you glanced up through your lashes and frown at her confused expression. There is another beat of silence before Thrive opens her mouth to speak.

“Who’s Marie Antoinette?”

“…I don’t actually know, I just heard someone else use that insult so I figured it would work,” you mumbled, lying as well as you could under the circumstances.

Thrive was a bitch and a skank and a literal thorn in your side, but she didn’t deserve to feel dumb because of the holes in her education. You had lived with those same holes and tried damn hard to fill them with help as a step in the therapy Thrive never took up. You wanted to make her feel bad because she had royally screwed you over, but…you didn’t want to make her feel stupid. She was a bitch but still…

“Why am I here?” you asked.

Thrive looked surprised. “You dense or what? To find your brother-”You cut her off before she can finish.

“No! Why did you help bring me here?”

Thrive’s gaze slid off of you and settled on a spot near the bottom of the far wall. There was an unfocused glaze to them as she leaned back, crossed her ankles and then her arms. In the florescent lights she still managed to look like a figure any young girl would envy.

“Hightower said you could do it, so we got you.”

“Why’d ya listen to him? You’re not even legit anymore.”

“You wouldn’t understand it. You ran as soon as you could.”

“Help me understand. I don’t get how you could stay with him, he’s a monster-”

“Don’t say that!” Thrive shouted. With the momentum of her shout she pushed off the wall, eyes blazing and fully focused on you. “You don’t know what a real monster is!”

“That’s for me to say,” you said, keeping your voice low and easy. “I’ve lived with both. I’ve seen their good and our bad just the same. You can’t tell me what he did to us was right.”

“If things had been different you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying now. Those friends of yours getting work done ate kids. If they found our world instead of the other guys, we wouldn’t be talking about it. You’d be killing them right alongside me. It’s just bad luck the dice rolled this way and no one needed us in the end. We’re unlucky, nothing more.”

Her words left a sour taste in your mouth. You didn’t consider yourself unlucky for not having a reason to kill someone. You didn’t consider it lucky to have an enemy.  To fight was your best learned behavior-but it was one you were thankful you never had to take up apart from in self defense. Even against Thrive, as annoying as she was, you didn’t want to kill her.

“I don’t think I’m unlucky.” Your voice is softer and somehow it managed to make Thrive flinch.

“Fuck you,” she said, sounding strained. There was something wet about her words. “You might have been able to turn it off but don’t think the rest of us had it so easy.” 

“It wasn’t easy.”

Thrive turned her face away and cursed loudly. She kicked at the wall and it sounded loudly with a thud. “You done resting up yet? If you open your mouth again for any other reason I’m going to kick you for it.”

And she would.

You shut your good eye and breathed deep.

Five minutes.

“I can’t see much. It’s all blurry,” you lied. You could see Blue clearly as he raced along the outside perimeter of the building and found a way through the cheap fences. There were no other dots to make you think Stretch or the others were close, just Blue-but Blue was enough! Esperanza was off site and aside from Thrive and the androids, you couldn’t see anyone else inside the building on any of the levels for you to worry about.

“Try again,” Thrive barked.

You pretended to make an effort but gave up after half a minute. “It’s not coming through. I’m done for the day.”

“You’re done when we say you’re done.”

You rolled you shoulders. “Fine, but nothing else is going to come through. You can take me back to my cell to rest and pull me in a couple of hours to see if its changed, or you can keep pushing me in here to get a whole lot of nothing. It’s up to you. You’re the one with all the power here.”

Thrive paced back and forth, twitching her fingers as she thought. You dropped your head and took another peak.

Three minutes…

Thrive’s voice drew your attention back. “Take her back. We’ll pull her in three hours.”

The seeds seeped back into you and took up their roots again inside your body, ready to bloom if you used your magic again. The androids approached you but before they could reach for you to drag off you threw up your hands and snapped. “I can walk on my own this time. You don’t have to drag me.”

“Sleep it off. We’ll pull you again and you better deliver or your friends aren’t going to get any more help,” Thrive threatened.

“I got it, I got it. Don’t burn your bra over it.” You flipped her the bird and followed Dumb out while the other android, Dumber, trailed along behind you.

Thrive took off in the opposite direction and you didn’t doubt she was heading back to wherever it was she hung out when she wasn’t working you over. Maybe she had a room in the building up top.

Before you could get much farther you saw Julia walking towards you with a Med Kit in hand. She smiled when she saw how you weren’t being dragged off.

“He did well, and he’s going to have to stay in the braces for a few months but nothing we couldn’t fix. You should be impressed. I’m not normally a dentist.” She sounded so confident about her work.

“No, but you are an expert on monster biology. He-is he awake?”

“He was when I left him but I don’t doubt he’ll be nodding off sometime soon. No problems there, it’s just the other one you have to watch out for. He took a some work to subdue.”

Something cold slid down your spine and you felt fear. “He’s not-what did you do?”

Julia waved your concern off. “He’s fine. He was restrained, but now they’re back together. He’s not much of a threat with all his magic being used to just hold his sad body together. He’s the only version of a Sans that has-or had, more than one HP, but it was never much more.”

Did they not know about Black’s stats?

Julia started to walk past you and you turned to watch her go, staying still even when the android hands started to tug you along.

“Are they okay?”

“See for yourself,” Julia called out as she walked out and disappeared up a stairwell.

This time when you’re tugged you let the cold humanoid bodies lead you on.

You followed the android down the halls, slowing down as you approached your wing. You figured Blue must be right on top of you by now if he was able to sneak inside. His chances of finding an entrance to the lower levels were good if he could manage to keep himself from being spotted.

Good.

The hallway turned and then the cells began. You passed the first two empty ones before seeing Grillby. He was standing up and pacing at the back of his room, uniquely agitated. You cold guess why once you saw the inside of the skeleton’s cell. Papyrus was propped up against the wall while Sans stood in front of him protectively. The rest of the furniture in the room had been obliterated. There was a red band around San’s neck that blinked an ugly orange every odd second.

The androids started to lead you into your cell but you pushed them off. “She told me to ‘see for myself’ so that’s what I am going to do. Do not stop me,” you growled.

The androids paused, reassessed their objectives, and backed off enough for you to push through to where Sans and Papyrus were. Getting closer to the glass allowed you to see Julia’s handiwork. Two and half hours later the oversized teeth had been filed down or maybe removed so that the remaining ones could be outfitted with wired braces that would keep them from shifting any more. Papyrus was still awake but looked loopy as he touched his face and teeth over and over again.

“DO THEY LOOKS A-AH GOOD?” he slurred, sounding happy.

“yeah, told you they would,” Sans weakly answered.

Papyrus’ head lolled before he looked up and saw you. His eye sockets, fuzzy from his state, went wide for you. He cried out your name and touched his teeth again, laughing. “LOOK, L-LOOK. I’M HANDSOME NOW.”

Sans flinched but ducked his head.

“You were always handsome to me Papyrus,” you admitted, finding the truth in your words before you vocalized them.

His joy and excitement made him a most dashing individual in your opinion, and you were so lucky to have known him. Sans flinched at your words but glanced up over his shoulder at you. His lone red eyesight fixed on you.

“YOU ARE VERY HAND-HANDSOME TOO, THE MOST HANDSOME FOR A HUMAN,” Papyrus laughed, sounding even more loopy. “LOOK AT YOU. I AH-I JUST WANT TO LOOK AT YOU Ah-ND-AND KEEP LOOKING AT YOU.”

You felt the window of opportunity for what it was and shuddered before ducking your head against the glass, wanting desperately to listen to Papyrus and help him settle down, but there was an opportunity you were in danger of missing.

“Sans, can you carry your brother if you have to?”

San’s eyesight narrowed on you. “…yeah…why for?”

From his cell Grillby had stopped pacing and was listening where he stood. The androids were approaching to take you back and overhead you knew that Blue was somewhere near by.

You felt it in your soul.

“Because we’re leaving here,” you said softly before reaching for the nearest android body to flip over your shoulder and throw against the other.

They crashed into one another and tumbled into a mess on the floor that no doubt would right themselves without issue if given the time-but you weren’t going to let them.

The seeds and spores inside of you began to burst and bloom as you cracked open your magic and spilled it free. The thorns and weeds choked you from inside, and rose petals fell with bloodstains from your mouth, but you pushed through it to crack open more and more of the magic you had been blocking up and storing for days.

Fire.

You needed to burn it all.

You screamed and the flames leaked out from your bad eye and all the other broken, scarred parts of you. The flowers and weeds caught fire and stubbornly resisted, but you turned every cell you could manipulate to flame and shed you flesh for fire before the weeds could choke you out. It was a game of chicken but more than just your life was on the line this time. 

Your scream sounded like a roar of hot wind in your ears as the room glowed orange hot all around you. The details began to wave and ripple in the overwhelming heat.

Thrive’s magic wasn’t anything to scoff at, but in terms of potential and magical storage….well, she was just a four and you were a seven.

There was no contest.

You screamed and the flowers turned to feathers and the thorns turned into flames as your body flickered with new life.

The androids were rousing but you turned on them and lashed with fingers bent and clawed. Your nails ripped them open like cheap tin, and their innermost workings came undone for you. You ripped the arms off one and the head off the other just as an alarm began to blare.

You surged and felt even more magic run through you. It was enough to physically manifest a pair of curling bone like horns from your skull. They bent out and then stretched upwards into lethal points with edges just as dangerous.

You tore at the material between Grillby’s cell and the one next door where Sans and Papyrus were. You didn’t warn them, but you didn’t need to as both stepped back; Sans pulling Papyrus along with him as he moved. Your hands were black from the fingernails down, like burnt charcoal, but they tore through anything they touched.

One of the most exploitable weaknesses of the cells was their low exterior durability. If you were stuck inside it would be a challenge to break your way out, but if you were trying to force your way in, the resistance was far less. Maybe Hightower never anticipated a reverse prison break.

Behind you, the alarms continued to blare and you knew you were racing against the clock.

“Here, help me,” you called.

Grillby stepped up and began to pull the wall away with his hands, but you saw the yellow collar that matched Sans’ tucked under the edges of his shirt. You reached into the small break you had made and grabbed the collar, recognizing it. Like the cell, it was easily crushed by an outside source.

“Now you can let loose,” you laughed before backing up to unleash a burst of fire. Grillby’s black flames sparked with gold and silver flecks in excitement before he turned his own fire attack onto what was left of the wall and window that kept him from freedom.

Before the two of you could finish you heard the footsteps at the end of the hallway, all metallic and all inhuman. You blinked and it was enough to check the map for a fraction of a second and see no one alive in the hallway.

You focused your magic into a point between your two horns, growing it and growing it with layer after layer of energy. The light between your horns was red and flickering like a flame. As soon as you saw the bodies around the corner you let it free and it shot off like a bullet to the forward center of the small cluster and exploded with devastating effect. Metal bodies fell in pieces ahead of you.

“Got it!” Grillby called.

You turned and saw the opening big enough for him to climb out and for Sans to drag Papyrus out over his shoulder. Poor Papyrus was much longer than Sans, so his boots dragged behind him even though this battered iteration of Sans was taller and bulkier than all the others you had seen. Still, it didn’t seem like Sans lacked any strength. Once he was out with Papyrus draped over his shoulders and back he reached out and plucked an ax out of midair, made out of magic and metal and stored in his inventory. He looked to you and the grin on his face stretched.

“i hate to ax you all awkward like this, but you got a plan pal?” he laughed.

“I’ve got a friend topside that’ll be able to give us a hand. He’s here now.” You waved the people behind you on. “Come on, before they start to send actual fighters our way.”

“good enough for me,” he chuckled, sounding more awake than ever before.

You surged, barely touching the ground as you bounded from one point to the next, leading the group down the halls towards what you knew would lead to the stairs up.

A lazer in the walls zapped at you, nearly hitting before you could recover in time to turn and find it on the wall. San’s Ax burried deep into the wall while Grillby’s black fire melted another one behind you that hadn’t even detected you.

“keep going,” Sans barked, tearing his ax free again.

“Too bad we didn’t have him to help,” Grillby commented, panting a bit from what you suspected to be nerves.

“Nah, better he’s out for this,” Sans muttered, shifting Papyrus up further on his shoulders.

Ahead of you the walls were starting to shift as metal doors came down from up top, too fast for you to squeeze under without risking Papyrus. You tore through the first one, burning and digging into the metal with your nails until it turned too hot to retain its shape. It wasn’t enough to stop you but it slowed you down a lot.

“This is taking too long,” you gasped once your were through the first door. You weren’t sure how many more were in your way.

“it ain’t like we can go around them in a hallway with no turns. Knife try, pal.”

You stood back and glanced up, staring at the ceiling made out of lesser metals and plaster tiles to cover up. It wouldn’t be easy but by this point you were out of easy options.

“Got it, stand back from here if you don’t want to get burned,” you warned before kneeling and angling the point between your horns at the ceiling, keeping it at an angle. You built up a bead of power and then wrapped it up in layer after layer of magic until it grew from a pin prick to a pebble and then to a rock. The room around you heated enough to make a man sweat, but the monsters you ran with didn’t seem to mind.

Grillby actually seemed to be enjoying the show.

You launched your bottled magic up into the ceiling and it was enough to throw you back onto your ass. The ceiling crumbled in chunks. The tiles from the floor above you fell through next.

“nice shot,” Sans laughed while Grillby stepped up to throw some of his own black fire at the crumbling edges to widen the hole. Enough rubbish had fallen down to make a crude ramp.

You recovered, climbing to your feet and jumping up, near weightless as more feathers shed from the cracks all over you. You grabbed at the ceiling and pulled yourself up to the last level of the underground bunker. Your shot had gone straight through that wall too, but the hole wasn’t nearly as large or wide. Blue had to hear you by now, right?

You readied another attack between your two horns, layering it with a little less magic even as you heard the metallic bodies. You shot off your fireball before strong metal arms could force you to the floor and push you down.

Something tried to clamp around your neck but you twisted out and got a leg up. When you brought it down, driving your heel into the shoulder of the double sized android, you felt the dent it made even if it didn’t rip.

It was enough.

You shimmied free and felt the feathers falling out of your back without your shirt but no new bones for it to grab onto as you made you short escape. There was nothing on the ground to pick up but rubble, so you set that on fire and then kicked it at the hulk sized metal man. It connected with a dull gonging sound that made sans laugh before a short barrage of bones impaled it where it stood.

You froze, waiting for it to break free, but it stilled, dead and defective after the damage Sans dealt it.

With a smug expression Sans pulled his brother up and then stepped aside for Grillby to follow.

“I wore him down for you,” you grumbled.

“sure you did, pal.” You weren’t sure if you had ever seen a Sans look so smug.   

Grillby was already reaching out to try and pull open the hole you had made towards the next door when you heard it. You listened, soul surging in your chest when Blue called your name again.

“Here!” You screamed, “We’re here, Blue!”

Sans’ smug look fell off his face. “one of those guys?”

You weren’t sure if he had been listening when you told Papyrus of the other skeletons you lived with and next to. You were sure he had listened to the explanation about how they had been pulled to your world, but it seemed like only Papyrus bothered to engage with you when you talked about your neighbors.

“Who else would come all this way out to help?” you laughed.

Sans nodded slow. “sounds like…family.”

You heard your name again and then Blue was there, leaning down with stars then hearts in his eyes for you. It was enough to make you want to melt. You missed his face and his voice and his arms. It had only been a few days, but it felt like an eternity since you were last together.

“Damn if you ain’t a sight for sore eyes,” you laughed. “Help my new friends up, sweetie.”

You waved Grillby up first, noticing his hesitation. He looked to you and saw your smile before nodding and climbing up to take Blue’s hand. Sans shifted with Papyrus on his back before sliding his brother free.

He glanced your way.

“You go up first and I’ll hand him off to you.”

Sans dropped his ax to better climb up, ignoring Blue’s hand as well as his gasp when the hole in his skull came into view. Once he was up Sans turned around and waved for you to lift his brother up and together you managed.

“Is this…” Blue’s voice trailed off as he watched Sans maneuver Papyrus over his shoulder again.

“Sans and Papyrus, ones we didn’t know about. We’ve been friendly these past few days.”

“…I only brought my bike.”

“I’m sure there’s a truck or car we could borrow,” you laughed, feeling too excited to not laugh. Your energy was peaked and you were ready for anything. You turned back to look at Blue when he called your name again but flinched at the sight of his tears.

Your flames dimmed considerably and more of your arms and legs turned charcoal black as the flames diminished. Your horns didn’t go away but almost. The sight of his tears was like a sucker punch in the feels.

“Wha-what’s wrong? I’m fine. Blue? Blue!”

You touched his arm and he almost collapsed on you. “Can I hug you?” he whispered in a wet sounding voice.

You let your horns crumble and your flames turned as harmless as Grillby’s before pulling him into a tight embrace. His arms wrapped around and tugged tight, like he was afraid you’d disappear if he didn’t squeeze you tightly enough. You wanted to let your knees fall out from under you from how badly they trembled. You missed this so much! You missed Blue so much.

“Damn it, I didn’t want to cry like this,” you whispered against his skull. It made Blue chuckle.

When Sans coughed loudly you pulled away first and remembered where you were. Thrive had to be somewhere close and there was no telling who else would show up in a few more minutes. Your good luck wouldn’t last forever.

“We need to keep moving,” you said, pulling back.

You were starting to feel tired and shook your shoulders to help stock your own fire back up. The horns would be too much to summon again, so you made do with turning the rest of your body to flame. It would have to do. Ughh, you were so hungry now.

You accessed your mental map and saw where the garage was, thanking your lucky stars there were at least two different truck sized shapes you could snag.  Blue followed your lead and then surged ahead to break down the doors between you and your destination. The garage lights flickered on when you hit the wall switch and there were two trucks you could take your pick from and a mount with their keys on the wall next to the light switch. You took both of them and unlocked the nearest one.

“Everyone in,” Blue shouted while you opened the back doors and climbed up in anticipation of helping Papyrus through.

Grillby called your name and you tossed him the keys when he waved for them. He slipped in easily and started the engine while Sans followed you and his brother in the back.

“I can lead you back on my bike,” Blue called before running back through the building to exit out a different way. 

You thought you were going to be lucky again, but the garage door, of all things, jammed on you.

“I’ll lift it,” you said as you got out to do just that. It wasn’t anything special, so while it resisted and was heavy like a bitch, you were still able to force it up with a surge of your own magic. Grillby drove out and once he was clear you dropped the door and ran to join him.

You didn’t get far.

The weeds and grass reached for your ankles, growing sharp enough to cut flesh.

Thrive?

You turned and screamed her name, sensing her even if you couldn’t see her. The weeds reached for the car but you shot fire at them to keep them from reaching the axel or wheels. You yelled at Grillby to drive before scorching the ground in front of him until there was asphalt. 

He reached the road while you jogged behind him but had to slam on the breaks once something massive broke through the earth to tear up the road in front of him. The leaves dropped acid onto the ground below and you cursed. It looked like Thrive was serious this time around.

You cursed in frustration but dragged up what you could of your remaining magic, ignoring the exhaustion that came from malnourishment and pushing your limits. You had spent the entire morning scanning with your map for her.

Damn.

A single, curved horn grew out of the ridge between your brows, bending over your skull like a sickle. You felt a new well of magic tapped, but only one…the rest of your powers were out of reach unless you took a moment to channel it out properly. You didn't have a moment. That was your Achilles' heel, the time it took to manage a power you could barely control-if you had the time you'd be so much better off

One horn would have to do.

You surged and screamed, shooting flames out at the base of her plant while Grillby desperately tried to maneuver around it. There were vines reaching for the car but Blue zipped into the way and confused it long enough for Grillby to drive clear.

Power, power, power, you just needed to overwhelm her.

Nothing burned better than weeds.

You felt the wings began to manifest behind you, but concentrated on the fire. With everything you could, you drew a line in the ground and pulled up from it a wall of fire reaching eight, ten, fifteen, twenty feet high. The grass and weeds around you withered from the heat and you screamed to keep it standing. The strain made you want to cry, but you would deal with it if Grilby and Blue could get a good head start. You’d join up with them aft-

A vine on fire struck you through the curtain and you were knocked, ankles over ass, as your concentration snapped and the fire wall came down. Most of the plant was burned beyond recognition but it was slowly regrowing itself.

You staggered up, glancing sideways towards the road behind the plant where Blue and Grillby had managed to get. Blue stopped and looked back for you, eyes wide and worried. You waved him on and redoubled your fire coating before launching yourself at the plant again.

You became tangled but flared your fire and freed yourself easily. You tore through the vegetation to the center where you sensed Thrive. You pulled away enough to see her arm and hands through the muck before you were knocked back by a sacrificial vine that withered up after touching you.

“Just let me go, already!” you screamed.

“Hell no you liar!”

More of the ground under you turned over as more plants that had been germinating began to spill forth and break free. You burned as much as you could, but as they started to surround you it became apparent that you were only one person and-

Chunk

Ice froze an entire plant in place and then the ax that tore through it turned it into a crumbled mess at your feet. Sans ambled up next to you and then summoned his ice ax back into his hand.

You gasped in disbelief at the sight of him. “You?” 

“‘ay, it’s discount day. the other pipsqueak wouldn’t leave without you so i’ll be your shortcut out of here.”

“Sans…can you even shortcut anymore?”

“Not right now, nah.”

You burned a plant growing over him while he froze something behind you.

“Then why the hell would you come back? What about Papyrus?”

San swung with cruel effect and something split into two under his ax. His crimson eyesight dilated as a feral energy made his body seem to bulk up. His memory might not have been the best, but he remembered how to fight well enough.

“you needed help and my bro needed to get to safety.” Sans swung again and you heard the wet sound it made when it connected. “and at ta end of da day, he’s all that matters, the handsome devil, heh heh, gotta make sure he makes it at least.” 

Your soul swelled and you redoubled your flames. “We’ll get back to him,” you promised.

Sans just laughed, more focused on the battle than believing in you. The love he felt for his brother was familiar, so familiar it hurt. 

Your bad eye leaked excess flame and magic as you screamed and launched yourself up into the air and twisted to throw flame out in all directions, hungry and wide. It caught everything and you kept going, even as Thrive screamed at you to stop.

You felt the cold grip of your limits at the back of your chest but kept going, pushing out more and more fire out as Sans took care of what was left. You were here to burn it all down to ashes and you were blind to anything else. 

The world was in flames around you as you stood over Thrive, charred and on fire with a set of three different wings stretched out behind you.

You reached for her shirt collar but never got that far.

 

-Shiiik

 

Your flames went out like all the oxygen in the world was gone and you staggered, pulling away from Hightower and the nail gun device he had just jammed between your breast, right over where your soul wound had been. Your mouth tingled with sour tang as you watched some of the excess void magic fade off from his shoulders-most likely from his shortcut.

You tried to burn.

You tired to summon your fire.

You tried to touch your magic, and there was no pain like from an inhibitor collar, but there was also nothing else there… nothing.

It was different from empty. Your magic was gone?

You staggered and grabbed at your chest, feeling something lodged inside you, stuck inside your soul like a nail in a wood panel. You were left covered in cracking black, charcoal-like coating that came after your fire magic went out.

“What did you do to me?”

“What was necessary, my child,” Hightower sighed, already removing his suit jacket to throw around your naked shoulders.

You were cold.

So cold.

So damn hungry too.

Your legs gave out and you fell to the grass with Hightower following you all the way down, jacket around your shoulders. He tugged you closer and then tapped at the wound area on your chest.

You couldn’t see your own soul but there was something in it you could feel. Your mouth tasted all sorts of wrong for how sour and bitter the air you sucked in came. You tried to feel for your soul and it was dizzying and unpleasant when you sensed the rough details of what had happened to you . It was….like a nail or a thick barbed pin lodged in the meat of your soul, piercing it like a skewer would, keeping it down.

“Hightower,” you gasped, feeling too light and too terrible for whatever was going to come next. Your mouth tingled too late with warning. “What did you do to me?”

“You’ll not be able to use your power now. Tank, Everest, you two and Esperanza bring that one with us. We’ll have to switch locations again.”

You fell the rest of the way onto the burnt earth and saw behind you, Thrive’s brother, Tank, lifting Sans off the ground with the help of a couple super suited androids while Esperanza supervised in the background. Behind Tank there was another boy you remembered being called Everest from back when you were still in the program…but hadn’t he been cut? They said he got sick and then you never saw him again. Now Everest was back and helping Tank and Esperanza clip up Sans again with a new, ugly yellow collar to keep his external magic out of reach.

“Hightower, I’m going to kill you,” you slurred before the world turned dark.

The last thing you saw was his smug smile.

“I do hope you try.”

Notes:

That was going so well and they nearly had it, but the bad guys aren't through with you guys yet. At least those of your worried about horror Papyrus can rest easy since he's made it to a safe point by now thanks to his brother and friends.

I don't think I'm able to surprise you anymore though, since so many comments last week were along the lines of 'I don't trust this to go well' and ya'll were right. You guys are smarter than I am, but I don't think that's a bad thing!
How do you think the boys back home are going to take it once Blue gets back?

Point of interest-if you missed it-Hightower also is able to shortcut and use some void magic and that's the only reason the prison break didn't work in the end.

See you next week, until then stay safe!

Chapter 48: Champion 5

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Your vision fades in and out.

There are strong arms around you, lifting you up and into the back seat of a metal truck. Someone drops you onto the floor next to another figure, maybe Sans, and then sits on the bench seat against the wall. Someone else steps into the back of the truck and the door behind them closes.

You hear muffled conversation. Words.

Location

Delay

Job

Situational losses

Soul pin

And then you’re out again.

 

It was years ago. You remember sitting across from Hightower in a stark white room, confused as to what he was doing with the med kit.

“Where is Julia?” you asked around the swollen lip that had scabbed in the last ten minutes. It was still sore and would crack if you smiled, but you didn’t have a lot to smile about so that wasn’t a big concern.

“You were fighting again,” Hightower said, speaking plainly as he opened the kit and pulled out what he needed. He didn’t say anything else, but the silence he created was one that put pressure on your soul. Your boss was sitting down and doing the dirty work in place of the nurse, which meant a lecture was pending.

“She had it coming.”

“I doubt that very much.”

“Esperanza was talking shit.”

Hightower glared hard and you cursed before looking away.   

TwoK was talking shit,” you said, correcting yourself. You weren’t supposed to have names or birthdays or ethnicities. You were numbers and letters and weapons, nothing more.

Hightower didn’t answer immediately but moved to start cleaning the cuts on your face left over from the other girl’s nails. “She’s years older than you,” he said.

“She’s not any better than me,” you snapped.

“She has better control.”

“She was asking to get her ass kicked. She knew what she was doing when she said what she said in front of me.”

Hightower finished on your cheek and then roughly turned you face away to treat the other side, not caring to answer immediately. “Did she say anything untrue?”

You hated the question and wanted to snap on your boss and punch his lights out next. True or false, there were just some things you didn’t say to people who were still mourning, no matter what. Esperanza knew better but she said what she said for a reason. She wanted to know what it would take for you to snap and you had showed her. Maybe next time she wouldn’t run her mouth off around your brother and age-mates about dead friends.

“Is it true then that you’re not thinking about sending anyone down into the pit this year?” you asked instead, hoping a change of topic would throw him off.

“I doubt that’s what you fought her over.”

“So that part is true, huh.” You had learned to read underneath the underneath from Hightower, who was all subterfuge and deception, but it seemed he didn’t appreciate it when you used his own tactics on him.

Hightower pulled his hands away and stared at your face. You heard him close the med kit without breaking eye contact. “There are no candidates this year. This topic has nothing to do with someone who has already completed their transformation.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” you sneered.

Hightower stood slowly and stared you down. If you had been anyone else you would have shut up then and there, but you were SevenA, the only one out of all the kids to have seven different magical ‘wells’ in your soul. You had a tank three times larger than Esperanza’s and you were confident you could take her with only your fists if you needed to. Hightower knew it too. That’s why he paid so much extra attention to you. The only other favorite child was his apprentice, Everest, and then maybe your brother, Raven, who could use void magic. Everyone else in the program was beneath his notice. He probably didn’t even-

“You’ve been volatile since the passing of SixG,” he said, interrupting your thoughts.

And just like that, all the fight went out of you. You felt sick to your stomach. He didn’t flinch and he didn’t care for how his words changed you from a wild animal to a cowed dog.

“Don’t,” you whispered, already too soft and hurt to remember when you friend went down only to never come back. No amount of raging had helped.

“Then regain your focus. You are a hero for humanity, here to save it from the horrors under the mountain.” Hightower clasped his hands behind his back but didn’t walk away. “You understand this truth too poorly.”

“I haven’t forgotten what we sacrificed so much for,” you hissed.

“Have you now?” Hightower asked in a tone that wasn’t yet mocking.

You met his gaze and something in the way he looked at you softened. You heard him exhale and he released his hands to sit back down in front of you. He called your title and you looked up, cowed into a shallow obedience for now.

“You understand the horrors of the living darkness and what it takes from us well. Those same horrors are what gave birth to our enemies under the mountain. That’s why they were trapped there by our ancestors so many years ago, because they were made from it. The void under Mt. Ebot has been open and bleeding like an infected wound since before humans had words. The pit we have here is small but dangerous. Just as it made our greatest weapons, it made our greatest enemies.”

You rubbed at your chest where there horrible scar still marred your skin. He wasn’t telling you anything new and you weren’t sure how much you believed, but you knew there was no joking when it came to the void. Some of the other kids called it ‘our underground’ since void and underground were near interchangeable terms. You had no idea what the underground was like, you just knew the void was messed up.

The darkness made monsters…but it also made you. You weren’t sure how you felt about that.

Your thoughts were interrupted when Hightower took your chin in his hand and tilted it up. “You have the greatest potential of your peers, SevenA, and you know this. It’s why you act like such a loose cannon and why I forgive you when I shouldn’t.” The pressure from his hand on your chin made the bruises there throb. His eyes were sharp and cold, devoid of love or affection. If you stared long enough you could swear you saw flickers of movement in the iris of his eyes-dark swirling shadows. “Don’t squander yourself on such trivial matters in the future.”

He dropped your chin and you whimpered at the pain but didn’t say anything back as he exited the room, never once looking back at you.

 

 

Stretch was good at worrying. He was good at a lot of things, but worrying was one of the skills he excelled at without question. With a brother as energetic and accident prone as Blue, there had been years of practice for Stretch to develop his worrying skills.

Getting back and hearing from Blue’s work (when he went to visit the movie theater) that he had taken off was the first red flag. The second red flag was hearing from Rus that he hadn’t taken the kids to school or picked them up because of work-that he never made it to. Third red flag was the cryptic text of ‘don’t worry, I’m fine’ he got right before they all got back. Then he heard from Rus about the locations on the flash drive and everything fell into place.

Stretch knew what sort of brother he had. Blue was a hero, and he loved you dearly. There was no way he wouldn’t have taken the first chance he got to ride out on his motorcycle and track you down.

Stretch knew better, so of course he had Blue’s phone bugged and ready to track.

Papyrus pulled off to the side of the road and parked before stepping out. Behind him the rest of the SUV unloaded itself. They were on the edge of the town’s boundary lines and waiting to intercept Blue as he headed back. Stretch had sent off a few texts of his own, and knew his brother had read them, but there hadn’t been a response yet. 

Rus and Red had stayed behind, but everyone else wanted to be there when they met up with Blue. There was an undercurrent of hope or maybe fear that filled the air amongst themselves as they waited. Had Blue found you? Had he found nothing?

“I see him!” Papyrus shouted in excitement.

There were two vehicles coming down the road, the first being Blue’s familiar motorcycle. Behind him a dented and dirty covered truck. Stretch’s soul started to beat unevenly with excitement and hope. Blue was safe and it looked like he had found you. He was signaling to whoever was driving the truck anyway, so it wasn’t a hostile. 

“That looks like Grillby driving,” Black exclaimed, eyesights shrinking in shock. “I didn’t know he had been pulled over into this world along with us.”

Stretch didn’t say anything as Blue crested the last little hill in the road and pulled off to the side, kicking out his stand to stop his bike on while Grillby parked behind him.

Stretch ran up to greet his brother but stumbled when he saw the expression on Blue’s face. He had never seen Blue looked so crushed.

What did that mean?

“Blueberry!” Papyrus exclaimed behind Stretch, speaking up when Stretch couldn’t. “We were worried when we heard you had run off. What happened?”

Sans and Black ambled over to the truck as Grillby cut the engine and opened the door to climb down. Edge hung back, watching everything where he stood.

Blue yanked his helmet off the rest of the way and threw it down on the ground, shouting. “Fuck!”

The outburst was enough to stun even Black into silence.

“You can’t go back,” Grillby sighed, sounding dead tired. His flames were meager at best and he looked battered with dust and dirt over his uniform.

Blue looked up at his brother, seeing Stretch before anyone and Stretch knew. There were tears leaking out of the corners of Blue’s eyes as he started up at his brother with a dead expression of loss.

“I-I couldn’t,” was all Blue could make out at first.

Stretch didn’t wait for the rest. He reached out and gathered his smaller sized big brother into his arms and folded him into a hug. Papyrus hesitantly approached the pair while Blue’s shoulders shook along to the rhythm of his sobs.

“What happened?” Sans asked first, looking to Grillby who seemed a bit more put together.

Grillby glanced between Black and then Sans and then took a step back to lean against the door of the car. “There really are more of you, huh? She said there were. Sans and…Sans?”

Black gestured to himself. “I go by the moniker Black for clarity’s sake. He got to keep his name since this is his original universe. The others aren’t important right now. Tell us what happened.”

“From the beginning if ya can,” Sans added.

“It’s a long story.”

Sans chuckled, sounding far more relaxed than he felt. “I’m sure it is bud, but sound like we got a friend still MIA and it’d be appreciated if you’d help us get her back.”

There was a thud in the truck compartment behind Grillby that he didn’t flinch at, but one that made Edge tense and Papyrus jump in surprise.

“That sounded large,” Black calmly stated.

“He is,” Grillby answered. He pushed off the side of the truck and waved for the skeletons to follow him to the back. “Should be waking up soon, or maybe not, I don’t know how long that medicine should last.”

“Waking up?” Sans dully echoed.

Grillby threw open the back door to the truck and stood to the side so that Edge, Sans, and Black could all see the long limbed form of another Papyrus curled up in the bed section. He was just as dirty but nowhere near as exhausted looking.

“Another Papyrus,” Sans mused. “Say, he didn’t happen to come with another one that looked like-”

That Sans got left behind making sure we made it out,” Grillby explained, sounding even more tired. “Along with your friend.”

“Then she’s still alive,” Edge said, speaking up for the first time. Sans and Black turned back to look at Edge who carried himself with a bit more poise as he faced the black Grillby. “Explain the details to us.”

Grillby sat down on the edge of the truck and rubbed at his face, groaning while Papyrus made his way over, followed by Stretch and Blue. It was Papyrus who stepped forward with a crabapple to offer up while everyone waited for Grillby to speak. He ate the apple, core and all, before taking a deep breath that flared out his flames enough to explain.

Stretch listed along with Blue and the other as Grillby explained waking up in a new world, wandering around for a few weeks, staying with some almost familiar monsters before getting caught by a girl who could manipulate more robot bodies than any of the underground ghosts could. When he got to the underground bunker facility, the ones called Crooks (Papyrus) and Ax (Sans) were already there.

A few weeks later a girl showed up that got pulled out more often than either of them, and on the second or third day the soundproofing had been turned off enough for everyone to introduce themselves and get familiar. Grillby looked away to pause and collect his thoughts before explaining anything else.

“Did they say what they wanted her for?” Sans asked.

“Looking for that guy that brought us all here.”

“That part hasn’t changed,” Papyrus mused worriedly. “Did they ask her to use her map magic?”

The black flame Grillby nodded. “Yeah, I think that was what it was. They gave us collars that inhibited our magic but on her they had plants that would eat her magic if she used anything. They took her out and she was gone longer than usual. It was during that time that a doctor came in to fix Pap-er, this guy’s teeth. Before now they were all messed up and broken. That’s why he’s out of it. Anyway, she came back and broke us out. We met up with him and almost made it out together, but the numbers at the end…weren’t in our favor.”

“I can see that,” Sans said, sounding bitter. “Let me guess, she stayed behind to give you a head start.”

“Along with this one’s brother. He made me swear to not stop until his brother was safe.”

“Admirable,” Black grumbled.

Sans nodded. “It’s what I would ‘of done.”

“Makes sense cause he sounds like he’s another you,” Stretch said while checking on his brother. “And it does make sense if that’s how it all went down. We know what sort of person she is.”

Stretch remembered a moment that might have been ages ago, when he went out with you in the night to find the men who had hurt his brother. He had watched you do what was necessary and then break down in guilt over it. He remembered holding you a little like how he held Blue, feeling you tremble in his arms as you sobbed about what you had done. You had been a hero to him, but your soul was determined to do good and anything that was opposite that made you unravel so easily. 

What was it with hero types and their self sacrificing tendencies? Just like how Blue went out on his own to ‘get the job done’ you were just like that too. Of course you had stayed behind and of course Blue was a mess because of it.

Heroes.

“Where was this location?” Black asked, turning to look at Blue then Grillby.

“Doesn’t matter, they would have moved on by now,” Edge barked.

Grillby slouched further in on himself. “They had more trucks that passed us on the way. No doubt to move the other Sans and your friend.”

There was a moment of heavy silence as Blue nodded, still not speaking. Papyrus wrung his gloved hands carefully and glanced about the group. Everyone looked a little uncomfortable but it was Black and Edge who seemed the most pulled together.

“I need to make a call about this,” Sans said while looking at the curled up Papyrus then Grillby. “I’ll chat up a friend and see if he can board a couple of pals for a few days before we can get you set up somewhere else.”

Grillby just nodded.

Stretch squeezed Blue once more before letting his brother go in favor of climbing up into the truck and crawling over to where the lanky Papyrus lay. There was dust and dirt all over the guy to be sure, but apart from the silt he was an outstanding specimen of height. Stretch was a pretty tall guy himself, even as the shortest of the Papyrus types, but the skeleton in front of his was likely the tallest out of all of them, even Edge who wore heels on his boots.

Then there was the guy’s face. He was wearing braces that kept his teeth mostly in place, but there was still evidence of past trauma and plenty of cracks and marks of injury all over his skeleton.  The dude looked like he had been through hell. What could have warped his body to make it grow that long? What about the scars? He was in worse shape than either of the Fell sets and Mutt had some pretty impressive scars. 

“He’s going to panic once he wakes up alone,” Papyrus mused.

“No doubt,”Stretch sighed. “But we were planning a rescue attempt anyway so what’s one more?”

“A headache,” Black barked. “We wouldn’t need to be worrying about collateral damage if we had planned everything together from the beginning.”

Stretch bristled at the tone and glare Black shot Blue. But Blue was done crying and feeling sorry so he turned and glared back, face set with determination. “Someone had to do something before it was too late.”

“They didn’t have to waste a perfectly good opportunity. The element of surprise was lost and now we’re stuck with this dead weight,” Black snapped.

“That’s enough,” Papyrus pleaded with a worried expression to match his tone. “You’ll wake him a-and there’s no use crying over spilt milk.”

“We still have the other addresses. We’re going to just find her again and bring her back,” Blue snapped.

“Like how you did last time?”

“You don’t know what they could have been doing to her! Someone had to do something.”

“Enough,” Edge cut in, voice guttural as he tried to keep it low. “We’re wasting time. We should deal with this first and then confirm with Rus before making our next move. He’ll know best where they might take her and that other Sans. Blue at least was able to confirm that she was taken by these people, and that she is alive, something we didn’t know before.”

“And it doesn’t do us any good to shovel more blame around, so let’s head back,” Papyrus interjected.

Black looked ready to snap something nasty but swallowed it down and crossed his arms behind his back. “Very well. The sooner we reconvene the sooner we can set out again, but this time we follow a plan. No cowboy heroics.”

“We can do that,” Edge said before Blue could complain.

Stretch hopped down from the bed of the truck. “I’ll go back with all of you. Who’s driving these two to San’s Grillby’s?”

“Sans, obviously,” Black huffed.

“Cool, hope he knows that.”

The Skeletons began to disperse just as Sans got off the phone to hear from his brother what next steps were. Papyrus drove the rest of the skeletons back to the farmhouse and Sans drove Grillby and Papyrus over to his Grillby’s to get looked after.

By dinner time they were all back around the table eating while Red and Rus went over their findings and ran a risk and analysis report. Before the darkness could take over the night sky they had a plan and an agreement to sleep and set off in the morning, well rested and ready.

 

 

You woke while the van was still moving.

At least you thought it was a van. It looked more like the back of a SWAT car with the silver benches against the walls and the metal floors. You were on your stomach, handcuffed to a ring in the floor across from Sans who was just as restrained. At least this time you were wearing a long shirt hat came down to your lower thighs instead of just the old man’s jacket. Aside from the shirt though, you were still vulnerable and bare, a sad side effect of setting yourself on fire.

Your soul felt heavy, heavier than it had ever felt before, and your stomach rumbled painfully. You were famished like you always were after a serious magic work out. You had transcended some limits and gone all out, leaving you to wake up on an empty tank. Your mouth was aching for food and your gut pinched in need.

“Almost there, no need to get up just yet.”

You turned around enough to look back over your shoulder at Hightower who sat with one leg crossed, ankle over knee, looking bored as he read something on his phone.

“What did you do to me?” you croaked.

He replied without looking up or acknowledging you. “That’s the same question you asked me twice already. Learn a new one, won’t you dear.”

You reached back to try and kick at him but found your ankled buckled down too and chained to a secondary ring in the floor. You snarled and kicked, trashing enough to turn partially around. “What the hell are you going to do with me. Where are you taking me against my will, old man?”

“No need for insults.”

“Fucker.”

Hightower made a note of disapproval and clicked out of whatever he had been reading on his phone to look up and see you struggle. “Using you for your map magic was never my intention, but was an idea the others were allowed to pursue. My goal for you has not changed. You’re here to entice your brother.”

“You’re not that stupid. You know he wouldn’t risk it for just me. Asshat still hates me.”

“He’s come before.”

You went still.

“Liar,” you whispered.

“In and out, he’s here and then he’s gone. We assumed he was looking for a weakness in our defenses and had hoped your breakout would be enough to lure him out for good. Capturing his friend all those months back hadn’t done much.”

His friend? What?

“You should know that even if you did nab my brother, he’d never help you. He’s not someone you could control if he doesn’t like you, and it sounds like the two of you aren’t on speaking terms anymore.”

He laughed, seemingly doubting your words. You pulled against your cuffs, straining.

“What’s the real reason you need him?” you asked.

“Nothing you need to worry yourself with now that we’re here.”

The truck came to a stop and you stayed quiet as the back door swung open to allow a pair of androids in. They unhooked you from the floor but kept you handcuffed while they walked you down and out.

It was another underground bunker, no surprise, but it felt far older than the previous one you had been trapped in with Papyrus and Grillby. You were poked and prodded along while Sans was carried over the shoulder, still unconscious.

Unlike the last location there was no fancy cell with high tech walls or windows to see out of. There were old cells with cinderblock walls and plenty of broken doors left in disrepair. You were a bit surprised by the sight, knowing that Hightower had enough money to afford better facilities ten times over.

“It’s not the first place your friends will look for you,” Hightower said, speaking up like the question in your head was one he could hear.

“My friends are going to come for me. Sooner or later its just a matter of time.”

Hightower checked his phone, seemingly not minding the comment like you wished he would. “They’ll end up as dust thanks to you then.”

His careless words made you cold inside, more than even the hunger. You wanted to bite him and make him scream in pain as you pulled against the metal restraints that kept your hands together.

“You’re so hopeless here, there’s no way you can keep getting away with this,” you spat. “The Embassy doesn’t support you anymore. The public doesn’t even know about you-ugh! If you get found out, you’ll be denounced and-and jailed. It’s not worth it. You’re the criminal here, you’re the bad guy!”

Hightower looked up at the androids and gestured to the cells at end of the hall that didn’t look damaged. “Put them away, next to each other.”

Most of the cells were run down and crumbling, made of stone and iron like the old days. The two cells left open for you and Sans were right next to one another. Between them there were a number of small holes at the base of the connecting wall that you thought you might be able to pry apart even if the bars were beyond your abilities.

You were dropped roughly and left with the final clang of the door sliding shut. You cursed at their backs, knowing they had locked you up in one of their oldest facilities, from before the cold war era. It would be the last place your boys looked for you. You didn’t recognize anything about the place from any of your early days.

“paps?” 

You startled at the sound. “Sans, is that you?”

You hobbled over to the wall and started to pull the stones away from the largest hole. You didn’t hear a reply but you didn’t need to. In a few minutes the hole was a fraction large enough for your head and shoulders to get through, and the rest of you followed with only minor scratching and scraping.

Sans sat up in the center of the floor, looking dazed. The collar was back around his neck too. You could see his single working eye light was fuzzy, growing and shrinking in his socket as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. You couldn’t imagine what he must be feeling with all the sensory overload on top of getting separated from his brother.

Hesitantly, you sat down against the wall, giving him his space, and waited with your legs tucked under you.

It was still so cold.

You weren’t sure how long you sat there against the wall, waiting for Sans to notice you or for the fuzzy state of his only eye to focus. You were tired and hungry and lonely, but when you looked at him you were able to shift your focus off of your needs and deal with the pain a little bit better. That’s how it had always been. If there was someone else who needed you or someone else who was suffering, you could deal with anything just to see to their needs first.

It was a while later when Sans finally seemed to collect himself enough to sit up and turn around, looking around properly. His eye light fell on you and it was like a spotlight that pinned you in place. You felt the chill up your spine and remember how dangerous he could be. For a second there you were afraid that he had forgotten about you or didn’t see you as a ‘friendly’ anymore.

But then his eyesight shifted off of you and focused on the door.

“didn’t make it very far, did we?”

“How you holding up?” you asked instead of answering.

“paps got away?”

“Yeah, he and Grillby made it out with Blue. They’re safe as far as I know. Nobody seemed interested in tracking them down. We made too much of a mess for them I think.”

Sans chuckled darkly and reached up to scratch at the edge of his good socket, flirting with the habit of tugging at the edges with his phalanges. “good enough for me, s’long as he’s safe that all dat matters,” he slurred.

“How are you feeling right now?”

“not dust, am i?”

“Good point.”

Sans tugged on the edge of his socket and turned around to face the door. “They gonna feed us or they figured it was better off to save their resources this time around?”

You bit your lip to hold back the whimper when you thought about food. You had over exhausted yourself and the effort had left you famished. It felt like you hadn’t eaten in days.

“…They should, eventually.”

“then the next best thing is ta sleep it off…you’ll last longer that way. surprised they put you in here with me knowing what we ate when we were starvin’. you’re a whole meal and a half, pal.”

“They didn’t put us together, I crawled over,” you explained, pointing to the small hole in the wall you had widened enough to fit through.

Sans glanced over and then whistled. “stupid move on your part.”

You shrugged, too tired to be seriously worried. “Maybe they’ll show up with food sooner if they’re so worried.

He barked a short laugh that was loud and quick. For a moment he sounded so much like your Sans you forgot about the hole and the crimson eye light. You felt like you knew the guy and damn if you didn’t feel sore from missing your boys all the more.

“why yous really over ‘ere then?” he asked in a broken, gravely voice that made you think he might have been dehydrated in addition to starving.

“Why’d…oh, I just wanted to make sure you were fine. You weren’t alone before.”

“wasn’t starving then either.”

You felt the hunger and winced. ”I’ll go back if you want the privacy or alone time, but I thought it might be better… being miserable together.”

“don’t care, do whatever the hell you want.”

You pretend it doesn’t hurt how casually Sans, a Sans that isn’t your Sans, brushes you off. Sure, you hadn’t started off on the best foot with your Sans, and it had been rocky for a while, but he worked for it and he had made the better choices when it mattered. It had worked out and now you couldn’t consider him anything less than family.

Damn you missed him.

You missed everyone. You even missed Papyrus who wasn’t your Papyrus. At least he would sing with you and talk back with you. Being alone was too familiar.

You pulled your legs closer and leaned against the wall, trying to huddle. There was nothing soft to sleep on and aside form a pot in the corner and the stone debris all around, there was nothing to distinguish one old fashioned cell from the next. Once upon a time there might have been beds chained to the walls but time had worn the cells down to their bare bones.

Your stomach turned in angry hunger and you shivered. You were so cold without your magic and so hungry you wanted to cry. That’s why your eyelashes felt wet, not because you were alone, apart from the people who cared about you.

After hours of silence you ended up sagging against the wall until you were on the floor, knees pulled up tight and folded against your chest to keep you as warm as you could manage with just a thin shirt that barely reached your knees when pulled down.

You managed to doze off, but didn’t sleep deeply enough to miss the extra weight that fell onto your body. You blinked up in time to see Sans shuffle back to the front of the cell, missing his classic blue hoodie…the same blue hoodie that covered you from shoulder to ankle. When you shifted slightly Sans seemed to flinch at the sound, hunching his shoulders like he was anticipating having to react.

“Thank you.”

“…your shivering is too loud. i can hear yer bones rattling all the way over here.”

“Sorry.”

Sans’ shoulders lowered but he didn’t turn around to face you. He just scratched at his face, not quite picking at his eye or anything else sore. “shut up, just go ta sleep already.”

You snuggled back down into his hoodie, inhaling a bit of his lingering scent from the hood’s soft material that was his. He smelled like your Sans, but different…there was more blood and dust and you knew if nightmares had a scent you’d smell those too. It wasn’t the most pleasant smell to get cuddly with but you couldn’t help but find some solace in it.

You were warm again.

“Night,” you whispered before dropping your head back down onto your hand to cushion it from the floor. You were asleep before you could see him finally turn back.

 

Notes:

You might have lost your freedom (for the moment) but it looks like you gained a friend, even if he doesn't want to admit it.

The family is set with a plan and help is on the way, so until rescue, you just need to sit tight and make nice. Next chapter is all about bonding with your new cell mate.

Chapter 49: Champion 6

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

There was food in the morning for you both, thank the stars. You heard the tray being set down in your cell next door while the case with Sans’ food was slid in between the bars. When he popped the lid off there were monster veggies and a stick of some sort of monster meat that had been salted and dried.

You left his jacket behind to squeeze back into your cell and look for the tray you had heard being left earlier. You popped off the lid and frowned at what had been left for you. At the center of the tray there was a single stick of rock candy, colored cherry red to match Sans’ eye light.

The message was explicitly clear without words; this was your punishment for trying to escape. You should have stayed and put up with it.

Eat your candy and calm down.

And as vindictive and petty as you wanted to be, you were all too familiar with the emptiness of hunger to waste anything, even if it was candy.

The sugar almost made you sick, but you sucked on the rock candy sparingly, trying to make it last long enough to trick your body into thinking it was getting fed. No nutrients or vitamins would show up for a while, you were sure, but until then you would just have to endure it. You knew you could.

You bit the wood stick between your back molars and ducked your head down to fit through the hole and crawl back over to Sans’ cell, noticing with relief that he hadn’t taken his hoodie back yet. You crawled under it again and wrapped the arms around you before lying down once more.

You were sluggish and tired. His suggestion to sleep made sense if you were going to have to conserve what little energy you had left.

“Thanks for the jacket, Sans,” you mumbled, voice getting lost in the muffle of tattered blue fabric.

Sans turned back around and watched you for a long moment, not saying anything before slowly nodding. “…that your food?”

You pulled out the rock candy, or what was left of it, and waved it weakly. “I ate the rest of it.”

“don’t look like a lot for a human.”

“I finished off everything else that was on my tray. I’m fine, thanks for worrying about me.”

He flinched and scratched at his cheekbone. “i’m not worried about you,” he scoffed.

You didn’t believe him completely. Maybe if it came down to it he’d cut and run without looking back, but as long as the two of you were stuck together he wasn’t going to be the worst to you. The fact that he had shared his jacket with you had proved that much.

“Hey, can you tell me about what it was like for you before you got picked up?” you asked.

“…” Sans narrowed his one good eye socket in your direction in an expression that might have been incredulous.

“Paps only mentioned it a little bit.”

“ya mean when we got topside over here?” he asked.

“Yeah, my world,” you clarified.

Sans huffed and it sounded like a huff of resignation. You figured you were right when his eye light roved free around the room while he opened his mouth to reply.

“Wasn’t long we were free, but we… moved around a bit.” Sans’ eye light continued to rove around the room, like he was looking for the words he was going to string together next. “There was…. a ton of wildlife so we didn’t go hungry those first few week.”

“Where did you stay? It doesn’t sound like you had a lot of contact with humans.”

“Paps found some hunter’s cabin that was out of season and we... squatted there for a while. Less contact the better, look where it got us.”

You dropped your eyes when his eye light landed on you. “Sorry.”

Sans huffed loudly, scratching at the bone around his eye socket before dropping his hand. “not like it was your fault we got picked up. what ‘cha apologizing for?”

“It’s regrettable that all that terrible stuff happened. I’m sorry it had to happen at all. I wish I had found you first,” you said inhaling and smelling the blood and dust on his jacket.   

“oh yeah, what would that have been like?” Sans asked, sounding casual and not wholly invested in your answer.

“I’d introduce you to all the other guys and you’d stay with us until we could find a place for you, maybe with Red and Edge cause they’re the farthest from town on the outskirts, and close to the thickest part of the forests, or maybe my Sans and Papyrus because they have this huge house with plenty of empty rooms for you to crash at. We have cookouts every other week, and I make burgers, waterdogs, and hotdogs. There’s salad and plenty of side dishes. Everybody ends up charmed by your brother and Blue probably finds a Karaoke bar to join him at.”

You paused to yawn, feeling the stiffness in your jaws force you to stop. The Rock candy was almost all gone, but you sucked on the wood, desperate to taste something that could help take the edge off your hunger. You don’t doubt when the sugar is all gone you’d chew the stick down to splinters too.

“Sounds like a dream. Everybody gets along that great?”

“Like family.”

Sans scoffs and rolls his own good eye light. “What a load.”

“Families fight tons and tons. Sometimes they break up and come back together after periods apart. Families curse and scream. Families heal and then they make mistakes all over again. It’s not perfect, but it’s family.”

Sans doesn’t say anything more and you’re quiet as the last of you rock candy dissolves in your mouth, staining your lips read. Sans doesn’t say anything else for a while, but he turns around to face out, watching the hallway beyond his cell’s bars.

In the silence you end up dozing again. You only wake up when the android returns with a lunch tray but you don’t get up out of San’s jacket to check your cell. You listened but there had been no sound of metal on stone or of even plastic being set inside.

At least Sans doesn’t notice it.

By the time diner rolls around you’re hungry enough to feel your body breaking down its stored fat for emergency energy…or at least that’s what you imagine it is. Your gut feels like its eating itself and you want to vomit.

While Sans eats his dinner you get up to check and see the empty cell for what it is.

Empty.

Crawling back into San’s cell would only cost more energy, and you had borrowed his jacket long enough. You knelt in front of the door and closed your eyes, hoping to meditate yourself into a calmer, less attached, state, (never mind that you had always been shit at meditation).

Funny, this was something they had taught you how to do. You had a mind palace filled with room after room. You visualized walking into the palace, of climbing those stairs and entering in through the arched doors. You found a door and opened it to a memory.

Blue taking you for a ride on his motorcycle-

Red showing you the old muscle car he had salvaged from a junkyard with plans to refurbish-

Edge and you shopping for trashy romance novels together in the city in between actual errands-

Papyrus trying to bake things that would compliment his dinners, like cakes and pies-

Rus finding out where you were ticklish-

Black refusing to meet your eyes as something you said made him flush-

Peter crying for you to blow on his bandaid to heal it faster-

The kids screaming in fear as you took them to a carwash and pretended to loose control of the car-

Sans, Stretch, and Red all trying to teach you how they played Poker in their universe underground-

Papyrus taking selfies with you and then editing them later with cute filters before printing them out for you to have. He had a whole cork-board in his bedroom with photos-

You weren’t sure how long you stated in that state, (at least the whole night), but you were caught up in a memory when the android stopped outside your door. It was enough to break your concentration and look up. It had a plastic tray in his hand and a second one under his arm, empty and pinned to his side by his elbow. The android pulled free the empty try and slid it into your cell then moved to give Sans his food.

You tried to go back into your memories and spend time in your mind, but your concentration was off and your stomach was complaining again, rolling and rumbling loud enough to hear.

You weren’t hungry, you weren’t…

You were with Stretch at a used video store, flipping through a bin of DVDs. When you glanced up Stretch already had his arms filled with two dozen each. The look of panic on his skull made you laugh out loud before helping him but back the ones you knew you could find online with the video streaming service you shared with Black.

You ended up discovering Stretch’s love for slasher and horror movies- especially the cheesy ones and the ones that made you laugh or squirm. Maybe it was the same as with puns for him-he enjoyed the reaction more than the actual joke or the movie.

When you saw him again you’d ask.


You resolved to get used to the cold because it was better to feel that than hunger. You fell asleep with your forehead against the bars and woke up with an indent there. You waited, half awake, for the android to come back around even though you knew you wouldn’t be fed for another day at least.

They’d starve you a whole week if they were feeling especially sadistic.

It was such an easy way to break you.

When the android passed you over you reached through the bars to stop it and called out. “Hey, what about clothes and a showe-shhh!”

You hissed and staggered back, feeling the tingle throughout your body from the shock. The android continued on with its duties, ignoring you the rest of the way down the hall while you rolled around on the floor, cradling your numb arm. Yeah, that had been stupid. 

“…kid?” a hesitant Sans voice called out to you, “still alive in there?”

You moaned once more to yourself before sitting up and scooting closer to the shared wall. “Just peachy.”

You heard Sans chuckle. “that’s what they’re feeding us. makes sense to feel that way. what were you asking for?”

“I’m still pretty naked under this one measly shirt. I was hoping they’d be decent enough to give me some underwear at least, but I stink. I need to shower and there’s no place to do that in here.”

“ya don’t stink.”

“I smell to me.”

“…it ain’t something terrible,” Sans said, sounding confused. Then there was shuffling and you saw something blue poke through the hole in the wall. “don’t you still need this?”

You stared at the offering, feeling thin and lightheaded, but you saw clearly enough to know what he was offering. You scooted closer and pushed his blue hoodie back into his hand before kneeling down at the base of the hole.

“Can I come over?” you asked instead.

Sans grunted and moved, giving you enough space to wiggle through once more. Once you were through he offered you the jacket again and you bashfully accepted the offering, if only to have something to hold.

“Thanks.”

“…don’t mention it.”

You watched as Sans teetered back over to his favorite spot to sit and watch the hall just beyond the bars of his cell. Unlike last time he didn’t turn his whole body around to face out, but instead pointed it mostly in that direction while angling more towards you, like he wanted to keep tabs on both sights at once.

“What do you do to pass the time here?” you asked softly.

“…think…watch things.”

“What do you watch for?”

He shrugged and paused for far longer than anyone else would before answering. It seemed like he took more time to process some things and you noticed he didn’t joke or pun around as much as Sans or Red. You wondered if he missed being able to do it or if his brain just didn’t work like that anymore. A head injury as traumatic as that was sure to change someone.

“anything…an opportunity maybe,” he finally said.

You snickered and he twitched, turning more your way. “What’s an opportunity even look like?”

He chuckled before answering. “Sometimes it’s a tiny lady on fire.”

You almost made a comment about being less of an opportunity and more of a mess or even a mistake, but instead of saying anything meaningful you squeaked out, “I’m not tiny!”

San’s single engorged eyesight wobbled in his socket as the sharp toothed grin stretched high on his skull. He looked manic when he smiled sometimes but you didn’t flinch or look away. You had, had this conversation before, but with Stretch and Papyrus who were admittedly heads and shoulders above even the tallest human you knew. The Sans who sat across from you in the cell was the largest version of all the Sans you had encountered, as whatever he had been through had mutated his skeleton so that he was wider, thicker, and taller. He was indeed taller than you by a good head and shoulders or so, but that didn’t make you small!

soooo tiny,” he chuckled.

“Hey,” you started to crawl out from his hoodie and stood up. “Look, I’m not. I’m normal sized.”

Sans didn’t say anything, but he continued to grin as he ambled up to his feet and approached you. He stopped just in front of you and you had to tilt your head back to look him in the eye.

“…you’re standing on your toes.”

“They’re my toes, they’re a part of me, they count.”

Sans touched your shoulder and pushed you down onto your heels, laughing when you made a sound of disappointment. “see? tiny.”

You opened your mouth again to argue but caught yourself when you saw his eye shrink in his socket, going sharp around the edges.

“Sans?”

His hand went from your shoulder to your neck, holding it so that his phalanges wrapped all the way around. He brushed up and down a bit, feeling your skin, but didn’t tighten his grip.

“no collar,” he finally breathed. “does that-can you use your magic, pal?”

“I have a name, but no, I can’t use my magic. I can’t even feel it right now.”

“How’d they do something like that?”

“no one told me when I asked,” you laughed. “Trust me, I wish I knew.”

Sans bent his head until his was almost touching yours, making dark shadows spread between you as he blocked out the lights from behind him. His hand was still on your neck.

“i…can’t see your soul no more.”

You felt light headed all over again. “What? Where did it go? I’m still here so it-it’s not like they removed it. I’d be-”

Sans didn’t ask for permission, and you weren’t sure how he was even able to with his collar still on, but with his hand on your neck the room went black and white and the telling details of an encounter came into focus.

You felt like choking all of a sudden as something heavy moved inside of you. It ripped and you gasped as a mass, stabbing and painful, pulled free. You couldn’t see it, but you felt something move out of you, and in the environment of an encounter, there was something for Sans to see at least. He reached for it and you felt his contact, but you also felt the jarring pain as your soul was handled. You whimpered and cried a bit, breathing heavy as the pain made you dizzy.

For a moment you’re unable to breath, the pain is so blinding. You calmed down enough to feel your hands again and reached out to slap lightly at San’s chest. Your arms barely have any weight to them and you doubt he even feels you

“Stars no, oh, put it ba-back-put it backputitback,” you choked, rushing the words.

Sans cursed, sounding honestly frightened as he pushed your soul back into your chest, and it felt almost worst going back to its place, but once it settles in with an almost ‘click’ you’re free from the pain and left boneless. Sans catches you when you fall apart in front of him though.

You think if you had anything in your stomach you might have thrown up just then.

Sans holds you close to him as he lowers you down to the ground, sitting cross legged with you in the nest of his lap, folded up and trembling. You feel like you took damage.

It’s a hot minute later when you are aware enough to hear Sans’ voice in your ear. He sounded like he was…shushing you?

You inhale and it’s a shaky sort of inhale that matches the tears on your face. You realized you had been crying and audible about it if Sans had to shush you. You’re still light headed, but you think you could make sense of the world around you at least.

“What…what was that? Why did it hurt so bad?”

One of Sans’ hands is in your hair and you think he’s pulling at it, but instead he’s brushing it back, again and again like the way someone would pet their cat or dog. It’s not unpleasant so you lean into it and close your eyes.

“that…don’t know what ta call it, but it looked like a huge spike or pin rammed straight through your soul, trying to keep it in place.”

“No magic,” you sighed.

You didn’t recognize what Sans described, but you could picture it well enough based on how it felt inside you. Your soul was pierced and your magic was unreachable for as long as the spike stayed lodged there.

“i hurt you.”

“It’s fine.”

You felt him fold you closer to his chest and braced with one hand against the thin shirt that covered his ribcage. “no, i didn’t mean to do nothing more then pull it out, but that hurt ‘ya, did some damage. you got some shit stats, even if i couldn’t see your magic.”

You think you might be put together enough to make a joke at his expense, so you poked at one of his ribs through a hole in the shirt. “And yours are so much better?”

He chuckled again. “Not by much.”

Your hand fell limp at the wrist and you let it fall back to you as your head lolled down. There was no more strength left in you and you felt like for the first time you actually wanted to go to sleep. It was too much to try and stay awake.

“I don’t feel good,” you whispered into his side.

Sans ambled up to his feet for only a few steps before sitting back down and folding up his legs under you again to make a nest of his lap where he can burry you. With his back against the wall he flaps his hoodie out once before tucking it in around you. You feel his hand on your face before it folded your wrist up under the hood of blue material.

You might have mumbled something but it wasn’t anything decipherable or important. Nothing was more important than the heavy comfort of his phalanges running through your hair and petting it back.

 


 

There was another android that came by for dinner but just like all the other times, Sans listened and heard nothing dropped off in your cell; Just like all the other times.

He knew humans needed to eat and maybe it was more or maybe it was less than monsters, but they needed to eat. How many days had it been since he saw you with the one rock looking treat?

Two, almost three days now...he thinks

What about water?

You were asleep and that was good. He ate then saved half of his water for when you woke, whenever that would be. He tried tipping some into your mouth and you drank it, but when it looked like that would wake you up he pulled back and saved the little bit left for whenever it was you woke up.

It didn’t take much to maneuver around you still in his lap. He hadn’t been joking when he said you were tiny. All folded up and pulled together you were something he could pick up with two hands or hold with one arm. Yeah, you had a bit of height, but…

You shifted in you sleep and Sans went stone still until you had settled again. Your breathing was hot over the edge of his jacket and he could hear when it came easy or rough. For how warm your breath was, the squish of your skin wasn’t much warmer than the stones at his back. Yeah he was a skeleton and he didn’t have the best appreciation for temperature, but he could still feel things. The floor was hard, the stones were cold, you were soft.

Sans’ single eye strayed off your form to the door, staring through the bars at what little he could see of the outside hallway. Sometimes there was someone at the end of the hall, waiting, watching, but never drawing closer. He wasn’t sure if it was that stuffy guy with the phone that put the both of you here, or someone else, but he knew there was someone there.

Funny, they never came any closer.

A lot of his situation was funny.

He still felt half awake, lost in thoughts that looped and dropped off no thanks to the hole in his head. Such an injury would be shit for any monster, but even more so for someone who had lived as many lives as him. What timeline was this? When was he? Was this the one where Papyrus dies from a child’s carelessness? Is Paps okay? Is the Core failing again? Who’s wearing a crown now?

Blip

He un-spirals and recognizes his surroundings but it takes another minute to name them.

Paps?

Papyrus….

Oh, yeah. Papyrus was with those others, he had made it out. He was safe. Sans made sure this time. Never mind that he got left behind-as long as Papyrus was safe it was all worth it. Never mind that now it was…Sans was just…

Without Paps there it was so much harder to bother pulling himself together. Who did he have to stay sane for? Who does he have to stay upright for?

“SANS, WHAT IS THAT THING THERE?”

“that’s called the sun, paps.”

“AND THOSE FLUFFY THINGS GLOWING AROUND IT, WHAT ARE THOSE?”

“clouds, but they ai’t glowing, it’s just the light from the sun that makes em look like that.”

“WOWWIE, I’VE NEVER SEEN SOMETHING SO STARTLING. IT’S…THIS IS THE SURFACE AFTER ALL, ISN’T IT? WE MADE IT?”

“guess so.”

“THEN WHERE ARE THE OTHERS? WHERE IS THE CIVILIZATION WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE AVOIDING? WHERE ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GO NOW? I’M NOT SURE I’M PROPERLY DRESSES TO BE INTRODUCED TO ANYONE LIKE THIS!”

“ay, no need to get gloomy on me, bro. hey, you know what kind of shorts clouds wear?”

“CLOUDS DO NOT HAVE LEGS OR A NEED FOR UNDERWEAR SANS!”

“…thunderwear.”

The memory, like most tings, is broken. Sans slips off the thought and flounders for a moment more, scrambling in his own head to try and make sense of anything. Without light or watch or another person to care, he’s not sure how long it took him to come back to his senses.

Paps!

He was getting worse without Papyrus.

The only reason 3HP Sans even made it out of the underground in as many pieces as he had was because he had a reason to.  As long as Paps was there he would keep going. He COULD keep going.

Otherwise he’d just sit around and wait to get dusted or for the world to reset once more.

Oh wow, reset…that’s a word he hadn’t used in a long time. What was it Alpheys said about the timeline before she dusted? Theirs was an abandoned timeline, something about it becoming corrupted and inaccessible by others?

Was that…supposed to make sense?

And then like electricity with a conductive material, the thoughts flowed fast and free in San’s mind, suddenly making sense. He remembered understanding it, he remembered working on the equations, about the experiments on the core that kept making things worse. About the accident Undyne would never forgive him for…

Paps!

Where was?

Oh.

He was…safe…that was….good…

What...had he been thinking about before Paps? Something about...the...equations...? What were those supposed to-

Paps-no, he's still safe. Paps is fine...

The android was back leaving a tray for breakfast at the front of the cell and Sans’ eye went wide at the sight. Had he been out so long? How?

Oh, another episode. Fine, not like he had anything better to do. You were still asleep and-

Sans tried to turn you over a little and you made a sound that…wait…

He picked you you and cradled you closer to his chest, tilting your body so your face was next to his. He listened and could hear your labored breathing, wet and heavy. That sounded an awful lot like the last human who-he-Papyrus tried to keep-the one who-

Sans’ arms shook but when that made you protest in your sleep he forced his arms still with a strength he didn’t know he had. He took his brand new cup of water and touched it to your lips, tilting it up. You had enough sense to open and swallow, but only barely.

“ya need to finish it, kid, come on.”

Numbly, you did as instructed but it took a while to finish something so simple.

Humans weren’t supposed to be so cold and clammy. He had seen this before. Human fever. They hadn’t fed you or given you enough to wear. You were sick and there was no one coming to help them. The last time you asked you got knocked on your ass for it.

Where were those friends of yours now? It had been days. Weren’t they trying to get you back?

Sans stood and abled with you in his arms, folding you close and nervously pacing. He needed to move, he needed to be moving and then he’d be able to think better. You were in his arms so he couldn’t hurt himself to help regain focus. He needed to do this himself. Someone needed him now.

You needed him!

Water, that’s what he started with. You were wrapped up warm and sleeping, that was good. He didn’t have any medicine but he had some food.

He knew what it was like to starve but he was good, he had been eating regularly for weeks now. It…it wasn’t something he wanted to do, but he knelt down next to his morning food and spooned up something soft and easy to chew.

“come on peaches, eat the peaches.”

He hummed, remembering another time long, long ago, that might not have even happened, when he did this with a far smaller, weaker human. He hadn’t thought twice about it then. He wasn’t thinking twice now.

You ate, slowly, arduously, small spoonful by small spoonful until his peaches were all gone. He saved some of the heartier stuff for himself and ate to keep himself going, but he hesitated after every bite, watching to make sure you weren’t awake to ask for some.

What was it Paps said to do when this happened? Back before the accidents Paps had been the one who could heal and knew a thing or two about monster recovery. After the human, Ax had learned for himself how to care for them too.

What else did he need to do?

He felt you stir and settled, watching you move. One good eye opened and peaked up over the edge of the hoodie, glassy and half lidded. He had noticed you only had one eye like him back when you were on fire. The empty socket trailing flames and magic had looked a whole lot nicer than his empty one but he didn’t doubt the scar you were sporting hurt just as well as his.

“you awake, peaches?”

“You fed me,” you coughed. It sounded dry and deep when you coughed and he worried that meant something was wrong with your lungs. He wasn’t sure how they worked, but lungs were important. Humans needed those.

“you still got a fever. what i gotta do now?” he asked.

Your eye shut and opened, then shut once more and he thought you had gone back to sleep, but you just stretched and wiggled one hand free from the hoodie. You pat at your face and brushed up the hair that had fallen in front of your face.

“I’ll be fine. This is just…I just need to rest and sleep it off. It’s not an infection, I’m just cold and tired and hungry and….” You paused to yawn. “I’m…not used to being this cold without my magic.”

“you light up on the regular?”

You laugh at the terrible joke and grab for his shirt with your free hand while you bend into the laughter and it makes him feel so much lighter. You’re going to be okay if you can laugh like that.

“Hey-hey, wait a-wait…don’t mind me I’m just gonna-gonna hiburnate in here if ya don’t mind.”

Sans can feel his eyesight wobble and his smile stretches up under his eye sockets, easy and genuine. “its only for your burnefit, don’t want you to suffire any more than necessary.”

“Oh-oh there it is, the puns, gosh, I needed to hear that,” you laughed, sounding terrible but happy if that was even possible.

“i flame to please,” he chuckled.

“I’m sure you do, big guy. Ohh, have you been… have I been out long?”

“the night. breakfast came, you kept down those peaces.” When he saw your look of surprise he scrambled for something else to say. “It-it wasn’t a lot, I didn’t want to give you too match when you were all sick like.”

Human eyes don’t do what monster eye lights can do, so he doesn’t expect your eye to shift into some new shape, but he almost thought it would by the way you stared up at him. 

Cute.

“Why would you share you food with me? You were starving.”

“was, not no more, ‘sides, me an’ paps know the feeling.” Looking at you while you stared up at him with that expression was a bit too much, so he tried to focus on all the other details of the room, map out his environment and look at everything except your face, so open and soft and small. “H-heh, it was, lit-erally, no pyro-blem.”

“Sans.”

He didn’t flinch from the sound of his name and your voice, but something in his soul throbbed for it.

It-the sound of you felt like-it made him remember how your soul felt, minus the horrendous mutilation. The part that was you, wholly and truly you, weak and warm and fragile as it was. He knew you could be dangerous and you could hold your own, but there was no way you could gain any LoVe from it and he had never seen anything like it before.

A defect, maybe?

“Hey,” you called again to get his attention. “Thank you. I-you didn’t need to do that and I don’t know why you did that, but thank you. I really owe you one.”

Your attention and your words made his skull heat.

“…you helped paps, don’t owe me nothing.”

“Still, thank you. I won’t forget your kindness.”

Why was it so hard for him to look at you all of a sudden? “…just don’t…mention it.”

“Only when you tell me not to,” you laughed, still sounding sick and terrible but…happy.

Sans looked up to the hall, past the bars as a means of distracting himself. If he didn’t have to look at your face he wouldn’t have to feel anything weird. You started to turn in his arms and snuggle back down for another nap you needed to help get better, but the same second he noticed it you went tense in his arms, reaching for the front of his shirt and grabbing harshly.

Sans bent over you right before the floor could rumble and the walls could shake. You tried to get out of his hold but he kept you folded close to his chest and growled out a warning just before one of the supporting walls could crumble as another shockwave ripped through the floor.

There was a new weakness in the wall he could take advantage of and as weak and magic less as he was, Sans was still a strong monster, far stronger than he had been years and years ago when the Core still worked and people didn’t fear the usurper queen.

“sounds like your friends found this place, peaches,” he laughed, kicking at the weakness in the wall while holding you close. You were small in his arms and shivering. “peaches?”

“No,” you croaked, single eye blown wide. “That’s not them.”

Another shock way rippled through the air and Sans flinched at the feel of it. Even with his magic contained to his body he could still recognize what he felt.

That was…a lot of void magic.

 

 

Notes:

Prediction time: who you think it is there at the end.

Also, how'd I do with HorrorSans?

Chapter 50: Champion 7

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You pressed your hand to Sans’ chest and wiggled, hoping to get down, but he didn’t seem ready to release you. Something about you not having any shoes. (You also didn’t have any underwear but that was beside the point as long as Sans kept you folded up in his hoodie.)

“that your brother, peaches?”

You tried to think back to what Raven could do when he tried but your thoughts slipped back to the other two skeleton characters calling themselves Dee and Win. “I-I don’t know, it feels like him but it-it could be someone else.”

“…friendly?”

You shook your head. “Friendlier than what we’ve got here, but don’t count on them to bend over backwards to give us any special help. I don’t know why they’re here but I don’t think its for me.”

“your own brother?” Sans echoed, sounding baffled.

It made sense why he would react like that. His brother was everything to him, and you knew Papyrus felt just as strongly. The two of them had a strong bond that hadn’t weakened in the face of adversity but only grew.

“We used to be much closer. I still love him, but we’re cats and dogs when we together these days. He’s…I don’t know who he even is anymore. I thought I did but maybe he’s…maybe I need to be honest with him again and try harder to understand whatever he’s going through.” You wiggled again in Sans’ arms. “Are you going to let me down eventually?”

“nah, your toe beans are going to get hurt that way.”

“So you’re just going to carry me everywhere?” 

“you weigh less than one corn chisp,” he chuckled.

“I do not!”

“heh, no need to get so salty about it.”

You gave up arguing with him over it, secretly enjoying the ride too much to protest anymore. Instead you turned in and looped your arms around his neck and he made a pleased sort of sound when he shifted you to just one arm. He was really much bigger than you first assumed. He must have always been slouching around you or something.

Together you rounded the hall, found it empty, and continued on. There was a split and he looked to you for direction but you were just as clueless. When you shrugged he turned right, turning into his blindspot and heading on in that direction.

There were stairs and a few doors, all locked, but at the base of the stairs was what looked like a boiler room. There were meshwork platforms over pipes and a walkway just barely big enough for him to carry you through.

Along the way he paused to pick up a stray pipe that looked like it was rusted at one end. When he hit it against the side of the railing a part chipped off leaving it looking more like a weapon.  It seemed to satisfy him since he chuckled at the sight of it and twirled it once before continuing on.

Once more you felt the room around you rock with a shockwave of magic and you flinched from it, feeling something in your brain stir uncomfortably. It was a lot like what it felt to look at something written in hands. That was the sort of language only appropriate for the void, anywhere else and it just didn’t fit.

You were not looking forward to running into Win if he really was on site. He was still a jerk and you were sorta powerless this time around.

Sans jumped down from the platform once you were across and then looked to you when there were four different directions the room split off into. It didn’t look as if anyone was more favorable than the others and you hesitated to give him a suggestion.

When the next shockwave ripped through you though you had a feeling where it came from. 

“…and we wanna head towards it?”

You made a frustrated face and hoped he understood what that meant. You didn’t have a better idea, but maybe something would come up if you headed towards the disturbance. He laughed at your face and shifted you closer to his chest again before heading down that way.

You traveled for about four minutes before you got to the end of the tunnel, only to find it led to nowhere but a broken and crumbling bridge that had fallen apart ages ago. What was left of it was more rusted than Sans’ pipe.

But below the remains of the bridge there was a nice big, circular recess where tables and cabinets had been set up at one point. Most of them were overturned now. You didn’t see Win, but you were sure the one picking his way through the mess was the other one, Dee. He picked his way over and you could see on the floor, a number of android bodies and an unconscious looking Tank-Thrive’s brother, the one labeled 5H. Dee turned back and said something to someone out of sight before moving the rest of the way across the room.

At the back there was a canister, tall enough for even Papyrus to fit inside. You recognized the window on the front, fogged and crystalized, and knew what it was meant for.

“Suspended animation?” you whispered aloud.

“what would they need that for?” Sans asked.

“Something they didn’t want to lock up. If Tank was down here watching it too…it might be something or someone that can use time magic, but the only human who can do that is my brother and the human ambassador to monsters, though Frisk can’t…use it outside of the underground we heard.”

“…if you fall through the hole above Mt. Ebott you’re going to pass through the void along the way,” Sans softly explained, “but this don’t feel like that.”

You went still as you saw your brother walk across the rest of the room, looking well dressed if not a bit faded. His hair lost its color and his skin was lacking in luster. In spite of the bad blood between you, your heart throbbed in hurt for what he had to be going through to look that bad.

Dee waited beside the animation chamber and Raven approached it next. Together they began to undo the latches and pull off the locks. Neither seemed interested in decompression the long and proper way. Whoever came out would have a longer road to recovery.

I couldn’t  f i n d  them!     

You flinched at the sound and Sans pulled you back, away from the edge as a new figure ran into the room. You recognized Win’s voice before you saw him. He was louder than your brother or Dee by far.

The three conversed and you couldn’t distinguish any of it even if you could pick up a word or two. From the looks Sans was making, he couldn’t hear much more either. Dee said something that made Raven look away but it was Win who vocalized his disagreement.

T h a t  isn’t what  w e  planned  o n!”

Something more was said about ‘more opportunities’ you couldn’t make out, and then there was more cursing you could understand even if it was faded and far off. You wondered if they were talking about you, since Hightower seemed to believe Raven would come to get you if you were in danger.  Jokes on him. Raven seemed a lot more interested in whatever was in the canister.

Just one more mystery to frustrate over. 

Finally the last of the locks were thrown off and all the excess vapor rolled free, obscuring your vision for only a minute before you can see the black clad body of another…skeleton?

Sans’ hold around you went tight and he pulled back, away from the edge, suddenly unnerved by whatever he recognized. You could feel his shock rattle all throughout his body. You were still too far away to see clearly through the obscuring vapor, but the white face was closed in sleep and far smoother and human looking than the rest of the boys. He seemed to be more like Dee and Win…but older?

His arms were crossed over his chest and in the center of each palm there was a hole you could see through. On his face were scars, stretching upwards out of one eye and the other stretched from the top of his mouth into the bottom his other socket.

“You know who that is?” you asked.

“…not…not like that, just who he’s supposed to be but…not like that,” he breathed. Then he looked at you and something hard came into his expression, shrinking his remaining eye. “we had better get topside. those people won’t help you.”

You wished the truth was something else, but you knew better. On your worst nights your empty socket still throbbed with phantom pains. You nodded and pulled yourself closer so Sans could amble up and retrace his steps. Behind him you could hear more voices, more shouting and then a shuddering as the whole facility rocked once more. It made you gasp when it passed through you and even Sans staggered from the force.

“We need to go,” you whispered into the side of his skull, feeling cold all over and suddenly very afraid without your power. You hadn’t been so weak in a long time. It was like losing your eye all over again, being blind and powerless.

At least you weren’t alone.

“got it, peaches,” Sans grunted as he hustled up the stairs and back the way you came.

You got back to the hallway where you had split first and took the way you hadn’t, finding a series of halls and eventually a set of stairs. Sans hesitated before taking you up that way. Soon he noticed the mess of metal bodies left out to twitch with the last electrical current of life left in them on the floor.

“Someone came this way,” you mused.

Sans moved so his pipe was in front of his before he climbed the stairs up to the next level, hearing the far off noises same as you. Up on the landing there was the half shredded metal body of an android without its face crawling across the floor with half its parts missing. Sans stabbed his pipe into its face hole and chuckled when the twitching stopped.

You slapped lightly on his chest and wiggle to get down when he tried to move away and he grunted. “He has a key on him, Sans stop!”

“we’re already out of our cell.”

“Not to the cell, your collar. Look, just let me down and I can take your collar off.”   

Sans grunted but gave in, lowering you down so that you could scramble over the debris to the android’s chest cavity where a number of universal key ends were bunched together. One fit the small outlet on Sans’ collar and in short work, the yellow band fell open on a hinge that made it easy for you to pull free.

“damn, that feels a hell of a lot better,” he sighed, feeling the rush of magic flow free once more.

“Things are looking up.”

His smile stretched wider. “So fire so good.”

You reached your arms up over your head and he laughed when you made your fingers curl in a motion for ‘pick me up.’ He didn’t hesitate, but scooped you up with his hoodie and made sure you were comfortable before handing the pipe over to you to hold while he pulled his ice enhanced axe out of his stored items.

“Better?” you asked.

match better.”

You snorted. “One day you’ll run out of fire related puns.”

“as fire as i knows it doesn’t look like i’ll run out anytime soon. pretty cremative of me, don’t ch think?”

“Just…lets keep going. If we can get out of here we’ll be able to meet up with Papyrus and the others before dinner time. I’ll cook for you.” You glanced down to your arms, to the tattoos that covered up your scars that acted like magical vents for your fire magic. “Or I’ll make sandwiches or something, maybe no cooking.”

“i’ll hold you to it, peaches,” Sans laughed, squeezing you closer to his side as he turned down the hall and continued on.

There was a trail of destruction, metal bodies littered across the floor and walls, and there was a hallway clear of chaos. You pointed out that whatever was cleaning up your enemies was better than more reinforcements, even if it did end up being Raven and his friends. Sans didn’t like the idea of running into that group, but since that last shockwave, there hadn’t been any vibe or feeling of void magic being used in the facility. If you had your map you could check but you were blind without your magic, thus relying on gut feelings and bad guesses.

You ended up following the trail of destruction on a prayer that at the end of it you’d find someone you knew. Someone who’d take you home.

You heard footsteps growing louder, coming your way and you scrambled to get down. Sans let you out of his hold but pushed you behind him as he readied his axe. In the dimly lit hallway with lights only from the emergency bulbs lining one side of the walls up high, his red eye grew wide and manic in anticipation.

Skidding into the hallway from a side exit Esperanza halted with a sharp scream. She choked on the sound and stumbled backwards, looking harried.

You,” she gasped.

“Me,” you mocked, still feeling sick and light.

Esperanza was the one who controlled the androids who brought you your food…or didn’t. She knew what it was like to starve, to be pushed to her breaking point for the sake of her superior’s curiosity. She knew better and she still let you starve.

The other girl looked from Sans, manic with one red eye light glowing in the dim hallway, and then you, behind him with a grin just as manic. You might not have had your magic but you had a pipe and an alley and that was just as good. Esperanza had scraps.

“You don’t…you can’t hurt me right now.”

“It’s cute how you think that just because I don’t have my magic I’m not dangerous,” you sneered, scratching the end of your rusted pipe across the floor. In the dim light you hoped you looked just as frightening as Sans. “Only one of us has friends right now.”

Esperanza choked on her own breathing, fear making her messy. You could tell even across the distance between her and you, her eyes were dilated with fear.

Good.

“Stay away from me-just-just stay away!” Esperanza turned and ran, nearly tripping over the debris and almost running into a wall before she was too far away.

Sans bent, raising his ax like he meant to throw it. “should I?”

“Not worth it.”

“i don’t know, she had some meat on her.”

You snorted at the dark joke, too angry at her to feel bad. Sure, you had never been close, not like you had been with Thrive, but there still was no appetite for murder in you-hungry as you were.

“I’d rather hurry up and get out of here while there’s nothing but a mess in our way. I’d much rather see the sun. Let’s get back to Paps.” You saw her look at you before Esperanza started to back away. “She’s not worth it.”

Sans made a thoughtful sound before dropping the head of his ax to the floor and reaching for you again. “there’s still shit on the floor,” he said by way of explanation. 

You looped your arms around his neck and carried your pipe behind his back. He stepped over the junk easily, kicking some of it out of his way when it was right in front of his path.

The hallway was dark, lit only by emergency lights, but you recognized the red cross painted on one of the doors as you passed by. You pointed it out and asked Sans if he could take you there to see if there was any extra clothing you could look for or use.

He hesitated outside the door.

“…is there something inside that might fix…that?” he asked, pointing to you chest where your soul hid, still pierced through and near useless.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything like it before so I….I wouldn’t know the first thing about fixing it.” An unpleasant thought made your gut churn. “I don’t even know if its something that can be fixed.”

“it can be fixed.” Sans didn’t sound like he believed anything else.

He pushed open the door and carried you in, setting you down on a bed before pulling open the drawers and closets. There was a long lap jacket he held up to you, but you just pulled his hoodie closer, unwilling to trade it out. He just laughed at that.

There was a drawer with crackers and unopened water bottles he pulled free and handed off to you. Together you devoured the stale crackers and you drank deep for the first time in days. The meager water cups they left for Sans hadn’t been as filling as you wished it had. You hadn’t even had enough water in you to pee in days, so you were well past just dehydrated.

“fever reducer?” Sans asked, holding up a few packets he didn’t know the meaning for.

You hesitated, knowing some would make you drowsy. You didn’t want to be anything but wide awake for whatever happened next. Friend or foe you wanted to meet it head on with a clear mind. Laving Sans to deal with it alone, or worse, with your dead weight, made your hands heavy.

“I…I’m not sure I should take any of these right now. But this box is…yeah, this one looks safe and it’s not expired. Lets just take it with us for now. I’ll use it once we’re not on the run.”

You answer made Sans frown. “you’re sick now.” As if he needs the proof he pressed his hand up against your forehead and felt your fever.

You felt like you were moving through ocean water but fear and adrenaline were keeping you upright. You’d be fine until you were safe. You had to be.

“I’ll take it once we’re both safe.”

Sans touched at his bare neck and growled low. “i can keep us both safe now.”

“I don’t want you to have to.” You pushed the box of medicine back into his hand. “Keep this safe for me, please. We’re going to get out of here together this time.” 

“…fine.” Sans looked away when he took the box to stuff into his shorts’ pockets.

After a little more searching there were no shoes, socks, or clean clothing for you to take so Sans scooped you back up and held you close. There was one more hallway littered with trashed androids before the stairs that led topside came into view.

You could smell the change in the air, clean oxygen and sunlight filtered through the bent in hatch to the underground. Outside there was a swollen yellow sun caught behind the clouds, turning the sky a dozen different shades of pink, gold, orange, and tangerine. It made you catch your breath in awe.

“hell of a sunset, peaches,” Sans rumbled, sounding far off even though he was right next to you, still holding you in one arm.

But your eyes stuck to the familiar outline of a SUV that had the same numbers on its license plate. Something you recognized with a painful throb of longing.

“They’re here,” you breathed, hugging Sans around his neck before pointing to the car. “That’s them, look, they’re here.”

Sans looked at you, searching your face for something before turning towards the empty SUV and abled over, axe held ready. It was empty but not locked. Sans didn’t let you down just yet to explore inside but held you close enough to open the doors and see inside. It was Black’s SUV, but there was no one inside and no sign of who had come.

“They’re here,” you breathed, feeling a soft sort of pain in your heart. Soon, so soon, you’d be back with them. They hadn’t left you behind. They had come for you. You were nearly home. “Somewhere, they’re here.”

But Sans went tense and turned sharply with you still in his hold. Behind him there was already a figure standing up and holding her side. Thrive watched the pair of you with a number of curling vines around her arm and shoulder, looking dirty and worn out.

“you….” Sans squinted, remembering his enemies well enough.

Thrive opened her mouth, looking from you to Sans, paying extra close attention to his hold on you, protective and tight.

“You didn’t eat her?”

sick joke, they should have axed you to be the comedian.” Sans held up his ax and spun it one in his hand to help emphasize his point.

“You would have, given enough time. If you were starving again, if you were pushed to it, you’d just be another monster,” Thrive bit.

“Isn’t that what’d you do too?” Thrive flinched at your words, eyes wide and wounded. “When they starved you don’t you remember wanting to survive more than anything? It was a slow sort of death and it hurt all the way through. Any living thing would do what it could to stay alive.”

“You’re making a mistake,” Thrive whispered loud enough to still be a heard.

“It’s the choice I’m making. What’s yours?”

Sans stayed ready, tense and sensitive, but didn’t move. Thrive took a single step back, watched Sans to see if he would spring, and then took another half step back. Behind her there was a solitary building with its doors left wide open. One had huge gashes through it and on the ground around it there were scattered leaves and flowers from out of season trees.

“You have thirty minutes to get out of here. If Hightower finds you-”

“He won’t,” you cut in, determined.   

Thrive dropped her gaze. “He won’t want to. Raven never came for you, did he? He…didn’t come for me either.”

There was distance between you, but Thrive felt close. Your heart hurt for her, knowing too well the history she once had with your brother. One day you were supposed to call her sister. Whatever Raven had gotten himself mixed up in it was bigger than just him.

Thrive waved at the building behind her before running around you, making a wide arch to give Sans and you distance was while heading towards the tunnel you had just come out of. Sans kept his eye on Thrive until she was out of sight before heading off the way you pointed.

The doors were still on their hinges enough to pushed open. Sans nudged one back before ducking down to shuffle in. The room was open and utterly ramshackled with furniture turned over and pushed up against the wall. You could smell the ozone of magic still in the air.

Deeper into the building you followed the debris in until the doors opened up to the outside and there you saw a pair of figures crouched over a pulled apart android. It was twitching with the last surges of electrical life as two skeletons searched through it.

Sans dropped his axe’s head onto the ground, making it sound with a clunk.

Black and Edge looked up from the android Red had been hacking and you saw the moment they all spotted you. This time when you squirmed Sans let you go to run barefoot across the grass. Red shortcut the whole way you crashed into him first, but Edge caught you both before you could fall to the ground. Black-the last person you expected to join a group hug- stayed off to the side, watching you with fuzzy eye lights. Someone was crying, or maybe that was you, but your shoulder was wet with tears and your heart was heavy with relief.

It felt like an eternity, but finally you were home.

You were home.

 

Notes:

More revelations, a new character introduction, and a long awaited reunion! What did you enjoy best?

In other news I'm so freaking tired and I still have so much work to get to so apologies in advance for any delay in responding to replies and the like.

Chapter 51: Champion 8

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

Everyone fit in the SUV back, even Sans. Black was impatient behind the wheel, and even Red bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t use a shortcut to blink all of you back the distance.

You couldn’t find it in our heart to complain.

Thankfully Black had snacks and drinks packed under the backseat in a first aid kit meant for child emergencies. You didn’t mention how long you had been without meals, even though Red kept asking you about what had happened and what they had done to you. Edge had to remind his brother that some things might still be fresh and to give you your space.

“she needs this,” Sans interjected, speaking up quietly while producing the cold medicine you had given to him to hold onto back when you were both underground.

Black took the medicine, looking it over before his eyesights fixated on you once more. He gave you another one over and shook a little before stiffly handing the box back to Sans and getting out a water bottle to help you swallow the jelly tablets. Edge reached over and felt your forehead with his and grumbled while pulling away.

“And you were just sick not too long ago. I thought you said that was rare,” he complained.

“As much as I’d love to have this conversation where I get fussed over, we don’t have forever before someone shows up and notices the emptiness we left behind. We need to book it out of here.”

“half hour before warning sirens go off,” Sans grunted.

“Right,” Black coughed before shortcutting straight into the driver’s seat. He turned the engine and the whole SUV rumbled. “Seatbelts!”

Edge took the passenger’s front seat and Red sat in the back middle row next to you while Sans took up the entire back row himself. You were still wearing his jacket too, but when you looked to him to offer it back up he shook his head and spared you a smaller sort of smile that didn’t show off his teeth as much.

Sans passed you the pills and you drank them down with the water before finishing the rest of the bottle. It would be a short while before the drowsiness kicked in but you were unwilling to fall asleep right away.

Black ignored speed limits as he raced away from the facility, crashing through the same dilapidated chain link fence that was marked with ‘off limits’ signs. The sky was rapidly darkening and that would be a good enough cover for you.

“Shit, babe, you look like someone put you through the blender. What the hell happened to you down there?” Red asked, nearly vibrating with nerves.

“Nothing worth dwelling on, not when my brain is barely working at least,” you laughed. “What about you guys? What trouble did you stir up while I was gone?”

“All the trouble,” Red laughed. “I’ll give you the play by play when you’re more awake.”

You closed you eye and rested your head against the cushion of your seat. “What a deal.”

Red turned sideways in his seat and looked to where Sans sat, silent in the back but very much awake and aware. “Ya must be Pap’s Sans. The name’s Red. Up there is my bro, goes by Edge. The tiny tyrant driving this boat is Black, but I guess you know about the situation we’re all in. I’m a Sans too, just like Black. Your brother is a Papyrus just like Edge, right?”

Sans slowly nodded, watching Red with a wary set to his shoulders. “…yes….”

“Your bro is doing going, doing good yeah. He’s set up with our Grillby and helping out in the kitchen with a nifty spaghetti dish. The other Grillby is there too and they’re drawing a nice sized crowd but doing well.”

Sans went quiet, but the nervous set of his shoulder eased out and when he watched Red it wasn’t a tense sort of watching. There was shift in the energy around him and it was like someone had let out a long held breath.

“he’s safe…” Sans echoed, almost smiling to himself. “good.”

“Real ball of sunshine, that one,” Red laughed. “But I know he’s been missing you and he asks about you each time one of us visits, so he’ll be glad once he can see you again. Ah, we’ve been calling him Paps, it’s…he said it was okay since it was close enough to his real name but something that helped ease up on some of da confusion. You got a moniker you wanna go by?”

“…moniker?”

“Nickname, bud. You know, something other than Sans. Like, if you wanna fight the original for it ya can be my guess but it just helps keep the confusion down when only one of us goes by the name.”

Sans frowned and stared for another long minute before finding the right words. “…my name is Sans.”

“Oh, okay…so no nickname?”

“you said i could fight the original for it.”

“Red,” Edge growled from the front seat. “That’s why I told you not to run your mouth off.”

“Ahh, sorry boss.”

Edge rolled his eye lights before turning around in his seat to address Sans. “You can think about your name and the situation later on. It’s not important right now. They already gave you a nickname for the files we hacked, Ax.”

“Ax?” Sans echoed, tracking a little slower than usual now that he wasn’t in immediate danger.

“Indeed, the files also had the name ‘Crooks’ for your brother but we agreed that was distasteful. Don’t pay it any mind now, his teeth are just fine.”

Sans bristled at the nickname. “Paps is just fine for ‘em, but I’m still Sans.”

From the diver’s seat Black grumbled. “The same thing happened in Wendy’s classroom. Two boys have the same first name. There is an Eli M and an Eli G but you don’t have a last name, do you, Ax?”

Sans scoffed. “you need to call me ax to keep things straight go ahead, but i’m still sans.”

“We can table this for later, I’m sure you’re tired,” Edge interjected. Pointedly he nodded in your direction and you were just barely able to see him through your lashes.

It was getting too hard to stay awake as the darkness stretched over the car’s interior. You felt flushed and cold all over. You still smelled pretty gross too, having gone the whole time in the secondary site without showering or washing once.

Someone off to your side chuckled and you recognized the rasps in Red’s voice.

“Don’t make fun of me,” you mumbled out. A yawn kept you for saying anything else while Red just chuckled at you.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, sweetheart. You must be exhausted so you go ahead and sleep all you want. We’ll be here when you wake up.”

You forced your good eye open with a strength you didn’t know you had. The fear of waking up after your sleep only to have it all been a dream spurred you. “I don’t need to.”

“Yes you do,” Edge grumbled. “You’re fevered again. We’ll be home in a few hours. Sleep.”

But what if this wasn’t real? It was perfect so how could it not be a dream. You’d sleep and then wake and be back in the cell, or worse…back in your bare bones apartment with a pager that never buzzed. You wouldn’t be able to bare it if you woke up and they were gone. You didn't think you had it in you to survive resets like some of the others had. 

You don’t know where the fear came from, or the panic, but it leaked out of you and trailed down your face in salty tracks. You weakly pawed at the seat, pushing yourself up.

“enough of that,” Sans interjected sternly. Red tensed, ready to tell the other skeleton off or take offense with his tone, but Sans went on. “you’re safe and you know it, so believe it. sleep. now.”

Edge softly called your name and you looked to where he sat, feeling light and so far away.  “We’ll be here when you wake. Promise.”

And because there was nothing else you could say against that, you closed your good eye and let your consciousness fall the rest of the way.

 

-

 

You sleep deeply, but you still wake when the car stops and the doors swing open. There was a panic that roused you enough to see the house and hear the yelling in the late night, but that’s it. 

 

The next time you wake you can tell you’re in your room and someone is wrapping you up in something soft that doesn’t smell like blood and dust.

 

The third time you crack an eye open there is sunlight, heavy and full, spilling into your room from a late morning. You’re sandwiched between two skeleton bodies but you fall back asleep before you can tell who they are.

 

It’s not much later when you wake again-still morning-just later. Red is still behind you and Edge is…you can hear him downstairs talking with someone and moving something out of the fridge. It made you feel nostalgic and you remembered being in almost the same situation not so long ago with Edge making you breakfast and Red holding you in bed.

When you tried to move Red’s arms around you only tightened and you smiled at his predictability. He hated letting you go and it had always been that way. But you needed to use the bathroom and maybe take a shower. No one had bothered to change you out of your dirty things even though the sheets were fresh and clean.

You moved your legs out first, unwinding them from where Red wound his and slipped through . He didn’t protest anymore than with a huff of displeasure. You threw the covers back, doubling them over him and chuckled at how that didn’t even make him flinch. His arms tightened around your waist when you wiggled over to the edge of the bed and when you tried to leave he pulled you back down.

It made you chuckle, but when you tried to leave again he pulled you back with more force, forcing you onto your back in the bed. You made a sound of dissatisfaction and twisted around to poke him awake but when you turned his scarlet colored eye lights were already fixed on you, narrowed and thin.

“Red?” you called his name and touched his face. “You need to let me go.” When he still didn’t release you from his hold you tried again. “I’m dirty and I need to use the bathroom.”

There was no response even thought you knew he was awake. You traced the shape of his skull and his eye lights flickered, growing thicker and darker as his daze seemed to lift. You called his name a couple more time in soft whispers before kissing right above his brow bone.

“Come on, Red, I need to go.”

“N-no,” he grumbled, blinking and ducking his face into the cushions. “Stay ‘ere with me, doll.”

You let go of a held breath, recognizing that tone of voice. He was awake and aware now. “I can’t. I have to use the human toilet.”

“No you don’t.”

You rolled your eyes at his playful stubbornness. “That’s not something I can control, sorry. Let me go.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“I’ll pee the bed,” you snorted.

“Don’t care.”

“Gross,” you laughed, wiggling out of his hold.

He let you go, but his arms followed you to the edge of the bed and lingered in the air after you left. The bathroom was only a few feet away but he sat up to watch you go and when you looked back on the threshold his expression was so crumpled you weren’t sure what to call it. 

“I’ll be quick,” you promised before heading inside.

“You’re still sick!” Red shouted from the other side of the door as you shed your dirty shirt and pulled out some clean things from the cabinet.

You hurried, knowing he was right about your cold still holding on. Your head pounded in subtle, bruising pain, but you had felt worse alone so you couldn’t find it in you to complain. You were still cold and clay, but the shower did wonders.

You stepped out, dried quickly, said a quick thank you to the stars for clean underwear, and dressed in the clothes left in your bathroom. Simple cotton shorts and a tee shirt that might have had a funny graphic if you bothered to check it.

You didn’t think too much time had passed but when you opened the bathroom door again Red was right there, waiting like a kicked puppy that reached for you as soon as he could. You almost teased him about it, but then thought better once you noticed how he shook. His arms around you, were rattling and tense.

“Hey, I’m right here, I’m fine, I’m safe,” you whispered into the side of his skull. “I’m here, I’m here. Look, I’m right here and everything is okay, okay?”

“Yeah,” he croaked.

The way his voice broke nearly shattered your heart. It made your lashes damp with caught tears. Oh, he really had missed you. You had thought him so much more composed last night when he brought you back but… poor guy looked like he hadn’t held himself together nearly as well as you had guessed.

“I’m home,” you told him. “Thank you for searching for me and bringing me home. Thank you.”

Red chuckled and it sounded just as wet and broken as his voice. His arms around you tightened, squeezing you once more before letting you go a bit; enough that he could pull back and look you over.

“Damn, ain’t you a sight for sore eye sockets,” he joked, sounding tired. Last night had had been far more composed, but you wondered if that had something to do with being around Sans and Black or maybe with the adrenaline high of finding you again.

“Enough molesting,” Edge barked, interrupting whatever Red was about to say next.

You turned to see Edge carrying a tray up the stairs with a vibrating blue body behind him. As soon as he was on the landing Blue charged out from behind him and rocketed for you.

Red laughed and let go in time for you to be toppled. Red didn’t let you fall all the way over, but propped you up before you could hit the floor while Blue squeezed you close. You felt a lot more tears on the front of your, damp from shower water, shirt.

“I’m so sorry,” Blue gasped into your chest, crumpling and hunching in front of you even though he was technically taller than you if you were barefoot. “I’m sorry I messed it up!”

“No!” you gasped, feeling his sorry like a gut punch. You righted yourself and grabbed at his skull, tilting his face upwards. “Sweetie, no, no, don’t say that, you have nothing to apologize for. You helped me out so much. Oh, no, no, no don’t cry for me, cut it out now.”

You wiped at his tears with your thumbs, smearing them off his skull.

“I didn’t wait for the others and I went out without backup and because of that we-you had to stay behind and got trapped. You got hurt because of me and you were even sick. You can hit me if you want.”

“That wouldn’t make me happy at all or solve anything. Babe, thank you, look, I’m home thanks to you. I’m only here because you helped me first. Thank you, thank you.”

“I’ll hit you if that makes you feel better,” Red teased. “Sweetheart here needs to eat something and you’re squeezing her tighter than-”

“Ahem!” Edge coughed loudly, eyeing his brother skeptically while holding up the tray of food. “What was that the kettle was saying about someone being black?”

You laughed. “Edge is right. What were you just doing, Red?”

“That was before da food!” he laughed nervously.

Blue chuckled but let go enough for you to maneuver over to the bed and climb in like how they told you to. Blue scrambled in first with a cheer of victory and Red grumbled but held back, like the way someone who had lost a hand at poker let someone collect the pot at the end. Edge rolled his eye lights but moved up to set the breakfast tray down in front of you while Red fretted over pulling up your covers enough.

“Stretch ain’t here yet?” Red asked in a tone that was almost hopeful.

“Who’s not here yet?” Stretch asked, appearing behind Red in a blink.

You snorted at how Red screamed, high pitched and tight, while whirling. Stretch was leering ghoulishly out from under a dark tangerine hood. With the light behind him, the shadows across Stretch’s face made him look more monstrous than normal. 

Red cursed and stammered, looking pissed.

“Cute,” Stretch chuckled when Red flipped him off. “Move, short stuff, I’m getting through.”

You scooted over when Stretch picked up the edge of your bed cover and slid himself in, looking too much like the cat that got the cream. On your other side Blue hummed in appreciation.

“Here, temperature check first,” Edge said, pulling out a thermometer and rolling the ball end across your forehead and checking the screen on the front. It blinked a few seconds later with a number that made him frown. “You’re not doing terrible with this, but…you’re under what you should be even for a regular human.”

“I thought humans were supposed to heat up when they were sick,” Stretch mused.

“We do, that probably because of my fire element magic being absent,” you commented all blasé. The food in front of you was warm and fresh and made with love. The sight and smell of it all prepped and laid out on your lap table made you drool a little. You reached for a spoonful of cinnamon, brown sugar oatmeal.

“What do you mean absent?” Edge asked harshly.

His worry made you falter and drop your spoon back into the oatmeal. Stretch was staring at you hard while Red and Blue’s eyes were just as unwavering. Stretch flinched a moment later and then Red’s expression twisted to.

“Babe?” Red called out in soft horror, face scrunching up.

“What happened?” Blue asked. “I can’t feel your magic.”

“Neither can I,” Stretch added. “I can’t even see it.”

Edge called your name softly and you stared up, feeling guilty for something you had no reason to feel guilty for.

“Um, can I…can I have some food first? I’m really hungry,” you asked, voice soft.

“Yeah, y-yeah babe, no problem,” Red stammered, flushing.

“Eat up, honey,” Stretch softly encouraged, handing your spoon back to you.

Blue and Edge watched on wordlessly while you ate at your food, but Red put in the effort to ramble about things that happened in your absence. He mentioned how the new Paps was working with Grillby and the other ‘black Grillby.’ Much like the Sans you had been trapped with, the black Grillby didn’t want to have to go by any other name beside his own, so there was no changing there.

Papyrus from the ‘Horrortale’ world was going by Paps now, something you remembered from the conversations in the car last night. Papyrus was more than willing to share his name with another, citing a number of human babies who had been named after him in the past few years, but Paps was just as willing to please and just as unwilling to make confusion in the ranks.

“We’re thinking of setting them up in one of the old hunting cabins since thats what they did first thing once they was topside,” Red elaborated.

“Papyrus was even able to negotiate housing grants for the both of them pending the completion of their registration. Won’t take much more to get them a place they can settle into and acclimate to. Good hunters, the pair of them.”

“The woods north of our house are ideal for that,” Edge finally interjected, looking ready to shake off his worry in favor of joining the conversation. “Many of the hunters have vacated in the past decade and wildlife is a bit too lush for the level of civilization we’re hoping to foster here in the town.” 

“It’s good for them to have a purpose,” you added in between bites.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Stretch hummed along.

“How is your job going?” you asked, looking to him.

Stretch dithered a bit, speaking for the sake of speaking. A lot of his complaints and concerns sounded so familiar even if the context of his job was leagues of complexity above any of your dinky 9 to 5 part time gigs. 

Halfway through you feel a familiar roll and put your spoon down. As hungry as you are, you know better than to force yourself to eat after days without food. You want to gorge yourself but with inhuman control, you tell yourself no.

“You done, sweetheart?” Red asked.

“Don’t force yourself if you’re full. I made what I thought would be best for a sensitive stomach since I don’t know what they were feeding you there.”

“They weren’t,” you mumbled, covering your mouth with your napkin. You hadn’t meant to mention it unless asked explicitly, because it was just one detail that didn’t matter in hindsight. You wouldn’t lie to them if they asked, but…

“What was that?” Edge echoed, voice more faded than usual.

Blue whispered your name and reached for you.

“It was…a way to keep me from trying anything since I need to burn energy from food to fuel my magic. They fed me stuff at first but after my escape attempt they put me on a diet.”

“A no food diet isn’t a diet, it’s starving,” Stretch sternly corrected.

“Sorry. It wasn’t a very funny joke was it?” you chuckled lamely, hoping to make light of a few days without food.

“Not funny,” Blue echoed dully.

You felt bad for how weak his voice sounded and hated the suspicion that he blamed himself. It wasn’t his fault and in the grand scheme of things, it was worth it. Paps got out safe and sound and got his teeth fixed out of it too.

Oh, that reminded you…Sans had that hole in his skull you wanted to try and treat with some of the patches meant for magical wounds. You had some leftover in the first aid kit you pinched from back when you had the bus.

“Sorry, it’s not as bad as it sounds. I was asleep for most of it and Sans took care of me. Don’t worry about it.”

“Still sounds weird,” Red mused. “Sans…Axe Sans….Sans H….Axe…ughh, just wish he’d take a nickname and make it easy. I don’t like calling him Axe if he don’t like it, that just feels wrong or something.”

“Where did Sans H come from?”

“Horrortale was the name of his universe from the files,” Stretch explained. “Sans from the Horror universe, or Sans H. It’s morbid but it’s what he came up with.” 

“If it’s what he likes that’s most important,” Edge interjected.

“Nah, I think he was making fun of us,” said Stretch.

“He’s a hard one to pin down though, I can’t tell what he likes or what he doesn’t like since he’s all, ‘don’t care, do what you want’ about it,” Red said, mimicking the deep gravely voice of the skeleton he was imitating. Since he was also a Sans type it was pretty spot on.

“Give him time to figure it out. He has plenty of that now, doesn’t he?” you asked.

“If our luck holds,” Edge answers. “A critical blow was dealt to the the scraps of the Embassy that broke off. Officially, they’re disavowed and fugitives of the law that can’t move as easily as they once could. Most of their assets have been seized and if Papyrus’ and Sans’ contacts are reliable, Hightower is in the wind.”

“Then we’re safe for now,” you said.

“We’re safe, period,” Blue softly corrected.

“And speaking of safe…” Stretch let his voice trail off, sounding lazy at the end. “Wanna talk about what went down back there?”

“What about that magic not working, babe?” Red asked.

Time to face the music.

You weren’t looking forward to the conversation you would have to have with them about this topic. Last time you had an encounter with Sans when he pulled your soul out it had been equal parts painful and mentally traumatic.

“The last thing they tried didn’t work in keeping my magic in check so he, there was a device that put a…ah a pin? I don’t know what else you could call it, but it’s like a big pin or spike and it’s…in my soul blocking my magic.”

You could already see the way your words were having an effect on the boys. Red’s eyesights were out and Stretch couldn’t even look at you. Anything having to do with souls meant a whole lot more to monsters than it would to you and other humans. Your throat felt tight and you had to look up at the ceiling to force the rest of the words out.

“Sans tried looking at it but it….ah, it really hurt when he tried to pull my soul out so I’d rather not attempt anything with it right now if that’s okay. I’m still dehydrated and sick and tired and….I just want to be home.”

Stretch reached for your hand and you realized that it was fisted around the comforter and shaking. Blue wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled himself up against you, keeping you close. You felt his magic warm and green starting at your side before spreading throughout you body until it was at your soul, healing what it could around the lodged wound.

“Your HP is lower that it was before, but I…but that was, I thought it was because of the fever,” Red stuttered.

Beside him Edge watched Blue’s effort to heal you with a thinly concealed envy for the skill he was no longer proficient in. Apart from his stare, he didn’t react to your news, not even to comfort you.

He didn’t even look at you.

“We’ll see what we can do about that after going over it with the others,” Red said, standing and patting his brother on the shoulder roughly. “You need that rest right now. Sleep up and don’t forget your meds.”

You found the pills under the oatmeal bowl and swallowed them down with water. Edge took the tray from you, wordlessly, and turned to head downstairs.

“Edge!”

He stopped when he heard you call his name and turned back to face him. His eyesights were dark, nearly perfectly blended into the shadow of his sockets, but you could see the dark wine red color flicker for you.

You remembered the way they flickered right before his dissociative episode where he confessed knowing what it sounded like when a human died. You were afraid of that same dissociative state now that you told him about your injury. 

“I’m going to be fine. I’m home. Thank you for helping to bring me home.”  You reached for him and hoped he wouldn’t leave you looking that broken.

He hesitated but then moved back to sit down on the edge of the bed and set the tray back down so he could reach for your hand and squeeze it, softly at first, and then more firmly. You were real and you weren’t broken.

“You should…get some sleep now,” he said. He turned your hand over and spread his fingers out underneath it before bending down to place a chaste kiss on the curve of your wrist. He said your name once more before collecting the tray, smiling, and making his way downstairs with Red tottering along behind him.

“He’ll be fine,” Stretch said in encouragement. “He’s pretty strong for a baby brother.”

“You’re also a baby brother,” you pointed out, making Blue laugh from beside you.

“And thus, I am an authority on the subject. Now, you need to tuck in. Sleep.”

Blue tugged you down and clung to your side, already moving the covers up to your chin. He was warm and so was the interior of your covers, thanks to Red and Edge keeping it like that throughout the night. Bodies of magic still generated plenty of heat, you had learned very early on.

“I feel like there is too much for me to worry about to sleep,” you whispered. You were on our back saying up at the ceiling where a clustering of glow in the dark stars had been stuck thanks to Blue, a month or so back. 

Stretch mirrored his brother’s position on your opposite side, crossing on arm over your abdomen to grab at your waist and tug close. His thumb presses gently against the curve and then traced a slow circle into your flesh. It was soothing so long as it didn’t go any higher and run into the scars left scattered across your front.

The scars on your arms and back were easy enough to cover up with tattoos, but your chest, closest to your wounded soul, was littered with far more vents to magic that never looked anything but unsightly when you saw them in the mirror. You didn’t want Stretch, Red, or Blue or anyone else seeing or feeling those.

But Stretch never wandered because he knew you better than that.

“You don’t have anything to worry about right now except getting rest,” Stretch kindly yet sternly whispered into your ear, nuzzling close.

Blue’s magic running through you turned heavy and you sighed, feeling the drowsiness he provoked. “That’s cheating.”

“You need to sleep, silly,” he chuckled before kissing the side of your shoulder. “No more worries.”

But you had so many worries.

You wanted to see the kids and make sure they knew you were fine. You needed to check in on Paps and make sure his teeth weren’t hurting him. What about Grillby who had taken in two strangers on Sans’ word? You needed to thank him and you needed to see about your work with him. It was getting close to Halloween, you didn’t want to miss any of the new traditions with your family. Then there was Rus and Black, you hadn’t seen them since waking up again. What about your Sans and Papyrus? They had helped out so much. You needed to check in on Edge and make sure he didn’t have another episode.

“Rest,” Blue said again more sternly, as if he could hear all your chaotic thoughts.

The magic pulled you down and you were too weak to fight it off.

“You’re safe,” Stretch explained, like that was supposed to be the end of it.

And it was. 

 

 

Notes:

So, you made it home safe and sound with the fam...nothing bad could happen now...or could it?

Lol, I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
There are plenty of fluffy chapters planned and some domestic scenarios I wanna explore, especially now that the Horror brothers are going to try integrating. Balancing the fluff out with the more plot heavy elements has been tricky only because I don't have a good sense of what is too much and not enough, so take my best efforts.

Next week is an extra big chapter to celebrate 52 chapters! I double posted for weeks in October but I've been weekly publishing something since the beginning and now there's a year's worth of weekly updates to this fic so imma celebrate next week.

Chapter 52: Champion 9

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sans looked at Sans, and Sans looked at Sans.

The juxtaposition was making the smaller of the two iterations a bit dizzy.

He remembered greeting the big guy last night and giving him space while Paps, the newer one, ran to greet his brother for the first time in what seemed like forever. Everyone was tired all over the place so someone suggested trying in for sleep and talking it out in the morning. Things went smoothly after that, with the horror-tale brothers retreating to the guest rooms on the first floor while Sans met with his brother in the media room upstairs to talk and plan before they also turned in for the night.

Before turning out his light for the night Sans tried texting Red, only to have his messages go unread. That must have meant that the lucky bastard was with you first. Fine, Stretch would probably be free anyway. Contacting Black was last on his short list of people he wanted to go to for information. Blue was too much in Sans’ opinion and Mutt-Rus was too nervous to get information out clearly...even if the poor guy was getting better. Maybe one day soon Rus and Sans could talk a bit more on the level.

Stretch picked up when Sans skipped straight to calling.

“Hey,” the lazy drawl answered on the other end of the line. “All good over there?”

“As expected. Ya got some eyesights on ‘er yet or?”

“Only for a little bit. Red and Edge have her bundled up tight between them. She’s fine.” Sans felt his frame deflate a bit at the update. There was a pause and then Stretch spoke up again across the line. “What about the big guy you brought back? He looked a little rough.”

“And Paps wasn’t?” Sans snorted.

“I’m sorry, did you miss the glaring hole left in his skull or was that just me? The monster’s been through some shit.”

“No kidding.”

“Rus shared the deets with me already. Want me to send over the files he lifted for Horrortale 1 and 2?” Stretch asked.

From where he was sitting on the corner of his unmade bed Sans could see his ipad on the nightstand light up with the alert. “Looks like you just did.”

“Sometimes my questions are just formalities. Crack it open at your leisure but keep in mind Black’s already seen it and he’s putting his foot down on keeping the pair of them away from the tykes.”

Sans frowned, moving his phone away and switching it to speaker while he flipped through the virtual file on ‘Crooks’ and ‘Axe’ that the Embassy had on them. Documentation started long before capture and it looked like the pair had been stalked from afar before capture and neither of them had made it easy for the team tasked with bagging and tagging.

“Why’s he got a boot up his coccyx now?” Sans grumbled, flipping faster, skim reading like it was going out of fashion. He could devour large quantities of information in a short period of time if he put in the effort to, but he preferred to let people believe he was lazy all the way through, it lead to less expectations.

“You’ll see it.”

Sans got to the part and made a sound that Stretch sighed at. “That explains the size and EXP. I guess Black would react like that, wouldn’t he? Damn, what a shit storm we walked into.”

“Did we really walk into this?”

“Who else? They’re another set, that’s on us…hang on, me and Pap-no, my bro, my Papyrus, shoot, my bro can field this one," Sans said, thinking that they should probably revisit the nicknaming department for the taller horrotale brother. "We…we can keep them away from the farm house for now and maybe the tiny tyrant will ease up at time goes by. I don’t wanna believe either of these fellas wanted what they did to happen.” 

“Stars no.”

Sans paused on a photo of the one named Axe. He was big and measured impressively, compared to the other counterparts. He looked big enough to carry a full sized human around in one arm like the way Red described it. Aside from the most glaring difference and his size, the fella didn’t look that much changed from Sans himself. He looked…like a Sans, way more than Blue or Black, or Red did at least. He looked like…

“I’ll call you back if anything else comes up. I’ve got some reading and thinking to do.”

“Don’t go working yourself to the bone, Classic,” Stretch snickered before hanging up first, faster than Sans could pun back.

Sans pulled the phone back and turned off the speaker, snickering at the sub par pun. It had been needed with how heavy things had been. The last time Sans had tried to make a joke Blue had nearly bit his head off for it and Papyrus had screamed about it not being the time with tears in his eyes.

Hopefully, with you back, things could gradually return to some semblance of normalcy.

Sans’ eye lights fell down to the screen of his handheld device and he cursed lowly under his breath.

Well, as normal as things could get with their new neighbors.    

Earlier Papyrus and Sans had picked out an available property that was listed under their name and decided on showing it to the brothers tomorrow morning. It would help them integrate if they had their own space to let loose in.

Paps was a swell fella, but even working with Grillby Sans could tell that the monster was more at home in places where people didn’t see him- a stark difference from how Papyrus the monster mascot was. That was likely thanks to the mutations caused by human eating. It had warped more than just their physical structures, but looked like it did a good deal of damage to their psyches.

Yeah, the old hunter’s cabin would be perfect for the both of them. There was a plot for a garden and a shed for tools and everything. They wouldn’t have to hunt to survive anymore but if it was so habitual to them at least they had to space to safely do it. People didn’t travel that far north, the roads all turned to dirt and there was nothing hikers would wanna see in that neck of the woods. They’d be safe there-both physically and emotionally…hopefully.

Sans returned to the file and read some more, slowing down to better take in the information. There was a lot to digest considering the Embassy only had eyes on the pair for a month, including the time they were held up in their prison-like facilities.

Sans hated how easy it was to sidetrack and follow the breadcrumbs from Axe’s file to the pages on the actual facility where they had all been held first. It didn’t look great, but the secondary site was little better than a hell hole.

And you had been trapped there for days upon days while they dithered and scrambled.

Fifteen days, over two weeks.

A lot had fallen apart without you.

It wasn’t like they were mortal enemies or anything, but tensions seemed so much starker and darker when you weren’t around. The only thing they could come together on was efforts to rescue you.

Or maybe that’s just how it felt to Sans.

He liked things when you were around. In your absence things were noticeably subpar and far too similar to those dim, colorless years after Papyrus moved out to tour on monster mascot business more exclusively. Sans had tried to hard at first to keep up but just couldn’t…and then after a couple of months without someone loud banging through the front door, it was easier to sleep through the weeks and forget what time meant in spite of the resets becoming a thing of the past.

He didn’t wanna go back to that and he swore he wouldn’t. Bro was of the same mind, after all. They didn’t work if they were apart and they were never going to do that again. Papyrus became a construct handled by half a dozen different managers and stylists, and Sans turned into…

“No use thinking about that now,” he huffed aloud to himself.

He flipped open the ipad after it had auto locked due to not being manipulated in so long, and picked up reading where he had left off.  It was only a few minutes later when he felt the uneven static of another monster’s magic outside his room. Sans went stiff, recognizing it as ‘not Papyrus’ right away. He didn’t know which guest, but he knew it was one of them up and tripping around in the dark hallway.

He left the ipad behind and shortcut into the hallway, keeping his hands in his pockets and his suspicions behind his smile. The top floor hall was empty but there was a light on downstairs. He shortcut into one of the corners of the living room and saw the layout for what he left it-with only one outlier.

Knowing the other one had felt his shortcutting magic, Sans carefully walked the rest of the way to the kitchen to stand on the threshold and watch his double pull food from the fridge, filling the space with light.

A single bloated red eye swirled around in the socket and Sans held himself still as the horror version of himself turned slowly with a slice of turkey from the deli still dangling from his teeth and a banana in his one hand.

“Midnight snack?” Sans casually drawled, trying to sound as nonthreatening as possible.

The other Sans didn’t answer and only silence filled the space between them.

Sans scratched at the bone under his eye socket and tried to find something suitable to say to get through to this meaner, hulk of a skeleton who was sitting like a baby in front of the open fridge at 1 in the morning.

“Hey…did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a soda? He's lucky it was a soft drink.” 

The other Sans slowly lifted his hand with the banana in it. “…don’t find yer jokes all too appealing, buddy.” Then he popped the banana and ate it, peel and all.

“I know I can be a bit corn-y, so don’t worry, I’ll cut it out,” Sans snickered in spite of the nervous tremor that made him sweat a little magic. He wanted to say he was confident enough to take on his double if it came to a fight, but staring the big guy down in the kitchen was giving him some doubts. “I ain’t gonna stop ya if you want something to eat, either. Take some back to Paps if you need to.”

The other Sans’ eye light, crimson and bloated, dilated enough to not be so fuzzy around the wide edges. Then the giant nodded and began to gather up some of the food that had spilled out during his searching.

Sans swallowed, a bit thrown when he saw in detail the size and shape of his head wound, glaringly painful as the refrigerator light illuminated it in all its savageness for anyone to see. For a 1 to 3HP monster that had to have been…way more traumatic than standard.

In the light and in the quiet Sans took the opportunity to look his double over and see first hand how similar they really were. This guy didn’t wear slippers anymore, but the shorts and jacket and even the shirt underneath were all glaringly familiar apart from their stains and rips.

He was similar in a way Blue, Red, and Black never were, making Sans totter a bit in his head. The report said that Horror was one of three possible ALPHA timeline routes, with theirs being something called the ‘true pacifist’ rout. Unlike how Underfell and Swapfell and Underswap were all alternate worlds from the start, Horrortale was just another branch of the original or ALPHA timeline.

(Sans didn’t read much deeper into the third timeline theory the Embassy had dubbed the Genocide route, he didn’t know if he could.)

Which mean that Sans was looking at himself.

Red wasn’t him no matter how punny or similar they were. Blue wasn’t him, no matter what he looked like, and Black wasn’t really Sans, no matter how strong he was. That was always a point of reassurance when Sans started to feel like his identity got erased in your eyes. He was different from the others in lots of clear ways.

But not with ‘Axe’ he wasn’t.

Axe was him.

A him if things had gone…just a little bit differently.

With everything in him Sans wanted to reject what he saw and cling to a belief that he would have been better, that he would have found a way, that he wouldn’t have stooped so low and done what Axe did even if things got bad. He wanted to believe he was a better monster than that but-

-He couldn’t anymore.

“We found you guys a place.”

Axe stopped moving away, pausing in place to turn back and look at Sans. He had left the refrigerator door open so there was still light to see by, but not enough that his eye light didn’t look odd and menacing as it bobbed in the darkness.

“…a place…?”

“To live. We were talking it over with your brother before you showed up and all decided on this hunter’s cabin up north. You’ll have some privacy and some space. Bro even said he’d help you both start up a garden there. We were planning on taking you out there tomorrow morning.”

The eyesight narrowed in the dark, spinning into a pin prick. “…to hide?”

“N-not to hide, just to give you space. You’re welcome to stay here with me and bro but we figured you’d like your own place to make your own. It’s what I would want over relying on a stranger’s mercy, but that’s just me.”

“…just…me?”

Sans began to sweat, hating how stupid his own words sounded when repeated. Dang if they came out sounding all sorts of wrong.

“It’s yer choice, fella, don’t stress it and think it over tomorrow in the morning. Paps and Papyrus already planned on heading out there but…you don’t have to do anything ya don’t want to. I’m sure you’ve had enough with being locked up so far.”

The red light started to bloom and turn until it widened back to its standard bloated size. The skeleton in the dark rumbled, looking away and mumbling under his breath before slowly turning back to look at Sans again. Another moment later he opened his mouth to respond.  “…paps wanted it?”

Sans shrugged. “He seemed excited at the prospect, but that could just be him using up his energy. He’s a lot to keep up with and something to do that isn’t Grillby’s would be good for him I guess, least that’s what my own bro says to me.”

“…if….that’s what…he wants…” Axe rumbled through the words, pausing to form each one uniquely like it was hard work for him to select the right word for the next part of his sentence. Sans assumed that was thanks to the head injury and wisely kept quiet, giving the big guy all the time he needed to get the words out. “…then…that’s what’ll do.”

He turned back around, lumbering with each short and measured step until he got to the part of the hallway where the stars were. He was turned away from them, facing the end of the hallway where the guest rooms were set up for him and his brother, but he didn’t go any further. Sans waited, pacing over to stand close enough to be seen but not close enough to enter into range as a perceivable threat. Sans forced himself to pull his hands out of his pockets and look as non threatening as possible.

Axe turned slowly to look at Sans and something close to a smile or maybe a sneer stretched his mouth. “…ya don’t…wanna…dust me huh?”

Sans blanched. “What? No, that would break Paps’ soul, I’d-what you think I’d do something like that? What for?”

“…you don’t like me.” His words came out a bit faster but were still slow.

“I don’t like looking at what happened to you…” Sans admitted, taking your advice on honesty and paranoia. He was scared of his copy, but he wasn’t going to let that fear lead him into another mistake. “It’s hard but I know it’s…me that I’m looking at, so I got no right to be aghast at the looks of ya, buddy,” Sans said, keeping his voice even in spite of his nerves. 

Somehow admitting that out loud felt a lot harder than admiring it in his head.

“i think…. i’d wanna dust me…” Axe said.

“You’ve not been around the support circle I have. I’m trying to be better and I’m still learning,” he said while remembering you and Papyrus helping pull him out of his bad habits. 

Something sparked in Axe’s gaze and it made his eye go fuzzy. Then he whispered your name and Sans felt his soul trip and squeeze when he recognized the tone. The big guy was soft for you, through and through.

“Yeah, she’s been pretty influential. If she’s good with you I’m good too.” Sans forced himself to swallow. “Thank you for taking care of her when we couldn’t. It…it means a lot to us…to me.”

Axe hummed and it sounded like a hum of understanding. “…she took care of….me too.”

“That sounds like ‘er. It’s a habit we’ve all be fortunately exposed to by now. It’s easier to think of her stuck somewhere knowing she had a little help to keep her safe.”

“…not sure…how much help…i was…” He paused to think before adding, “…she got paps out first when i couldn’t.”

“I’m not surprised, that sounds like what we’ve come to expect. Lemme guess, the two of them got friendly right away.

Axe almost grinned when he chuckled in confirmation. “….right away.”

“Yeah, that all tracks. For someone who was raised to be a monster hunter right out of their stripes, you’d think they would have some reservations but…ah, as I’m sure you’ve heard or seen, there’s a few of us who’ve been caught in their orbit.

“…it’s a nice orbit to be caught in…”

Sans remembered the report back in his room and lowered his head before speaking. “I’m sure she wouldn’t change a single iota no matter what she knew about your past or what you’ve-”

“-she knows.”   

Sans wasn’t surprised in the least. It was funny how much faster Ax seemed to get when he talked about you, but he wondered if that was because you were fresh in his short term memories. That or the memory of you…accepting and forgiving like you were…was too sweet not to remember. It made Sans feel a little pinched in his soul, almost like that forgiveness was for him too. It was soft and warm and it made him want to gasp out loud and fall apart. He felt safe, knowing you wouldn’t turn away from the ugly sides of him… even if he got as ugly as Ax.

“I’m not surprised.”

“…you…know…too.”

Sans shrugged. “I picked it up somewhere.” He felt unbalanced admitting it but pushed on. “Sorry for all that. We’ll do our best to keep you from revisiting the trauma. My kitchen is your kitchen, help yourself as much as you want. The humans have a fancy saying for it-my house is your house.”

Axe pulled some of the food in his arms closer to his face and rumbled again in acknowledgment.  “…you sound like her.”

And then with a shortcut the lumbering giant was out of sight, leaving Sans alone with the empty hallway and leftover vibes of another’s shortcutting magic.

Going to bed wasn’t always easy, but this time he felt a little bit better about closing his sockets. 

 


 

  

Edge remembered the humans who fell down, even the ones he never met.

 

The first one had been lost and quickly followed by an older sibling seeking revenge with a toy pistol. Foolish things. Their king made quick and easy work of them, thankfully. All they had to do was wait for more humans to fall and they’d eventually all be free. Seven children wasn’t an unattainable goal.

But being someone who helped contribute one such soul was!

That’s how Sans, how Red? No Sans and he joined the guard as outlook personal.

This was before Red and Edge, this was back when they were…just Sans and just Papyrus.

Back underground.

Back before everything else.

The dogs in the guard were a dime a dozen and hadn’t the mind to do anything but stand still and hit things. Setting himself apart was a simple matter of a couple traps and japes at the expense of the assistant captain guard.

Promotion came naturally and the monsters he had to step on were nothing more than a passing though, no more noticeable than a solitary brick in the snow left abandoned and uncared for. He deserved the credit far more than any of them, anyway. He was a younger brother but he was already so excellent, even Sans admitted it!

Naturally so!

Any of the guilt or concern he might have felt got stuffed up behind those bricks in his mind. Every monster he stepped on was worth it to get where he was.

And then it happened. A human fell and he had seen it. Sans, the fool, had been too friendly and colluded with the enemy but Papyrus had been different! The dogs had been outsmarted but Papyrus had been different! His traps were the thing that caught the human and Undyne didn’t get the credit this time.

One more soul.

One more brick.

Sans had asked him if he really wanted to help the king collect human souls to collapse the barrier holding them back and Papyrus could only scream at the idiocy of his brother. Why ask such a stupid question? Idiot. Of course!  This was why one of them was going places with his career and the other one was selling illegal hot dogs for chump change.

Years passed and the underground was as cruel as ever. He scarred and he warred and the bricks kept piling up in his mind. Too many years passed before the next human fell.

Another child.

That one had been a boy with short hair, wearing stripes and a scattering of dark freckles that colored his face and matched his curly red hair. He had bested the traps and slipped past Undyne  but hadn’t survived the king. 

Never did get his name.

After that he doubled down on better traps, trained harder, warred meaner, and scared better. But then there were years of that and it all dragged so painfully slow. The monotony of it would have bored him to tears if he was a lesser skeleton. The only break in the pattern came when something fell, trash, junk, or human.

“The next punk kid that falls down ain’t going to get past me!” Undyne vowed.

“INDEED,” Papyrus agreed, only half honest with his only friend.

Papyrus remembered the boy in passing but he missed him more than he should have, (only because he was so spectacular at traps!) so when the next child fell, he made it a point to interject himself in their life more-before handing them off to the king of course!

She was unlike the first one who had fallen down. Sweet and soft and quiet in a tutu and docile sort of smile. She was afraid of everything and clung to him when she should have been scared of him. He was the Great and Terrifying Papyrus! At least she seemed to enjoy going places with Sans and the others so he didn’t have to constantly deal with her annoying clinging. 

When Undyne asked about the rumors she only asked because she was nervous of losing her position to him so of course Papyrus played that game.

“I HAVEN’T SEEN ANY MORE OF THOSE HUMAN BOYS YOU KEEP HEARING ABOUT.”

“You better not be lying to me you punk or I’ll kill you dead!”

“THE GREAT PAPYRUS NEVER LIES! GET YOUR EYES CHECKED.”

“Bastard, you know I only have one eye!”

And the monotony had been…broken up for a time. Sans seemed to be having fun at least. It wasn’t so bad living with the human. She was annoying and scared and small. He could squeeze her face and she’d start to cry and that was funny at first, but he hated the way she sounded when she was hurt. It was the most! vexing sound and he didn’t care for it one bit.

When she died she hadn’t screamed.

She just lay there, still and unmoving in the snow at the base of a tree next to the broken branch, too short and small to support her stupid chubby cheeks.

“GET UP AND I WILL HEAL YOUR BONES, HUMAN, THAT’S ALL YOUR NECK NEEDS.”

She didn’t dust but…

The bones in her neck fused back together with his healing magic and….

Nothing.

Just like that, she was gone.

It had been an accident and she didn’t turn to dust right away, so what else was he supposed to do?

“This soul is no good, but you brought the human here faithfully, Papyrus. You should be rewarded for your success.”

“THANK YOU, YOUR MAJESTY.”

“Congratulations punk! You’re the boss now. Good luck keeping me in line,” Undyne laughed, sounding a little too happy to pass over the uniform.

“good for you, boss.”

Papyrus hated it when Sans called him that. He hated wearing his uniform. It felt like wearing a lie, but if he took it off someone else would take it-someone who didn’t deserve it as much as him! Someone who would step on him!

So Papyrus wore his uniform with his cruelty and the years passed.

Never mind his healing magic never quite worked right after that.

His brother was a fool with one HP and that made him an easy target to those who didn’t care for illegal hotdogs, but Papyrus was not the Captain of the Royal Guard for nothing and he needed something to make the days different so…all those monsters that dusted just ended up as more bricks in Papyrus’ brain.

Beating up other monsters that bullied his brother was just another way to build up that wall inside his heart. He didn’t want to feel anything for anyone ever again.

The next human that fell was mean and nearly too old to be a child, but he wore stripes and carried a silly frying pan like a weapon. He…hadn’t been smart enough for Papyrus’ traps, but… it wasn’t very fun if the game ended so soon so….

“How did it get free?”

“THAT IS NOT THE QUESTION YOU SHOULD BE ASKING. FIND IT AND BEST IT, UNDYNE!”

But Undyne failed and at the end of it all there was only him and his fool of a brother who still though he could make friends with his single point of HP and-

This time when the human lost his soul he screamed and Papyrus would remember that sound for the rest of his life. It haunted him into his sleep and in his thoughts so he built up a wall with all the lessons and and all the bricks and all the cruelty his years of living had afforded him.

It was all for a purpose, it was all to reach the surface, it was to free the monsters, it was for justice…it was so one day, no one would have to grow up the way he had.

And after all of that.

After all those terrible things.

After all those damned bricks, one after the other, making that damned wall in his mind, none of it ended up mattering.

The barrier didn’t really break, but they were on the surface same as if it had-only… they were alone? No king, no Undyne, no guard dogs, and no dead children.

Up on the surface his uniform didn’t mean anything.

Nothing he did had meant anything.

“ya okay there, boss?”

“DON’T CALL ME THAT HERE, AND DON’T WANDER OFF. YOU KNOW WHAT HUMANS WILL DO TO YOU IF THEY SEE YOU. STAY BEHIND ME YOU IMBECILE.”

“whatever you say, boss.”

“SANS!”

 

-

 

“Edge!”

He woke up without startling to find Peter, one of Black’s kids, standing on his legs. Peter was the only one who approached him. The others…wisely, kept their distance.

“Is she really awake?”

Edge carefully reached out and grabbed the back of Peter’s shirt. Carefully, he set the small boy down on the grass next to him and then stood up, towering at his full height. “You….are home from school?” he said instead of answering. “Don’t you have homework you must complete?”

“No? I did it all.” Peter started to circle Edge, talking from a new angle like that would work better. “I’m all done, and I wanna see her. Dad said she was home so, so, so?”

“She is still sick and likely contagious. You are human. You can catch sicknesses. Leave her alone one more day.”

“But tomorrow is Saturday!”

“So?”

“I-I wanna play with her.”

“You must learn to wait your turn, tiny human.”

“You sound just like dad.”

Edge almost laughed but held it in, least it be taken as inappropriate. The fact that there were tiny humans going around calling that skeleton ‘Dad’ was hilarious. Calling any skeleton dad was laughable, but especially a ‘malevolent captain of the royal guard’ who had handed over children to be turned into soul fodder.

Edge was a big enough skeleton to admit he might be a bit bitter about Black’s achievements on the surface considering his past. For as horrible as Black had been, he still got a happy ending.

“If you are obedient she may….come down to see you before dinner time.”

“What about me going to see her in her house?”

Edge didn’t twitch with anything remotely similar to nervousness. “No. You should do as I suggested, tiny human. She will come to you.”

Peter stared up at Edge with wide, daring eyes and a smile that grew more and more devious the longer he stared Edge down. Edge did not panic when he recognized that look.

“Tiny human you should listen to me and-stOP!”

But Peter was already off and running like a dart, screaming in glee as he raced in disobedience doing exactly the opposite of the thing Edge told him not to do!? He didn’t even stop when Edge told him too! Why? How did people make tiny humans do anything?

“STOP!”

Not even a voice full of magic could make Peter slow down. If anything it only emboldened him to run faster and farther, straight down the flagstone path and up to your door. Before Edge could reach him Peter was already knocking on your door with uneven fist as he hopped to reach as high as he could.

Edge slowed down before he could reach Peter and bent, holding out his hands as if to cage Peter in without actually touching the boy. He was much bigger and stronger and humans were so fragile when they were young.

“Tiny human,” he called out warningly.

But before he could catch Peter you were there, opening up the door with a tired smile that seemed to know exactly what was going on. You were wearing a quilt around your shoulders and hadn’t changed out of the comfy pjs from earlier that morning.

Peter saw you and squealed, jumping for you only to get caught like a stray football in midair by Blue’s magic. The smaller skeleton came out from behind you with a cheeky grin.

“Almost,” Blue teased, wagging his finger at Peter. “But haven’t we already told you about how easy it is for humans to catch colds from each other?”

“I don’t care I don’t have school tomorrow, get me sick!” Peter cried, squirming as much as he could in midair.

“Kiddo, look at me,” you laughed, tugging the blanket closer. “I’ll be good to go in a a little bit. I’ve been on medicine so just be patient a little longer. You’ve been helping Wendy out, haven’t you?”

Peter pouted. “She’s too mushy. She doesn’t even wanna come see you.”

“She’s hurt because she feels she was left behind. Do you feel like that?”

Peter watched you for a moment longer before answering. “Maybe. But it wasn’t like you wanted to? It wasn’t your fault.”

“Wendy doesn’t understand it as well as you, at least not yet. She’ll come around with time. How about a compromise? I’ll video chat with you from my bed and if you’re okay with that, we can cuddle for Saturday morning cartoons in the barn.”

“In your house?”

“Yeah, in my house.”

“Yeah!” Peter cheered, managing a fist pump inside Blue’s magic that almost set him off on another rotation in mid air.

“I’ll take this one back,” Blue volunteered, plucking Peter out of the sky and fitting the boy under his arm like a football. “Wanna walk with me, Edge?”

Edge glanced past your shoulder to where Stretch sat on the stairs, folding laundry, looking smug when he noticed Edge’s subtle, sullen glare. 

“I will escort you both back. I was invited over for dinner as well,” said Edge.

“Edge can set the table with me!” Peter exclaimed.

“Or you can set the table because that’s your responsibility,” Blue said.

Peter looked from Blue to Edge and his eyes seemed to shimmer with wanting and Edge hated how it made him unbalanced. What a manipulative foe!

“I will inspect your work, so prepare yourself, tiny human!”

“But Edge,” Blue gasped in staged disbelief. “You’re so busy with all your important duties. Don’t you think that’s a bit-well, I don’t think we’re important enough to have a former Captain of the Royal Guard inspecting the tableware.”

“It is beneath my station,” Edge began, picking up on the ruse. “But I shall make an exception for this evening as I was invited as an honored guest.”

“I’ll do it!” Peter exclaimed.

“Whoa, I don’t know if you should…”

Blue winked up at Edge and some of the nerves that made Edge’s posture so stiff eased out.

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it!” Peter chanted, pumping both his fists into the air.

“Not a fork out of place,” Blue warned once more before ruffling Peter’s hair and sending the kid off ahead of them.

“You are…far more competent than I in such matters,” Edge quietly admitted right outside the door to Black’s house.

“Eh, I don’t know. I think I’m just okay compared to other people. Black’s pretty good with the kids too.”

Edge’s expression darkened. “Yes, but I’ll be dust before I’d ever admit that to his face.”

The comment sent Blue off into a bout of familiar chuckles. But when he paused to look up he must have found Edge’s expression lacking.

“You okay?” Blue asked.

Edge almost answered with the well worn out lie of being fine… because he was! He wasn’t terrible in comparison to other episodes, but he wasn’t great either. He as somewhere in the middle and that’s what fine meant. But…

“I will be better with time. I have a lot to burden my therapist with next week I think.”

Blue made a sound of understanding. “If you need a body to vent to until then, you know I’m here, right? I’m not your brother so you don’t have to worry about being uncool in my eyes or anything like that.”

“Ha!” Edge barked suddenly, feeling invigorated. “As if that lout could ever convince of my magnificence being lessened. He’s heard it all but he’s still like that, understandably.”

“Well, you know where to find me if you change your mind. I’m always a phone call away.”

“I…may take you up on that offer. Don’t rearrange your work for me. You are still partial to the not-coffee coffee drinks from coffee shops?”

“Stretch said too much coffee would break me, but I like other things,” Blue laughed. “We’ll make it work.”

Edge nodded, feeling a little lighter and a lot stronger. When he walked into the room after Blue his posture was pin perfect and every bone in his body moved with precision. No one looking at him would ever be able to guess there was something troubling his soul, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t admit to it or get help for it.

“No doubt we will make it work perfectly. Now, where is this table I must inspect?”

“Nooooh! I’m not done!”

 

-

 

Black and Rus put the kids to bed with a little help from Stretch.  During diner Stretch had used a shortcut to drop off the ipad used to FaceTime you before taking your plate of food back to the barn in a shortcut just as brief. Blue smiled knowingly at Stretch's empty place, but Edge and Black just frowned.

Rus made a comment about Blue being a generous brother, but none of the kids seemed able to understand what he meant by that.

After dinner and games the kids all went off to bed, something Blue helped with while Edge left for home, saying his brother would be expecting him by then.

Black and Rus finished before making their way out, down the flagstone steps and up to your barn. When Stretch answered the door to their knocking, his smug expression from earlier was replaced with a far more sullen one. Black couldn’t help but feel a bit cheeky.

“You don’t seem eager to pass on the responsibility,” Black laughed out, hands crossed behind his back.

“Fuck you, Black,” Stretch grumbled, looking put out.

Rus’ brow bones raised in surprise at Stretch’s language, but Stretch was probably the only other skeleton aside from Rus himself who could get away with using vulgarity in front of Black. For whatever reason, Black seemed to enjoy teasing Stretch but there was no malice to it, since he pardoned a lot more in Stretch’s behavior than in anyone else’s (that wasn’t his brother). 

“Be a good sport, won’t you, champ?” Black chuckled.

Stretch flipped the pair off and then shortcut out of the barn. It would be his turn to sleep over in the same house as the kids, keeping watch while Rus and Black took a rotation watching over you.

That’s how the lots worked.

Red and Edge got first dibs, then Blue and Stretch, while Rus and Black went after them. Unfortunately, since Sans and Papyrus were busy with legal matters, they got the default last slot before the lots were to be redrawn.

Black continued to chuckle but Rus didn’t care much for other people’s hurt expressions as he took the stairs up two at a time to the loft where your bedroom was. The room was empty but the bathroom light was on and he could hear running water being turned off.

A short moment later the door opened and you stepped out, turning off the light. Rus reached for you before you could even notice him there. Gathering you up into a hug didn’t startle you much and he figured it was because you had already heard him-or maybe you expected that form Stretch.

“I guess the duty shifts have rolled over, is that it?” you asked.

“Sorry for being so late, the kids needed to be put to bed,” Rus mumbled into your hair.

“You’re not late. I’ll survive two minutes in the bathroom without someone watching my every move.”

“One can never bee too cautious, my dear,” Black interjected, coming up the stairs at a more reserved pace. He smiled warmly when you turned towards him and held out your arm. He didn’t blush too terribly when he was drawn into the group hug.

You feel Rus’ magic and stiffen as it swelled over you and your soul. It was warm and soft, just like Rus, but…

“You can still feel it?” Rus guessed, pulling away a little.

“There’s not much more to heal if that’s what you were getting at.”

“Let us be the judge of that,” Black huffed before pulling away to gesture to the bed. “Have a seat, please.”

Your hesitation didn't go unnoticed, but you complied, sitting with your ankles and knees together, back ram rod straight and gaze set dead ahead. You sat like a person waiting for the doctor that comes to preform painful procedures.

“Was it really that bad?” Rus asked, sitting down on the edge of the bed next to you, head bent.

“It’s fine. It’ll be easier this time if I’m prepared for it,” you said.

Rus felt for your face and sighed, finding no sign of your fever from before. Edge and Blue had mentioned it earlier, how you were unwilling to investigate the wound on your soul until later.

Normally, asking a human to see their soul would have been the rudest of questions, but this wasn’t for anyone’s viewing pleasure. The fact that there was something lodged in your soul, something that blocked your magic, was too serious to ignore for long. Some soul wounds, if left untreated, can result in death of the monster. It might not be so drastic in a human, but it wasn’t worth the risk.

“I’ll be here to heal whatever hurts and bro is the best out of all of us when it comes to this,” Rus said.

“This?” you echoed.

“Handling human souls,” Black softly clarified, unwilling to meet your gaze with his own.

It takes a moment longer before his words make sense. Unlike the others, Black was the only one who had ever removed a human soul and used it to damage the barrier in his world personally. His queen made him do it. The context would be different, but no one had as much practice with handling a human soul.

You took a deep breath and squared your shoulders. “I trust you, Black. I’m ready whenever you are.”

“We’re going to ta just be looking at it today, no need ta worry, k?” Rus quietly explained, taking one of your hands to hold. “Just ta get a good look.”

You squeezed his hand back and nodded. “Got it. Whenever you’re ready, guys.”

Black and Rus shared a look and Black moved first.

The encounter colored the room in dark shadows and made other parts light up. You felt the weight pull you up and tug at a weight lodged deep in your chest. It started to give, but then it caught on something and Black’s pull turned painful. You squeezed Rus’ hand and shut your eye, bracing against the pain. Your soul still wasn’t dislodged and Black needed to pull it free enough to see what had happened to it.

Rus warmed you with healing magic and it was almost enough to comfort you through the ripping. You almost couldn’t breath as your soul began to emerge from your chest. You couldn’t see it-you couldn’t see anything because the pain-but you felt it sliding out of you, pulling a tender nerve tight inside you as it resisted Black’s hold.

“Shh, shh, just a little more,” Rus whimpered in your ear, doing what he could to ease your pain with his magic. He sounded more frightened than you.

Black cursed as more of your soul emerged and he was able to see the item lodged deep. Your soul was out as far as he dared pull it and he reached for it, hesitating only at the last moment before touching the wound.

You didn’t want to but you whimpered at the contact then bit back the rest of your cries with determination and grit. You wouldn’t let him hesitate on your account.

“Is that-wh-what is it?” Rus asked, sounding frightened.

“It’s what they said it would be, a spike right through the soul. The entry and exit points are here…and here. Stress fractures are minimal but, Rus, please focus.”

Rus whimpered but resumed flooding your body with healing magic to compensate for the damage your soul had taken from Black pulling it free. His hand in yours was shaking. You wanted to comfort him and tell him it would be okay, but it was taking everything in you to keep your voice trapped in your throat and the pain at bay.

“It will need to be removed but I’m not sure how to go about doing that. It looked like…oh, as if… huh…” Black mused and murmured, sounding tired or despondent as he tried to see what he could do to help you.

A minute later, when you were at what you assumed was your limit, Black eased your soul back into you, sinking it slowly until it clicked into place with a last, painful slide.

You gasped aloud when you felt it return, groaning in swollen pain at the way it sat like a giant bruise inside you while Rus hurried to remedy what Black had done. He blubbered a bit and you felt something wet on your neck as he buried his head in you shoulder and let more and more of his magic wash through you.

“It’s okay, I’m okay, I’m fine, it’s okay,” you whispered into the side of his skull. You only half believed the words yourself but you need them out in the air, like they were meant for you as much as they were for Rus. He seemed so shaken by what he saw.

You heard Black call your name and looked up, almost startled by his expression. His voice had sounded so cold and far off it matched his expression of haunted absence too perfectly. Black reached for your face with both his hands and cradled it gently before lowering his forehead to yours. You felt him sigh and wondered if he was struggling to hold something back.

When he said you name again you looked up and saw his eyesights were back, small and caught between a scarlet and violet neon color. He was emotional and vicious at once, somehow. When he spoke, his voice was like well water, still but deep. 

I will kill them for this,” he promised in deceptive calm.

And it should have been frightening, but you could only feel loved. So you let the tears roll free. He caught them with his thumbs and brushed them away, holding you as you choked on your own sobs.

“It hurt,” you cried.

“I know, I’m sorry,” Black said while Rus rubbed at your back.

“I couldn’t stop them.”

“I know,” Black whispered in a paper thin voice.

“I-I don’t want to be broken again.”

His hands on your face nearly shook. “You never will be,” he promised, eyes flashing neon purple with truth.

You cried for maybe the first time, allowing yourself to feel vulnerable in the hands and arms of the brothers.

 

Notes:

It's a super sized chapter~ I'm a little sad I'm not in a better mental headspace to gush about how much I enjoyed writing about the boys in this one, cause writing Edge's flashback broke me and the exchange between Axe and Sans was a wrestle. Black at the end was also a favorite scene. But I'm happy and proud to see this out and hope you all enjoy. Getting to see the boys interact with each other is a guilty writer's pleasure of mine. Lemme know what parts you liked best, I'm dying from the curiosity.

Happy 52 chapters of weekly updates~

Chapter 53: Champion 10

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

When you woke Rus was around you, enveloping you in a hug that made you feel more like a cocooned moth than a human. He had tucked you in under one layer, then pulled you to him and covered the both of you in another layer. You tilted your head back and saw Black sitting up in bed atop the covers, arms cross and eye sockets shut as he snored lightly. The sight made you pout.

Your first time sharing a sleeping space in so long and of course he sat up the whole night atop the covers like a gentleman. It wasn’t like…it’n not as if you would….or if anyone else would have wanted…it was a platonic experience. Right?

If it wasn’t one of them would have said something about it by now. And besides, they were all skeletons. They probably didn’t even think of you that way. You would allow yourself to think they considered you an admirable person but…did that mean anything more?

You had known them long enough that this was probably something you should all talk about. It would be good to know where you stood with the boys at the very least.

You shifted and your body ached from the bruises and pulled muscles that magic couldn’t heal. You remembered your soul and grimaced to yourself. There were other things more pressing that could be talked about before your silly…questions about relationship definitions.

You were just letting yourself get distracted with silly thoughts because you didn’t want to think about what was in front of you or behind you if your breakdown in Black’s hands counted. You had sounded like a baby but… you refused to feel embarrassed about that. You meant what you said and he meant what he said when he comforted you.

“Is 'da princess up already?” Rus mumbled sleepily into the pillow by your head.

“So speakath sleeping beauty himself,” you snickered.

Rus cracked open a single eye socket and the pretty honey brown light sparkled bright enough for you to see. You could tell he was smiling by the way the bottom of his eye socket crinkled in the corner.

“Morning,” he croaked.

“Morning,” you whispered back.

He shuffled around, putting a smidge of distance between you and him to better see you with. “How are you feeling today?”

“My cold is all over, so I’m ready to get out of bed.”

“Is that so?” Black interrupted.

You flinched and turned around to find him awake and staring down at you with a knowing smirk that matched his eye lights. He reached over and grabbed the thermometer from the nightstand and rolled it over your forehead before letting it beep a reading for him.

“You’re normal for a human, if a tad cooler than what you might be used to, but we expected that with the loss of your elemental based magic.” He frowned and replaced the thermometer on the table before standing. “I’ll get your breakfast ready then.”

“I can help with that,” you said, wiggling out of your covers and sheets.

“You can rest!” Black barked, sounding like the captain of the royal guards or the father of a brood of children when he gave orders.

“I’m not sick. I won’t get in the way.”

“You still need rest, princess,” Rus encouraged.

“I’m all rested up. I’m over rested. I’ve been nothing but rested for days. Please, Black, let me at least help with this one thing. I swear to take it easy later on. I already promised to watch cartoons with the kids here.”

Black narrowed his eye lights in your direction but you just added a single, soft ‘please’ to your pout and hoped he would listen to reason. There was no reason why you shouldn’t be able to help him out in your own kitchen. Besides, he normally enjoyed it when you offered to cook with him.

Black sighed deeply and then turned away, but not before you could see the color on his face. “Very well,” he relented, “but we will be making breakfast burritos. You may assist me in the kitchen.”

“You don’t think you’d rather rest in bed?” Rus called from the aforementioned bed, looking reluctant to leave it.

“Mutt, you may set the table for three!” Black barked.

Rus sighed and a bored expression took over. “Of course, whatever you say your majesty.”

Black sputtered at his younger brother’s attitude. “Mutt!”

“Ay, ay, m’lord.”

When you laughed it was enough to draw Black’s gaze your way. You offered him your hand and tugged him along when he took it.

Your kitchen was small, cramped, and didn’t have nearly as many bowls and utensils as the main house, so Black had to shortcut over a couple times to pick up what he needed to make breakfast burritos together.

While you worked he grumbled softly about how sub par all your appliances and working spaces were in the kitchen, and that might have bothered you if he didn’t follow it up with more mutterings of what ‘he would have to fix,’ sounding like your space was just one more of his responsibilities. You knew 'acts of service' was his love language and how he showed he cared. 

“It’s fine for just me,” you told him as you mixed the eggs before scrambling them.

Black worked the ground meat, and bacon in his skillet but frowned before stirring through the beef. “You entertain plenty on your own and even if you didn’t, a single person can still benefit from more counter space in their kitchen. It’s deplorable, the working conditions you must endure.”

“I don’t know, I think they’re kinda cozy.”

Black almost said something in reply, but the blush on his face spread far and darkened. He turned away from you and hastily teased the meat in his pan before trading it out for more uncooked batches. His reaction made you chuckle.

“Are they done yet?” Rus asked from the small kitchen table where three places had been set. He sat at one of the settings looking bored or pouty at least.

“Almost. Wanna pour drinks for us? I think I have some orange juice in the fridge and-oh the milk is probably bad.”

“We threw that out already,” Rus explained, trudging over to the fridge and pulling the door open with a single tug. “I could just bring some of our drinks over here if you want.”

“Oh, that might be best, I don’t have a coffee maker,” you said, looking to Black.

“I will survive one day without the drink. You have tea.”

“I-yeah, what kind do you prefer?”

“Earl Gray or anything that’s a morning breakfast blend.” 

“I have that, Rus, you wanna look behind that door there?” you asked, pointing to the cupboard. When he opened the door it squeaked painfully and he laughed at the way only one shelf was set up inside. Every thing was stacked on top of each other inside and he had to wiggle the tea box out from between several other snacks and food boxes.

“You got a lot of snacks in here, darlin.”

“I munch a lot,” you whined. “Don’t judge me.”

Rus came up behind you to nuzzle at your neck before pulling out the tea maker. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“You need better cabinets,” Black interjected. “There’s no way you could organize anything with the current situation.”

“It’s just me, I have enough,” you laughed.

But Black still shook his head as if with disgust. “I was the one who exchanged this property with you. I was giving you a headache, not a product worth desiring.” He continued with his assembly before adding, “And it’s not just you here.”

You were soft for their words and breakfast came too quickly for your liking. You helped clean up and ran upstairs to get dressed, trading pajamas for something wrinkled but clean. When you came out of the bathroom Black was there, hands behind his back, looking away from you even though it was obvious he was waiting for you.

“Black?”

“You forgot this,” he said, voice soft as he pulled out from behind his back the gold chain and familiar jewel.

You heart caught in your throat at the sight. Gathering your hair over your shoulder you turned and he moved without words to fit it back around your neck. You heard the gentle clip of the clasp sliding shut and then Black started to pull away. Out of the corner of your eye you saw his fist clench and then stretch restlessly while he stepped back.

“Thank you,” you said, touching the stone and turning to face him.

Black smiled and it suited him too well. “Thank you for coming back,” he said.

“There’s no place I’d rather be.”

Before you knew it the hour was late and you were behind on inviting the kids over for Saturday morning cartoons. Blue and Stretch would have fed them all by now, but you had been planning on inviting them over soon after, not an hour and a half later.

Still, it didn’t seem to bother them when they showed up along with Blue and Stretch. Stretch bid you good morning before taking a shortcut to work while Blue made himself at home in front of the television in your loft, booting it up to load your movie streaming subscriptions.

You carried Phil in your arms, noting how he seemed much heavier and even looked longer…taller…bigger? In the blink of an eye he had grown up on you as had the others.

“Are you feeling all better?” Peter asked, skipping ahead to fall down on his knees next to Blue. Tron walked calmly over to the pair, sparing you a concerned smile.

“I’m feeling much better. You’re so sweet to ask. What about all of you? No one’s come down with any more sore throats while I was away, right?”

“We’re fine!” Peter whined. “Dad keeps asking about that too!”

“It’s something to be concerned about if we have carriers in our family,” you lightly chastised. You stopped behind Peter and ruffled his hair until it was a mess.

“Stop it! You’re gonna-AH! Thunder Cats, Thunder Cats! Blue, play Thunder Cats please.”

“That’s fine with me,” you said, looking over Tron who you knew enjoyed the classic almost as much as Peter. When you looked back at Wendy you noticed her dull eyes and blank stare, directed away from you at the far wall. “Wendy?”

She didn’t even flinch when you called her name, but she still responded. “That’s fine.”

The boys played the first episode while you took a seat on the bed next to Wendy while Black took off for work, leaving Rus behind to keep you company.

You were halfway through the first episode when you scooted closer to Wendy and leaned in closer. “You’re not interested in cartoons?” you asked with a whisper behind your hand.

Wendy didn’t answer for a while, but when you didn’t pull away she shrugged and hunched her shoulders up.

You waited until the episode was nearly over before trying again, only to get the same result. Somehow the boys decided they needed to watch an old episode of Transformers to ‘check’ something and the screen flickered back to a different animated series. Wendy and you never said your piece though so you tried to say something, but Wendy got up to go to the bathroom. You watched her pass your private bathroom and take the stairs down to the public bathroom off the front hall. 

When Wendy emerged a few minutes later you were there, waiting for her on top of the old steam trunk that served as an impromptu bench.

“Hey girlie, you okay? You’ve been awfully quite so far.”

Wendy stoped in her tracks and you waited her out, listening as the episode played itself out on the floor above you. Like all the other times Wendy was quiet, waiting you out, but then her tiny voice cracked with new words. “You were gone a long time.”

“It felt like forever.”

“Nobody would tell me what happened.”

“Do you want to ask me?”

Wendy hesitated, lips wrinkled into a frown. “They said I shouldn’t.”

“I’m saying you can. It’s bothering you, isn’t it? There’s a thought there, behind your eyes, deep in your brain, that won’t be quiet. You’re thinking about it even now. The more you try not to think about it the more you want to. You can’t help it.”

“…Where did you go?”

“A place I came from. The people who raised me and the people who gave me my powers wanted me to do something for them and so they took me.”

Her eyes went wide, maybe with disbelief or maybe with fear. “Why’d they take you?”

“Because I didn’t want to go. When I told them no they ignored me and did whatever they wanted. That’s the sort of people they are. They don’t know how to listen to others.”

Wendy shifted from one foot to the next. “What did they want you to do?”

You slowed your words and explained it as calmly as you could, unwilling to let her hear your voice wobble with emotion. You had to be stronger than that for her. “They wanted me to find someone for them using my map powers. When I couldn’t they got angry.”   

“Did they hurt you?”

The jarring pain as your soul was handled. You whimpered and cried a bit, breathing heavy as the pain made you dizzy- For a moment you’re unable to breath, the pain is so blinding-Your soul felt heavy, heavier than it had ever felt before, and your stomach rumbled painfully. You were famished- Your gut feels like its eating itself and you want to vomit.

“Yes.”

You’re proud at how your voice doesn’t waver for her.

“Does that scare you, Wendy?” you ask her, tacking on her name as a whisper when she looked lost in her own thoughts.

“Did…” she breathed heavy and then shifted the weight of her body from one leg to the other. “Did you want to come back?”

“Every second,” you exhaled, relieved with how easy the truth was. “I couldn’t want to leave more.”

“You didn’t…you didn’t wan- to-want to…l-le-lle hic-” When she struggled with the words you slipped off the steam trunk and knelt down on your knees in front of her. You reached for her hands and she let you take them.

“I always wanted to come back to you,” you whispered to the space between you.

It was enough for now because Wendy didn’t try asking again or say anything more. Instead she collapsed into your arms and cried soundless tears onto your shoulder, wrapping one leg around your hip and vibrating enough let you know what she wanted. You gathered her into your arms and rocked her softly, back and forth, before bringing her back to your room to cuddle on the bed while the boys watched the rest of your cartoons. 

 

-

 

By the time evening rolled around the kids were sick of you and anxious to get back to their own games and activities. Wendy had let you go after the first five episodes of Transformers and started to ask Blue about Edge and their training schedules.

Rus didn’t understand why you thought her budding interest was so funny.

You walked them back over to the house and found, much to your surprise, the OG Sans himself, helping himself to a bottle of ketchup at the table. His eye lights went soft at the sight of you, but when they dipped low you knew what he was looking at that made him hesitate.

“Hey, what are you doing over here?”  you asked.

Setting the ketchup bottle down Sans leveled some finger guns in your direction and tried to smile slyly. He just looked goofy. “Looking for you. Got a question or maybe a request, really. I’m heading up north to check on our newest neighbors and wanted to see if you were game for a lift.”

Sans glanced behind you to where the kids were playing in the next room over and you caught sight of a single bead of magic sweat at the base of his skull. It took you a minute to understand why.

“Was it Black’s rule?” you asked, stepping forward and lowering your voice.

“Heh, can’t blame him for being jumpy about the idea of his kids around a version of us that ate kids, specially when we’re not sure how stable the big guy is just yet. He’s still just settling in.”

“I would like to see the both of them. Are you leaving soon?” you said.

“As soon as you’re ready.” Sans reached for the ketchup bottle and squeezed a stream straight back into his mouth, behind his teeth. “Take your time, cupcake.”

You checked in on the kids, explained how you would be stepping out to check in on some new neighbors with Sans and grabbed an extra jacket from the hallway closet. You noticed absently that it was long, black, and lined with fur for the hood.

“Does Mutt know you’re jacking his jacket?” Sans teased, offering you a hand to hold onto.

“Rus won’t mind.”

From one of the nearby rooms you heard a voice call out, “I don’t mind!” and knew it belonged to Rus. Your grin to Sans was positively shit eating.

“Fine, c’mere, you,” he grumbled through his smile, holding out his hand for you to take.

It was no longer than a breath later and you were somewhere far, staggering away from Sans. The void came and went too fast for you to even notice it. Had Sans gotten faster with his shortcuts? When had that happened?

You took another step to look back at the towering evergreens and and red woods that only grew further north in Blackberry. You listened and could hear the muffled sounds of wildlife stirring and…nothing else. 

Sans called your name and you turned around to see the small cabin that had been a hunter’s retreat years ago. There were obvious elements of wear and tear, but then there were details when you looked closer, that betrayed the repair work preformed most recently. You saw a little footpath leading around the house and you could see the edges of a garden box peaking out. There were voices back there too.

“Sans?”

You heard Papyrus call out and then he was rounding the corner, dressed in a pink floral gardener’s jacket with matching gloves. His eye lights sparked deep in his sockets a the sight of you and then he was running. You didn’t have enough time to react-he didn’t give you enough- before you were swept up into a dizzying hug that nearly popped your back in half.

Your shoulder felt damp where he bent his head and when he pulled back you saw why. “Shh, don’t cry anymore. There isn’t a reason to,” you laughed weakly, feeling touched to see how moved he was at the sight of you. “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

“You a-ugh, you’re still not fine but you’re too nice to say something like that I know,” Papyrus sniffed, setting you down without letting you go. “But, I am glad to see you’re improved.”

“Of course I am. I’ve been spoiled rotten since coming home so there’s no way I wouldn’t improve,” you laughed.

“As you should be, we both know you won’t go spoiling yourself so it’s up to the rest of us to do it for you.” His smile deflated a bit. “I apologize for not being more active in your recovery.”

“You were helping me out with something important. Uh, speaking of which,” you looked around, “where is our new neighbor?”

“Neighbors,” Sans gently corrected, nodding to the house. “The lazy one’s likely asleep and-”

“OH! YOU’RE HERE!”

A blunt tool fell when Paps rounded the garden shed in a yellow floral gardening shirt and matching gloves. You had a sense of déjà vu but this Papyrus stood out with the handsome set of braces and pink rimmed glasses taped to the sides of his skull (with the aid of floral wash tape). He touched his hand to this teeth, tracing the metal brackets before shuffling quickly forward and stopping short of entering your personal bubble.

“YOU REALLY ARE SAFE. I’M SO GLAD YOU MADE IT. THANK YOU FOR TAKING CARE OF MY BROTHER AND KEEPING HIM ALIVE, A-AND WHAT YOU DID FOR US.”  Paps wrung his gloved hands and fidgeted. “I’M S-SO GLAD TO SEE YOU AGAIN.”

“I’m glad to see you awake again, Sweets,” you laughed, remembering his loopy state right before parting. “You look like you’re enjoying yourself out here. How is it?”

“IN A WORD: PERFECT.” Paps beamed wide and showed off the shack behind him with some dramatic flourish. “BEHOLD OUR HUMBLE LODGINGS ABOVE GROUND AND NEXT TO FRIENDS.”

“That’s me!” Papyrus happily interjected.

“AND NOW ALSO -UM Y-YOU ALSO LIVE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, CORRECT? THAT MAKES US NEIGHBORS NOW.”

You waved and smiled. “Hey neighbor.”

Paps cried out in delight and then reached for you to hug in a very Papyrus-like fashion. Still, your feet weren’t lifted off the ground and you weren’t spun around, so you felt like Paps was holding himself back.

“A TOUR! YOU DESERVE A TOUR, LET ME SHOW YOU AROUND THE PLACE.” He exclaimed, pulling back with a orange blush high on his face as he rubbed the back of his neck. “WE-WE’VE ONLY BEEN HERE A LITTLE UNDER A WEEK-WELL I HAVE-BUT WE’VE ALREADY INSTALLED SOME FLOWER BOXES AND WORKED THE GARDEN OVER AND THIS-OH, LET ME SHOW YOU!”

You were pulled up in his excitement and let Paps lead you around the garden shed to his flower patches and vegetable plots where he grew a little of everything. You could see a small pile of wood logs stacked against the back of the house and further down what looked like what could have been a hen house judging by the skeleton of a pen left around it. Paps explained that there were still some things he and his brother wanted to fix up only after they knew what they would use it for.

“Chickens and hens are an economical addition to a homestead that aren’t expensive at the start up,” Papyrus exclaimed. “I think you should consider it.”

“DOMESTIC LIVESTOCK SOUNDS LIKE COMPLICATED WORK.” He averted his eyes, glancing back towards the shed and his garden patches. “AND YOU’VE ALREADY SHARED PLENTY OF YOUR RESOURCES WITH MY BROTHER AND I. I’M NOT SURE HOW WE COULD EVER THANK YOU OR REPAY YOU.”

“There is literally nothing to repay, as it is all restitution money awarded by the Embassy.” At your curious expression Papyrus puffed up a bit and bragged. “It might have been a ploy to distract their agents while the others snuck in, but I did secure extra funding and grants for monsters who registered within the last year. The money is for you and your brother to use as you wish.”

“BUT THERE ARE OTHERS…OTHER MONSTERS WHO COULD USE THE MONEY?”

“Is that part of the grant Red and Edge used to buy their house?” you asked.

“That was part of it but they used more than one grant and all their financial aid came before your whole kidnapping fiasco and my masterful negotiation for monster rights.” Turning his attention to Paps, Papyrus set his hands on his hipbones and continued. “The money would go to waste if not used, so don’t hold back. There aren’t many monsters who would dip into the pool apart from you brothers and the other new additions. We really should get you set up with some chickens.”

“Do you like eggs?” you asked, staring up at him.   

Paps grinned and flushed at your question, looking almost embarrassed but the attention. “YES, VERY MUCH. DO YOU?”

“It’s one of my favorite things to eat I think. I mean, but then I say that about potatoes, and burgers, and watermelon, and anything deep fried.”

“OH, IS THAT IT?” Paps laughed.

“I’m not a picky eater,” you explained while Sans and Papyrus laughed behind you, knowing well from first hand experiences, just how true that was.

“But speaking of eating, we were planning on having dinner together,” Papyrus began, gesturing to Sans and Paps. “Will you be joining us?”

“That was the plan, if you’re okay with extra company,” you said, looking to Paps for clarification. It was his house, after all.

“WE WOULD BE ABSOLUTELY DELIGHTED TO HOST YOU TONIGHT!” Paps burst, looking like there were multiple reflective lights in his sockets. “WOWIE, MY FIRST TIME HOSTING ABOVE GROUND!”

“What’s on the menu tonight?” you asked, turning to follow them back to the main house.

“COULD THERE BE ANYTHING ELSE BUT THE MOST PERFECT BONDING FOOD OF ALL TIME? FRIENDSHIP SPAGHETTI OF COURSE!”

“I’ll be making the garlic bread,” Papyrus chuckled.

“You need an extra set of hands to toss a salad?” You waved your hands for emphasis.

Paps’ eyes were starry again. “PERFECT!”

You followed the pair of Papyrus in and felt Sans’ hand on the small of your back as he slipped in behind you before heading for the living room. You heard light snoring coming from around the corner where you couldn’t see and noticed Sans heading that way. Sans was back a half second later, looking smug.

“The big guy is out like a light. We’ll have to keep it down,” he explained.

Then without being asked to, Sans opened a cabinet and pulled out the dinner plates. You watched him carry them over to the table before setting it for dinner. While he did that you shredded lettuce from the head and mixed up a simple salad with the fresh ingredients in the fridge. You were glad to see it so well stocked and knew you had Sans and Papyrus to thank for that. 

Behind you, Papyrus and Paps chatter amicably, looking like long lost twin brothers finally finding one another again. Edge and Stretch, of course, shared similarities with Papyrus, but not the way Paps did. Paps was taller and his sockets a tad smaller in his skull as a result of the famine, but the sound of his voice, the way he talked, even his style was so classical.

The biggest difference was his height and his braces. Once those were off his teeth would be just as fixed as Papyrus’ own.

You heard a light chuckle and glanced back over your shoulder at Sans and saw him watching you with a smug expression and a knowing look to his eye lights. It made you want to flush and look away, so you turned back to your salad and rushed to finish it and set it out on the table.

“Don’t sweat it, you’re cute when you watch ‘em,” Sans teased.

“Shut up.”

But he just laughed at your expense and went back to filling the water glasses set at each of the five places with a pitcher of filtered water.

The pasta only took another ten minutes to finish and by the time it was done so was the garlic bread. Together the room smelled amazing enough to flip your stomach upside down and set it to rumbling with want.

“SANS WHO IS NOT MY SANS, WILL YOU ROUSE MY LAZY BROTHER FROM HIS NAP SO THAT HE MIGHT GREET OUR GUEST AND JOIN US FOR DINNER?”

Sans saluted sloppily, grin no more neater. “Sure thing Paps.”

You felt the static of his magic and then saw him blink out of the room, only to hear him in the next room. Papyrus leaned close to you and whispered, “it’s sometimes not safe to wake him. Sans is too quick if ever there is an episode.”

“Damn, that sounds-how long have I been out of it? You all sound so well adjusted to one another, like you’ve been friends for years.”

“MONSTERS ARE LIKE THAT,” Paps chuckled. “WHEN YOU CLICK YOU CLICK!”

“Makes sense,” you hummed.

You were thinking about how close you felt with your boys. It had only been a few weeks before you felt like you had known each other for years. They all clicked into your heart too perfectly. Maybe it really was a monster thing. You felt close with Grillby and plenty of other monsters, but all the Sans and papyrus iterations as well as their originals were…different.

You looked up when you heard a heavier set of feet shuffling into the room. Sans followed his rougher counterpart in with an easy grin, hands stuffed into his pockets. Standing next to one another, it was clear to see just how much larger Sans from the horror tale verse was. He as wider and taller for sure, but his bones were thicker too.

The hand rubbing under his eye socket dropped when he saw you, and you recognized the moment realization hit by how his eye light dilated wide.

“It’s good to see you up, big guy,”  you greeted. You stood up from your seat and crossed the room to grab him in a hug, ignoring the way Paps and Papyrus flinched, as if expecting him to react negatively to the contact.

You felt his arms wrap down around you, pinning you to his side as he called out your name. You felt one of his massive hands in your hair, tangling curled strands with his phalanges. He said you name again, this time softer.

“you’re here?”

“I have you to thank for that. How are you settling in?”

He made a noise caught between a hum and a grunt. “…just…fine.”

“Good enough for now, big guy. Why don’t ‘cha let princess go so we can all have a seat and eat, huh?” Sans interrupted, waving from behind a nearby chair pulled out from the table. He gestured to it and then looked to you, making the offer clear.

“Paps, Papyrus, do you need any help carrying that stuff out?” you called from where you stood, still pinned in Axe’s arms.

You heard laughter from the kitchen before both Papyrus boys emerged with the platters already prepped. “We’re finished here, you just need to take a seat,” Papyrus chuckled.

“SANS RELEASE OUR GUEST SO SHE CAN REST HER FEET IN A SEAT. IT’S TIME TO EAT!”

Axe or ‘Horrortale Sans’ let you go but shuffled behind you until you were in the seat he could slide into the table. He took up a seat on your right hand side while Sans took the seat to your left.

You spooned a forkful of pasta onto your plate and then helped yourself to a dish of fresh ’deer’ meatballs.  The Garlic bread was worth drooling over, and before you could say so, the basket was empty and your belly was full.

“You can really pack it away, can’t you,” Sans teased.

“You should know me better than this,” you chastised, rubbing your belly and wishing for yoga pants to forgive your expanded waistline. You felt like you had doubled in size.

“…it’s …good to have an appetite…” Axe interjected. “…you don’t know when your next meal might come.”

“AND IT’S SO GOOD TO SEE SOMEONE ENJOY MY COOKING THIS MUCH! I HAVEN’T ENTERTAINED FOR THIS MANY FRIENDS IN A LONG WHILE, BUT YOUR ENTHUSIASM WAS THE HIGHLIGHT OF MY EVENING. DON’T EVER CHANGE!”

Papyrus chuckled. “I also agree with my trendy alternative.”    

“You won’t catch me complaining. Princess is perfect just the way she is,” Sans laughed throwing up his hands in mock surrender.

“Oh, this sounds like the perfect time to transition to coffee and desert!” you laughed awkwardly.

“And by coffee they mean coco,” Sans teased quietly to you from behind his hand.

“OH, BROTHER WHO IS NOT MY BROTHER, WOULD YOU GRAB THE LEFTOVERS TO PUT AWAY WHILE I PUT ON A FRESH POT?” Paps requested.

“I got 'cha,” Sans said, blinking out of his seat and into the kitchen where he could flip a switch and turn on the coffee maker for something fresh but also decaf. You saw him sneak out a box of coco instead of ground beans.

Papyrus gathered up the leftovers while you stood to gather the dishes. In the kitchen Paps caught you in his sink and chased you back to the table to ‘relax’ with his brother.

“…let them have it their way,” Ax chuckled when you whined about being left out of the clean up.

“WE ARE THE HOSTS, OF COURSE WE SHOULD HAVE OUR WAY IN PRESERVING THE INTEGRITY OF OUR GUEST’S LEISURE.”  Paps carried over a three tiered cake stand set up with three layers of different coffee cakes, cannoli, and cookies that had you salivating on sight.

“Ya like the desert?” Sans asked from the kitchen when he caught your look. “I thought you would.”

“Sans you know I have low standards when it comes to dessert.”

“Don’t mean we can’t get the best for ya.”

You pulled out one of the smaller desert dishes and grabbed for the small serving fork. “Sans, what do you want to try first?” you asked, pointing to the trays but look at Axe.

He blinked mutely before realizing your question was for him before he shrugged. You took that as his signal to load the plate up with a little of everything before prepping one of your own. You served Ax before yourself and melted at the taste of heavy chocolate.

“It’s soooooooo good,” you sighed with your eyes closed.   

“I’ll remember to pick some more up for the next time you drop by,” Sans said with a fresh pot of coffee already in his hand. He poured for himself a fresh mug and drowned it in creamer before taking up his seat at the table. “Ya could probably stand to put on a few more pounds looking the way ya do.”

“Shut up and pass me a cannoli,” you groused.

Papyrus and Paps were back at the table with their own mugs and party dishes to load up on sweets. Conversation lulled as another round of eating came and went. All throughout the dessert Axe had watched the interactions and movements between you and the other, prime brothers. Before you could reach for thirds he called out your name, starling you.

“…got a question for you.”

“Shoot, big guy,” you replied over the rim of your coffee mug, having stolen it from in front of Sans moments earlier. You take a sip and then smile when you realize the ‘coffee’ is really just hot chocolate with mini marshmallows puppies.

“…you’re not dating anyone, are you?”

You almost choke on your drink, coughing and beating at your chest to force the liquid down the right tube. Papyrus looked stricken and even Paps seemed surprised.

“Wh-what?” you coughed, eyes watering from effort.

“Yeah,” Sans nervously echoed. “What’s wi-with the question?”

You couldn’t face him head on but you couldn’t look away.

Axe blinked owlishly, gaze steady on you.“…i like you.”

“BROTHER!”

“…Paps likes you too but i asked first. so, ya got ah date mate yet?” Axe asked, boldly.

“Buddy,” Sans nervously chuckled, rubbing at his face. “I think we talked about-um, do you remember your first Q and A?”

“…yeah, i forget a lot but i remember that. ‘was just checking cause I wanted to be nice before asking.”

“Asking what?” you quietly echoed.

“-ta go out with me, peaches.” The larger of the two Sans nodded once and kept on staring, like it was the most casual thing in the world. “or at least consider keeping me as a casual thing if yer already seeing others, but that doesn’t seem to be the case now.”

“What makes you think that?” Papyrus nervously asked, wringing his gloved hands and watching the scene play out. “You haven’t even met all the others.”

He shrugged. “…a feeling.”

“Oh, wow,” you breathed, chest tight with an emotion you couldn’t name. “That’s…wow, um…no, I’m not seeing anyone right now, but things are sort of not the best for being-or for dating anyone. I don’t-um, uh I…” You flounder, unable to get the words out. “I’m flattered, really. Thank you.”

“but no thank you?” he teased casually with a smile that didn’t match the tone. It hurt your heart to see that expression and recognize it as hurt. But Axe recovered quickly, and he waved your worried whine off with a simple flick of his wrist. “no worries, was just getting it out there before i…missed tha’ opportunity. ya mind me asking where you stand with the rest of your bone friends?”

“Just friends,” Sans cut in, sounding embarrassed and near manic from the way he laughed it off.

There is a look shared between the two Sans iterations before Axe asks, “why?” with his eye light on you. “Is it cause no one’s said anything yet, or ‘cause ya ain’t interested in dating?”

When you glanced up to see how they were taking it, both Papyrus and Paps looked too orange faced and flustered to speak up. Their reactions only made you feel more nervous, but it was unfair to blame anyone but yourself for your feelings. You were among friends and the questions were worth answering.

“I’ve…dated before, in the past, but not had a lot of luck with it, mostly cause I was just an emotional mess who had no business sharing that with a partner.  So, I’m not opposed to it on principal, just…hesitant to pursue it. Not any good at it, I guess? ”

“-i don’t think there’s the issue of perusing anything if yer boys are drawing lots to decide who gets to cuddle with ya.”

“SANS! THAT WAS SHARED IN CONFIDENCE!” Papa blurted out, looking appalled while Papyrus made a sound between a moan and a squeak from behind his hands. Through the gaps in his gloves you could see the color of his magic shading his face a dusty orange.

Sans’ eye lights were gone and he looked mentally checked out.

“It’s fine,” you stage whispered across the table to where Papyrus sat. “I already knew about the chore chart.”

“It’s not a chore chart!” Papyrus moaned. He dropped his hands suddenly and faced you with a look of determination that contrasted with the lingering blush left on his cheekbones. “You are never a chore to be around! We adore you and always want to be the one next to you, that’s what the lots are for.”

Your heart burned in your chest and you knew it wasn’t because of your magic-that was gone. You felt his affection for you like a literal fire in your chest and it made you melt a little on the inside. Papyrus was so sincere. There was no way you wouldn’t be moved by such honesty. 

But before you could reply he interrupted you.

“I also like you, the way a date mate would.“

Paps squeaked, hands covered his mouth like he was scandalized at the development.

“But-” Papyrus went on, “I understand you are in a unique set of circumstances that might make you hesitant to start or enter into any type of relationship, but that doesn’t change how I feel about you. I’d like…I’d like the opportunity to spoil you.”

Paps glanced back and forth between you and his iteration while Sans sat, still checked out and blank faced. Axe chuckled and took another sip from his coco. “figures one of you would peep if i tried ta say anything.” He then nodded back in your direction. “how ya feeling, peaches?”

You weren’t sure what to say. You almost laughed at his question in an effort to answer it. “A little overwhelmed. Sorry?”

“Don’t apologize,” Papyrus rushed to interject. “It’s-I didn’t mean to make you feel overwhelmed. I don’t expect anything or want things to change, but I do want you to know you’re far more valued than you think.”

Axe glanced back from Papyrus to you before waving a hand to get your attention. “i still wanna date ya.”

“SANS!”

“-but realize that me and paps are still adjusting to life topside with…neighbors…friends that aren’t starving or trying to kill us, so I’m probably more of a mess than you ever were.”

“Then why did you ask all that?” Sans asked, snapping back to reality with narrowed eye lights turned towards his iteration.

Axe shrug, looking unbothered. “curious?”

You hear Sans curse under his breath and rub at his face.

“hey bub, it does ya no favors to cloak and dagger your way through life, the people who are gonna come in and mess ya up don’t make any bones about it, but your friends deserve your honesty.” 

Sans glanced your way and you wondered if he was remembering the way you both met so many months back and how you walked away wearing his bruises. Maybe he was remembering the distance he built between him and his brother. Maybe it was a combination of all of the above.

Sans was good at worrying.

“Well,” you spoke up, gaining their attention, “I’m still plenty flattered and…really honored to be thought of so highly. Thanks for sharing you vulnerabilities with me and understanding I’m still…not in a position to date. I still would like to hang out and do stuff together.”

You looked to Paps, not wanting him to feel left out since he was someone you would want to maybe garden with in the future. The town of Blackberry had tons of wild fruit you could show him how to harvest too.

“THAT WOULD BE LOVELY,” Paps softly answered, a dull citrus yellow light in his sockets glowing faint with emotion.

“Yes, I consider that ideal as well. I’m very happy when we get to hang out together,” Papyrus added.

Feeling a little more settled you reached for the mug of mostly cooled coco to sip from when Ax spoke up.

“…so does that mean the monster bits aren’t a deal breaker?”

Sans slipped out of his seat and Papyrus dropped his cannoli from numb fingers while Paps screamed out in frustration.

 

Notes:

I know these are weekly updates but the fic was written in advance when I had a lot of free time. Some times I could write a chapter each day or even multiple chapters in a single day, but then there were times when I got stuck and this is one of them. This chapter took almost 3 months to get finished and I had to revise it several times. So here it is-without the monster sex talk that ultimately got cut, lol.

The slow burn has burned slow enough, now we're gonna be talking about feelings before someone throws me in fanfiction jail! It's confession season.

Chapter 54: champion 11

Notes:

It's confession time!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Another day later and you were almost back to your usual sleep schedule. You were still sleeping in longer and later than usual, but you realized that was probably best for your body’s recovery. No one was blaming you for it, but it was bumming you out to constantly miss Papyrus in the mornings for his runs. You didn’t want him to think you were trying to avoid him after his confession at the dinner table.

Grillby had invited you come on over to see him and show off (prove) that you really were okay, but refused to let you pick back up work until you had another week of recovery. He had seemed concerned with how faint your magic felt, and you didn’t have it in you to correct him or tell him the truth to why that was.

There was no magic left in you for him to feel until Black could remove the spike in your soul.

After Black the next monster with the most experience handling human souls was Edge, but his trauma prevented him from being a support in the procedure outlined, so Sans was going to step in and serve as Black’s second.

“Human souls naturally detach when in void spaces or void magic,” Sans explained to you one day, even though he knew you were already aware of the fact. “So, that being tha’ case, I’ll be keeping some static void magic on your soul. If we could keep you in the void longer we’d preform the procedure there, but we don’t know how long it’s going to take or how long I can hold us all safely together.”

“Hint, it ain’t very long,” Red stage whispered behind his hand, earning for himself a smack upside the head by Sans. “Hey! Watch it, classic.”

“You can’t do much better,” Sans grumbled.

“I’m not saying I can, just dat it’s hard, okay?”  Red whined. “Doll face, look at how mean they’re being ta little ol’ me.”

“Who's house do you think you’re in, right now?” Sans scoffed, looking only playfully annoyed.

From across the table you met Stretch’s eye lights and smiled when he winked your way.

Instead of meeting up at Grillby’s, like you typically did on Saturday nights, Sans had ordered take out and invited you over with the invitation extended to Black the following Sunday night.

Papyrus was out, helping the horror-universe brothers with their television set. Sans had explained it to you later on it was all just code to get Papyrus over for a movie night with the brothers. Sans had been invited as well but this conversation came first.

You were secretly glad the topic of discussion had been your punctured soul and not the question Axe had asked you.

There was a knock at the door Sans got up to answer while you melted a little further into your seat, content to unwind after a long day of running around, checking in with friends and showing your face to enough people to prove you really were okay and not purposefully avoiding them.

The extra voice in the doorway made you pause. Beside you, Red looked up and scowled. “Stretch, what gives?” Red barked.

Twisting in his seat, Stretch looked backwards and waved to Blue who skipped in ahead of an agitated looking Black and Sans. “Oh, hey bro, I didn’t know you were escorting the lord here yourself. That’s cool.”

“I was not being escorted. One of us was invited, the other is an interloper,” Black fumed while stripping the black double breasted trench coat off his arms to hang.

Blue didn’t even bother with an extra jacket and you knew the only reason Black bothered was less because of the cold and more because of the style. Black was ridiculously well groomed compared to the others, with Edge being a close second.

“Hey Blue,” you quietly greeted from your seat, as chill as Stretch in welcoming the intruding skeleton.

You didn’t mind his presence even if the others got nervous about their brothers hearing anything about the resets. Even Red, who had shared everything with his brother, didn’t like talking about it on account of how it could sometimes trigger dark thoughts for Edge. You didn’t necessarily agree with the idea of exclusion, but acknowledged that sometimes people, and monsters, needed moments where they didn’t have to act like the big brother and hold themselves up to a standard or image constructed solely for the benefit of another. You weren’t about to mount that high horse with anyone.

“I decided to crash,” Blue announced triumphantly, hands on his hips.

“I invited him over,” Stretch elaborated. “Sorry, I forgot to mention that until just now, hope you don’t mind.”

“We’re talking about stuff,” Red grumbled, looking thrown for a loop.

“I know about the resets,” Blue chirped back, smile impossibly wide for the subject matter coming out of his mouth. “My brother and I had our soul to soul moment not long after getting to this world and he told me everything. Granted, most of it didn’t make sense until later, but I’m not as stupid as you all seem to assume just because I don’t have a damn PHD.”

“No, you’re just rude,” Black grumbled.

“And you’re bitter, just like your coffee,” Blue laughed sweetly, too spiteful to be annoyed by simple insults. He took a seat next to his brother at the table, across from you and looked your way, smile sagging when he noticed your disposition.

“It’s late,” you offered before he could ask.

You knew you were a little more haggard looking. Your hair was long enough to be messy and the shadows under your eyelids didn’t want to soften with sleep, no matter how much extra you napped during the day.

Instead of meeting his eye lights you looked away and pulled the extra long sleeves of your sweater over your hands to cover your too cold fingers. Sans had the heat on for you but everywhere was too cold it seemed.

“So, what is on the agenda for your clandestine meeting tonight?” Blue chirped, trying to brighten the atmosphere all on his own.

“Darlin’s soul,” Red muttered, having the decency to flush a little when Blue sputtered.

“The injury,” Sans calmly explained, flushing as well. “We’re brainstorming solutions, weighing pros and cons, that sorta thing.”

“What sort of pros and cons?” Blue asked.

Sans sighed heavily and eased into a chair at the head of the dining room table. “Well there’s really only two that come to mind, the pros and cons of leaving that spike alone, and the pros and cons of trying to take it out.”

“We’re removing it, that shouldn’t be up for debate,” Black argued, taking a seat at the opposite end of the table.

“That’s not to say we have to remove it right away,” Stretch said. “Why rush something so delicate. Honey should rest up a little longer and regain her strength before we try something like this. I advise caution. It’s not like we get a second chance if we mess up.”

Blue whispered to his brother from behind his hand while Black crossed his arms and turned away, unwilling to argue with Stretch.

“What ‘cha feeling bout all this?” Red asked, reaching over and grabbing for your hand under the table. You saw the way he flinched when he felt how cold your fingers were. He didn’t say anything about it, but he pulled your hand closer to his lap where he could rub it between both of his palms and make some heat via friction.

“I’d love to be back to normal, but I’ll admit to not looking forward to the actual procedure. Waiting might be a better idea, but I don’t know if that’s just my fear talking. I don’t know what’s actually best for me.”

“No one does. We’ve been trying to dig into our files for any clue as to what this thing is or how it works but turned up nothing,” Sans explained. “If we had more to go out we might know when is the best time to fix you up.”

“You said while you were there the androids and people ignored you after you got the spike, right?” Stretch asked.

You didn’t like remembering your time behind iron bars, but it was getting easier to talk about it. “Yeah, they never really acknowledged me. Why?”

“I don’t think there are going to be any major side effects then, if we leave it alone. Wouldn’t that make sense if they were not even bothering to monitor you with even the basics in surveillance? Plus, you haven’t experienced any pain from it unless it’s pulled out.” 

When you nodded Stretch leaned back in his seat and pulled out a candy sucker- honey flavored of course. “Then we shouldn’t mess with it until you’re feeling better.”

“I’m feeling better than I was when we first got back,” you said.

Red was the one that barked a laugh first. “That’s not hard, sweetheart. They really worked you over. You looked like shit-pretty shit, but yeah…you looked bad, but also good-just-just in a bad way.”

“Red!” Blue gasped, while Black glared daggers at the Underfell skeleton. Sans and Stretch just sighed, seemingly indifferent to the accidental slight.    

“It’s fine,” you chuckled around a yawn. “Nothing untrue with what he said.”

“Still…” Blue was still glaring openly down at Red while Black was a bit more subtle with his glower.

“Can you see if my HP has gone down or up since last time?” you asked instead, looking to Blue and then Sans, remembering which one had Judge privileges. “That should give us an idea of how I’m doing.”

“It’s better than it was, but you’re not at Max and that’s likely not gonna get fixed with the spike left in place,” Sans answered.

“But you think the spike is whats preventing a full HP bar?” you asked, hoping to clarify something.

“Most likely. It is what’s keeping ya soul from healing and closing up around that big ass wound,” Red explained quickly, sounding like he wanted to get a word in that wasn’t an unintentional insult. 

“That being established, let’s return to the root of this whole assembly and decide what to do next,” Black said, sounding impatient. “When should we attempt this and how should we proceed with it?”

“A week from now sound good?” Sans asked, looking at you first before glancing at Stretch.

“That’s doable,” you answered, reaching for Red’s hand again under the table. He felt shocked to feel your fingers wrapping around his but returned the gesture without question.

In a week you’d have to feel your soul pulled out again.

Black nodded approvingly. “That’s the first part, now the second…”

They went back and forth a little more after that, taking a break when you got up to fetch drinks. Blue insisted on making the coco with you and helped you carry it back into the dining room. The drinks helped ease some of the more agitated parts of the planning, but the boys still had trouble dividing responsibilities amongst themselves without you stepping in.

Black would lead the extraction effort.

Sans would provide the void magic to help ease your soul out more naturally.

Blue would be on standby to help heal you through the procedure, even though Black wanted his brother.

“Your brother isn’t here,” Blue quipped back with a teasing smirk that only earned him more glares from Black.

Red would be Black’s assistant since he could step in and replace Sans or Black if need be.

“I’ll have snacks for the afterparty and cuddles,” Stretch offered. The comment earned his some light chastisement from his brother and arguments from the others.

They way they reacted made you think about the last night you spent over at a skeleton’s house and the questions Axe raised. It was hard to miss the signs when they were right in front of you, no matter how much you wished you could. They were arguing right in front of you about how unfair it was that ONLY Stretch got to cuddle with you after all their work. You…really didn’t sound like a chore to them.

Would a week be enough time to sort out you feelings and address them with each of the brothers?

 

The boys got up to leave after the coco ran out, and you got up with Sans to bid them each farewell at the door. Sans had invited you over for a sleepover after bringing you back last night and you had joked about him winning a turn on the chore wheel.

“Lemme get an extra blanket for you before ya head off,” Sans said, blinking out and appearing in front of the linen closet outside the laundry room.

You crossed the empty space easily and leaned against the door, crossing your arms over your chest while he rummaged. “Will you bring it up to my room for me?” you asked.

Sans stilled in the closet. He glanced back over his shoulder at you, eye lights going fuzzy around the edges while he sweat beads of magic. “Paps… ain’t gonna be back tonight.”

You pushed off the wall and turned around to head up the stairs to the guest room decorated for you. “I know,” you called out over your shoulder.

A few minutes later there was a knock at your door and you answered it to find a very blue in the face skeleton with a couple of extra blankets in had. You opened the door and stepped aside to usher him in, closing the door behind him once he was in far enough. He flinched at the sound of the click.

“Ya…ya need a bedtime story?” he joked, looking at the bed.

“This wouldn’t be the first time you slept in the same bed as me, Sans.”

The blush only darkened. “Papyrus isn’t here and..and now you u-um…you heard about it… ya know.”

“The chore chart or the feelings you all seem to have for me?”

Sans covered his face with the blankets, leaving you to roll your one good eye and tug him by the arm to your bed. When you pulled the blankets out of his hands he was left with nothing to hide his face behind. You eye the mattress beside you while shaking the folds out of the extra blankets. Eventually, Sans climbed up and sat atop the covers, shoulders hiked and expression blank. He looked like he had checked out again.

“Can I talk to you about something while you’re here?” you asked, crawling under the covers.

“Shoot, princess.”

“Do you like me?”

Sans’ eye lights went out and you waited for him to collect himself. It took a while but when he noticed how you waited he managed to mutter out something simple. “Ye-yeah.”

“As in…like-like me? The wanna-date like me?” you clarify.

Sans reached up with his hands to cover his face and curse. You waited for him to process. Without dropping his hands he forces the words out, voice cracking. “Yes.”

“Same as your brother?”

Sans dropped one of his hands but covered half his face with the other. There was a dark blush over his cheek bone. “Ma-maybe not exactly the same but…date mate….yeah… just different…”

You pushed some of the covers back and sat up in bed. “How?”

“Ya gonna make me say it?” He looked to you with a desperate expression.

“Please?” you ask, as softly as you can, not wanting to unsettle him any further than you have already.

“It’s…not really my place to explain but…uh, hold on a sec.”

Sans stood up on the mattress and you felt the jolt before he was gone, a shortcut away. You jerked and turned, searching the room for him and seeing no sign. When you paused to listen, there was nothing for you to hear except the thrum of the heater somewhere deep in the house.

A minute passed and you started to worry. You were almost out of bed, ready to search the house for him when there was another crackle of magic as he reappeared-this time with Papyrus.

“Sans?” you called out hesitantly, one leg out from under the covers and ready to step down on hardwood should you need to make a complete exit from the bed.

“Sorry, had to grab my bro.” Sans gave you a shaky smile and you noticed the blush is still there on his cheekbones to match Papyrus’ orange flush.

“Papyrus, I thought you were in the middle of a sleepover. Um, I’m…not sure why you’re here?”

You notice that in place of his usual attire Papyrus is sporting a spaceship themed PJ set, complete with a floppy night cap that looked like a rocket with a fire trail made out of the tassel.

“Bro had to say it himself if he’s comfortable with it.” Sans cleared his throat and then nodded to the bed. “Wanna have that seat now, Paps?”    

You climbed back and scooted over to make room and Papyrus took a seat, crossing his legs, close to the center of the bed while Sans sat on the opposite edge, legs dangling off the side.

“I’m sorry to drop in like this,” Papyrus chuckled, “but Sans already explained why it was important.”

“Important?” you echoed.

Papyrus nodded, playing with his ungloved fingers. His blush grew darker as he laughed nervously to himself. “You remember my proclamation from last night? I expressed…some of my feelings.”

You nodded. “I remember.”

Papyrus glanced to Sans and then to you. “I’m still very much in love with you, but I might not be able to express that the same way most humans do. You have a label for it…ace?” he scratched at his fingers. “I want to be close to you, to hold you, to kiss you even, but…I’m not…what comes after that always made me want to run from any potential relationship. I flirted before with other humans but was always too scared of…of the implications and what came next. It’s more common amongst some monsters but…not so much with humans I take it.”

A few things clicked into place in your brain after hearing Papyrus’ confession. Chief among those was the though of ‘that makes sense.’ Not his being Ace-but his being embarrassed. There was nothing wrong with Papyrus but you remembered too much of what his media life was like. Almost every time he was on a late night talk show with a host the topic of his love life came up. Too many times he had to pose with scantily clad models (both humans and monsters) for a shoot. Rumor mills turned out story after story about him being involved with this monster or that human. Human media was hyper sexualized and after being in that sort of culture for so many years, of course he was going to feel out of place, but that wasn’t his fault.

You reached for his hands and held them in between yours. “You’re nervous,” you said. Slowly, you pulled his hands towards your lips and you kissed his knuckles. “I’m sorry you’re nervous. Don’t be…not here…not with me.”

“I…I still really do like you. I-my soul is always warmer when I think about you, I want to see you, you’re always in my thoughts when we’re apart!” Papyrus rushed to explain.

It broke your heart when you looked up and saw the tears in his eye sockets, leaking free. His hands were shaking in yours.

“I feel like I’m only real when you look at me and that all the rest doesn’t matter anymore,” Papyrus said. “I love you, I want to hold you and hug you and share kisses with you and take you out on dates and go to all the wonderful places on the surface once more just to see them with you. I really do love you. I do. Pleas-please believe me.”

When his voice cracked your heart broke. You reached up for his neck and pulled yourself into his lap, wrapping your arms behind his back and hugging him close.You kissed his jaw and squeezed him tighter. “Of course I believe you, of course. I’d never doubt you, Papyrus. You’re too honest and true. I know what your soul feels like.”

“I really do…love you,” Papyrus whispered, sounding so much smaller.

You pulled back just enough to see look up and see his face, catching his chin to turn his head back towards you. “Hey, look at me. You’re not anything less because you’re ace. You’re still wholly and fully capable of love and you are not any less for it. You’re still the vibrant, amazingly strong and wonderful skeleton who I know and love. Your orientation doesn’t change any of that or any of my feelings for you.”

“See,” Sans interjected with a soft voice. “I told you she’d say that.”

Papyrus smiled and laughed with a wet but happy voice. “Nyeh heh heh.”

You hugged him again and then slid off his lap before holding onto his hand again. You looked to Sans first and then Papyrus. “Let me say something. I…I know I care for both of you very much. I know I love you in a way. I-you’re my found family and I feel like I come home whenever I’m with you…both of you.” You paused to take a breath and lick your lips, feeling how dry they’ve gone. “But I don’t know if that’s a…a romantic love or if it is…how to-what to do with it. So, I’m not sure I can be a date mate or anything right now, but I don’t want things to change. I still love your hugs and cuddles and being with you guys.”

“Does it need to change?” Sans asked, rubbing the back of his neck. The longer he talked the quieter his voice got until it was little more than a mumble under his breath. “It’s…kinda like a date when you come over for movie night…just…less…ki-kissing.”

You thought about it and the mental picture wasn’t…bad. The more you thought about it the more you wanted to try. Kissing. It had been a long time since you last thought about kissing anyone, much less a skeleton without lips, but you weren’t opposed to the idea.

Except for one tiny detail.

“I think I love Blue and Stretch too, and Red and Edge and Black and Rus,” you blurted. You could feel how hot your face felt. “A-and maybe a little with Axe and Paps too, I-i’m sorry.” 

Papyrus squeezed your hand and you glanced up his way to see his brilliant smile, blinding in its honesty. “That’s perfectly alright! That just means you have an enormous heart and are very lovable. The great Papyrus would of course fall in love with the most lovable creature on the surface, nyeh heh heh!”

“Ah yeah, keep forgetting humans are like that…your species is a little behind the times with a few things, but they’re getting there. Ya remember Red and Edge’s family with Ma and Mini, how they had a man named Paul they were both with?” When you nodded Sans went on. “That’s pretty common with monsters, or at least it ain’t rare.”

“But we understand that you would feel uncomfortable with the idea of it!” Papyrus interjected.

“The idea of what?” you asked, struggling to wrap your brain around what you think they were trying to say.

“Sharing,” Sans cut in. “Ya and the rest of us, everybody ya just said.” 

“What!?”

“I mean…Axe made a point of it, but ya know me and my bro aren’t the only ones who like you and if you like us and them all back…it…makes sense to just…do it?” Sans gave you a look like he was the confused one and you were the one he didn’t understand. “Right?”

“Isn’t that like cheating though?” you asked, feeling a little dizzy. It sounded too easy and too good. There had to be a catch. There had to be a trick. You didn’t get so lucky. You weren’t supposed to have a happy ending. Growing up the most you could hope for was to go out in a blaze of glory and be remembered for it.

But…to be happy?

To be happy!

To love who you loved?

Could you?

“Not if you have the open communication and consent of all parties involved,” Papyrus quickly explained, voice vibrating with excitement. “AND-and it wouldn’t be much harder to get the others on board with the idea since they were all willing to share on the cuddle chart!”

Sans snorted and you glanced his way quickly to see him trying to hide his blush and smile behind his hands. “Shoot, Paps,” he giggled. “Let the human think it over first. Don’t want a mind blown on our hands.”

“Just-um, before it’s too late to ask…Papyrus, you mentioned being ace but how that’s different from everyone else. Does that include…you Sans?”

Papyrus’ blush wasn’t as dark as Sans’ but it was paired with a sly sort of smirk that made your gut flop.

“I think this is a conversation you can better have without me present. Sans, you promised a quick return, did you not?” He winked in your direction before crawling backwards off the bed. “You can hash out the dirty details once I’m gone, thank you very much.”

You reached for him and tugged him back just far enough to place a soft kiss on the corner of his jaw. You’re a little proud at the note of flustered surprise it earns you.

“Good night Papyrus, sweet dreams.”

He turned back around and kissed the side of your face, just as soft and sweet. “Sweet dreams to you as well, my dear. I’ll see you there.”

You waved, watching as Sans grabbed onto his brother’s arm and zipped out of space and time with a wink into the voice. A few seconds later the static popped and Sans was back, falling onto the opposite side of the mattress. He smiled your way and tried to appear as nonchalant as usual, but you didn’t miss the beads of sweat-magic collecting at the base of his skull.

“So…”

“Sew….a needle pulling thread?” Sans countered, echoing a conversation you had with Papys not too long ago. It earned Sans a giggle from you.

“So,” you tried again. “Papyrus doesn’t want to have sex with me but you do?”

Sans face went from pale blue to dark indigo and you watched as his eyesights winked out, leaving his sockets blank for not the first time all night. You gave him a few seconds before scooting closer and pinching at his hoodie sleeve. When he didn’t respond you tugged a little harder and called out his name.

“Sans?”

“-shit princess,” he wheezed, forgetting to pull the magic from his voice, “ya trying ta dust me?”

“Is it something that’s been bothering you? Is it worse if I ask to cuddle-”

“No!” he was quick to jump in and interject. “N-don’t think that, no it’s not like that. I’ve got complete control over my own urges and I would never let you feel unsafe or put you in a compromised situation or make it weird if you thought it was weird or-” he started to babble and trip over his words, sweating more.

You took pity on him and reached over to cup his face and kiss his cheek. Like magic, he quieted, posture going slack.

“I know. I trust you. I’ve trusted all of you for months now. I know you wouldn’t do anything weird or unwelcome about it when sharing a bed, but I’ll admit to thinking that was…mostly cause I didn’t think you…could do anything about it?”

Now it was your turn to blush.

Sans blinked and then his nervous expression morphed into something a little more shit eating. “Ah, so what you wanna ask, princess?”

“…Can you?”

“Can I what?”

You huffed, looking away and fighting down you blush before saying anything again. “Can you have sex with a human?”

“Ya want the verbal or the visual answer?”

You squeaked and pulled back sharply, falling back on the heels of your hands and rocking the bed while Sans laughed. “Sans!”

“Sorry, sorry. I’ll be serious. You know monsters aren’t nearly as uniformed as humans? Well more than one type of monster can use their magic to…customize the dirty bits if you get what I’m saying. Just like our tongues we can make whatever it is we need to match up with a mate-monster or human.”

Then to demonstrate Sans opened his mouths and wagged the bright blue tongue that was made with his magic in your direction. He dragged it over his teeth, slowing down over his canines while he watched you.

The implications made your brain as warm as your face.

“Oh.”

“More like wow, cupcake.” When Sans grinned again you could tell there was no more tongue. You almost missed it. “But I’m glad you're not grossed out about it or turned off. I know I ain’t the meaty hunk of the average human’s dreams. I was a bit afraid you might not even go for a monster bone friend.”

You snickered at his pun.

“It’s too late for your bad jokes-”

“My jokes are hilarious!”

“-Time to get to bed, bone-zo.”

You reached out and pulled him down with you, pulling the covers up over the both of you and snuggling closer. When Sans felt your initial shiver he was quick to pull down one of the extra blankets and tuck it up around you. You thanked him through a yawn and shivered once more before turning your head into the pillow.

“No problem, princess. Sweet dreams.”

 

Notes:

I'm a little late today so sorry for the delay, but I'm super happy that we're at this point in the story now! The slow burn is starting to blaze, people. There are CONVERSATIONS happening now. Someone dropped the S word and Sans was all but ready to whip out his noodle if needed. JK, jk.
But yeah, thank you for sticking with me all this time and hopefully you enjoy some of the conversations that are rolling out between these fun and feisty freaks.

Chapter 55: Champion 12

Summary:

The fell brothers take their turn~

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

In the morning you both rise a little later and drag yourselves out of bed to find something to eat. There are frozen waffles in the freezer you pop into the toaster while Sans finds the syrup and sets the table for the both of you.

You’re just sitting down when there is a crackle of magic, followed by a wildly grinning skeleton you both recognize.

“Red?” you say around a mouthful of waffle before swallowing. “What are you doing here?”

“Did your license get suspended for driving all these guys crazy or what?” he joked, shooting off his finger guns in your direction.

“Red?”

“Did ya guys talk already?” he asked instead, ignoring your question in favor of asking his. His grin was positively shit eating with the way it stretched across his face.

Your brain sputtered around the question, not quite understanding it. Across from you Sans went still as he understood it a second before you could. When Red saw Sans flinch and then blush it was like he had won the lottery. Red cackled in mad glee and reached for on of the kitchen table chairs to pull out and spin around to sit backwards on.

“I knew it, ya had that look to ya, doll face. You weren’t gonna take prisoners with this guy,” Red cackled.

You blinked hard but your voice still came out groggy. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but it’s really early and I only have two working brain cells at the moment so...”

“What’d ya talk to classic about last night, sweetheart?” Red asked.

You took another bite and tried to think back, remembering Papyrus and then what Sans said about sharing you…the chore chart…snuggles…oh!

You snapped your fingers and then pointed to Red. “How did you know I was going to ask him about it?”

Red laughed and Sans just sighed, holding his head in his hands as he sank down in his seat. “You couldn’t let me have one day-one morning before you gotta show up here like this, Red?”

“Look, did ya talk about your feelings or didn’t you?” Red asked. “I feel like I came up in conversation at some point so I wanna know all about it.”

“Not until you answer me first,” you said, pointing at him with your fork. The waffle slice at the end dripped maple syrup back onto your plate.

“Babe, I told ya I saw the look on your face before leaving last night. Classic here told me and the others about what Axe ‘had to bring up’ at your dinner on Saturday so…” he shrugged with a smirk. “I added it all up. A curious thing like you of course would have questions and let’s be honest, classic is an easy egg to crack open first. Just look at him blush.”

“Hey!”

“Probably still a virgin like that.”

“Why are you so crude? That’s not your business,” Sans complained, rubbing his face in exasperation from Red’s teasings. 

“Whatever, doll face, let me know any sort of questions you might have about monster kind or the dirty details you couldn’t get out of the marshmallow here. You wanna know how a poly pride works? I’m your skeleton. Lay it on me.”

“A pride?” you echoed, mind instantly skipping to lions in confusion.

“Yeah, it’s, okay, I’ll admit it is a bit of a dated term for the family units that have a pivot or central figure who is shared among multiple partners. It’s like a clan or a tribe or unit, but prides are specific to when there is sharing.”

“Oh, okay. That sounds cool,” you said absently, still trying to catch up so early in the morning.  You spiked another slice of waffle and drag it through the syrup before biting it off your fork. “You wanna sit down and have some breakfast with us first?”

Red blinked, looking like he was waiting for you to say something more, but after another moment of muted eating he cracked a grin and laughed. Red stood and reached to rub your shoulder and kissed the back of your head before turning into the kitchen where the waffles and toaster were.

You could hear him set up a couple for himself and then go into the fridge looking for mustard. Sans already had ketchup out on his. It didn’t take long for him to finish and find everything he needed to join you at the table.

“Normally,” Red called out from the kitchen, “I’m just as out of it this early in the morning, but I was wired as soon as I woke up for some reason.”

“You don’t say?” Sans sighed, looking annoyed.

“It’s a Monday. Why are you so excited?” you called back, glancing over your shoulder.

“Shoot, I almost forgot to mention it, Boss and I have a free today! It’s so rare we have the same day off but we were thinking of taking you out, doll. What cha say?”

You paused, one of the last pieces of waffle already on your fork. “I don’t know…is it your turn on the chore wheel?”

Sans laughed on his laugh and had to put down his fork to swallow water to clear his throat out again. You could see his shoulders still shaking with mirth even after the noise ceased.

“Babe, it ain’t a chore wheel, a-and that’s only for bedtime cuddles.” Red looked like he was pouting as he shuffled over to the table with his waffles and mustard, voice quieting the more he spoke. ”Besides, da stuff that happens in the day is fair game.”

You fight back the smirk. “Well, I didn’t have any major plans aside form a light grocery store run to stock up on supplies, but after that I’m free.”

Sans looked up from his empty plate. “What do you need?”

“I have a list at home, but it’s nothing major. I don’t make a lot these days since I’m sorta restricted to conventional cooking means until this magic block is figured out.” You waved your hands and pouted at the lack of flames.

“We got it covered, Classic,” Red teased, chuckling around a mouthful of waffle. “Me and Boss can chaperone.” 

“You’re the ones I’m worried about,” Sans grumbled.

Red wiggled his brow bones comically. “Why? You think we’re any worse than you?”

“I know it,” Sans said.

“Big talk for a paranoid bitty bones,” Red barked in laughter. 

“I think we’ll be fine.” To placate Sans you reached for his empty dish and stacked it atop yours to carry into the kitchen and clean. Red remained behind at the table, finishing off his own waffles while the water ran.

Sans looked between the two of you before deflating. “Well, it’s whatever you wanna do, princess, so knock yourself out. What da you have in mind, Red?”

Red looked up from his eating with his cheeks comically overfilled. He mumbled something but it wasn’t coherent until he swallowed. “What ya talking bout?”

“Like you haven’t been planning and playing with ideas for your first date for months,” Sans scoffed.

Second date. The first one was with Boss back before we all joined up and we went line dancing. Dang if the timing weren’t better, Black’s Grillby is setting up a place down from your Grillby that would be perfect.”

“What is he working on?” you asked, rejoining the pair at the table with a mug of warm tea.

“A night club!” Red cackled in glee. “He and the original flame stack got into a tiff about the name cause he can’t use his regular moniker for the place otherwise people would get confused, so he’s still tossing around ideas. I said he should go with ‘Rock Bottom,’ but he’s being unoriginal and going with something stupid that’ll appeal to more local folks. Said it wasn’t even a night club but a speakeasy, whatever that is.”

You remembered back to when you checked in with Grillby last and noted the absence of the other, darker colored flame elemental that was missing. You had meant to touch base with him after getting free to see how he was doing. You hadn’t spoken with him much but he had been there when you and the brothers made your initial escape attempt and he was a Grillby. You felt like you knew him better than you should.

“How is he doing, aside from picking out club names you don’t approve of?” you asked, glancing from Sans to Red.

“He’s as prickly as Black and doesn’t play well with others. Black and Mutt seem to like him enough,” Sans explained. “But that’s to be expected since they share a universe.”

“He’s a stuck up sonofabitch type, babydoll,” Red said. “He’ll been fine.”

“Speaking of fine-”Sans tried to say, only to be cut off by Red jumping up.

“That’s it, I have the best idea where to take you and the boss!”

Sans just cursed under his breath and sagged in his seat.

“How soon can ya be ready, doll?”

You made a sound and then sipped at your tea before answering. “I tired and I wanna drag my feet. Tell me what to dress for and I can be ready in forty five minutes.”

“I can take you home,” Sans said.

Red’s eye lights were fuzzy and spinning in their sockets. “Just dress in whatever you want, there ain’t a code to it. Can I pick you up in an hour at your place? It’ll take that long to get the boss ready.”

With an easy nod the plans were set. Sans got up from the table to grab onto your arm and pull you with him into the void. You ended tumbling out of the darkness, hand in hand with Sans, into your living room back home at the barn.

“Thanks,” you said, pulling away before thinking better of it and adding a simple peck to the side of his face. “I appreciate the ride.”

Sans made a small sound in the back of his nonexistent throat and covered the space your lips had touch with his hand. There was a light dusting of blue color across his skull. “You’re making me color, princess.”

“Good. Blue’s a nice color on you.”

Sans coughed and made a point of looking away. “Wh-what was it you said you needed more of in the kitchen? You have a list or something?”

“I’ll get it later, don’t worry about it.”

But Sans waved off your words and helped himself to your kitchen and pantry. You tried to follow him to stop him, but he shook off your attempt to get him our of your pantry with ease. He was strong when he wanted to be, maybe even stronger the you now that you were stuck with a magic blocking soul pin.

“Fine! If I give you a list of things will you leave my kitchen alone?”   

“Just wanna take care of you, cupcake,” Sans said with an innocent smile that was anything but.

With a huff you pulled off a paper that had been stuck to the refrigerator door with a Bob Ross magnet and turned the list over to Sans. He flipped it open and grinned at the contents. “Simple.”

“Please don’t. I can take care of myself. I’m not comfortable with you buying all my groceries for me.”

“You can make it up to me once you’re heathy and whole. You know I think your burgers are to die for, right? Make me up some once you’re better and I’ll be the enterally grateful one,” he said.

“Why do I feel like that’s still not equal?”

Sans leveled you with a look and sighed. “You have a unique ability that only you can do-”

“-And Grillby.”

“-And Grillby, yeah okay, but it tastes better coming from you because I’m in love with you and monsters taste intent in the food humans make, so only you, cupcake.”

You feel the heat on your face but it’s not overwhelming like it once was. You were acclimating to confessions and admissions of love, but you probably would never be used to them. 

“F-fine. Get the groceries, but I’ll be making dinner for both of us once I’m feeling better. Deal?”

“You don’t know how good I’m getting it,” Sans laughed, reaching for your hand to squeeze and then shake in agreement. He gave you a lazy sort of salute before turning around on his heel and shortcutting away.

With nearly an hour to yourself you took a not-quite-quick shower (using up all the warm water) and blow dried your hair until it was fluffy and warm, shivering the whole time as you remembered how poorly insulated the converted barn really was. It had never bothered you before, but now, without your magic, everything was so much colder.

Your teeth were chattering so hard you could hear them as you rushed to dress in something warm. Fuzzy socks and boots were a must, paired with dark jeans, a dark long sleeve high neck, scarf and jacket. You stepped outside to feel for yourself how warm it wasn’t and cursed the loss of your magic for not the first time.

“Looking for me sweetheart?” you turned and saw Red, looking as pleased as ever.  Edge was still walking up the flagstone pathway, dressed impeccably as always.

“Aren’t you early?”

“Nope, 45 minutes on the dot…wait…”

You chuckled and waved him inside so they could wait indoors while you filled up a water bottle and grabbed your things.

“Sorry for rushing you, Boss,” Red chuckled as he and Edge both stepped in.

“It’s fine,” Edge said, sounding a little different.

You turned away from the sink and saw Edge still standing on the indoor door mat, hands behind his back. He was wearing his best leather jacket, a red turtleneck to match Red’s, black skinny jeans and darker black boots with lifts. There wasn’t anything especially off about his appearance but…something wasn’t adding up. Edge normally helped himself to your kitchen or went where he pleased, but he was still stuck on the mat, looking lost.

No, not lost.

Nervous.

You coughed to draw their attention and stepped over, screwing on the lid to your water bottle as you went. “So, um, I’m still not sure where we’re going, but I’m glad to be with the both of you. Thanks for coming Edge.”

Red perked up, glancing over his shoulder at his brother and then at you before stepping off to the side, hands stuffed deep in his pockets as he fought back a sly sort of smile. Edge didn’t notice since his attention was nervously fixated on you.

He shifted but didn’t draw his arms out from behind him. “You and my brother spoke this morning. He…relayed the subject matter adequately but it is my hope to communicate my thoughts and feelings personally.” Edge pulled out from behind his back a small bouquet of dark pink Peonies in the middle of booming. “Would you like to be my date mate?”

You reached for the flowers but didn’t take them before answering. “And you’re okay with me, like I am? I can’t be, I’m still-I have feelings for the others too.”

Edge pressed the flowers into your hands. “I don’t think Paul loved Mini any less than he loved Ma and I don’t think either of those ladies loved him less because they had each other. Love is not a finite thing.” His smile stretched and it looked so good paired with the light dusting of color high on his cheekbones. “But to address your question more clearly, yes, I am more than ‘okay’ with you the way you are.”

Your blush was so much worse, you could tell by how hot your face felt. You were cold all over but your face was burning up as you reached for his flowers. “Thank you,” you laughed, feeling light all over. “I’ll just…um, I’ll go put these in water. They’re so pretty.”

When you turned around Red was there with a vase already filled with water and a smile so wide it could break his face in half. “Need something?” he joked.

“Gosh what have I gotten myself into with you two?” you laughed.

You set the flower up in the water and set them on the table in the center where they would get a good deal of natural light. It was beautiful but it also made the table feel so much lonelier.

“I do want to have this sort of talk with the others. I talked to Sans and Papyrus last night and you guys today, but I also need to hear it from the Stretch and Blue and Black and Rus that they’re okay with it, as well as Paps and Ax. That’s…I feel like that’s a lot.”

“Eh, that ain’t nothing doll face. Ya shoulda seen the prides they were forming up and down in the underground like ours. It was more of a safety thing and less romantic but-”

“-But what matters is how you feel for each of us and how we feel for you,” Edge interrupted, a hand on his brother’s shoulder wrinkling the fabric in warning. “Anyone can establish a pride with any number of partners from the committed to the casual. What makes it a family is how you feel for one another and how you respect and love them. Ma’s and Mini’s pride with Paul was very different from the ones we saw for not only their size but their commitment to one another."

“You think it’ll be okay?”

“Are ya worried about what the others will say?” Red asked, sounding worried.

“If they were willing to share cuddle times respectfully this should be nothing but the natural progression and I’m sure Stretch and Rus predicted this while Black and Blue hoped for it,” Edge explained. “What you might have trouble with is the new arrivals.”

“You got pretty close to the pair of them, didn’t ya?” said Red. When he saw you expression he chuckled and nodded along. “They should be fine, it’s the Tyrant that I’d be worried about.”

“Black doesn’t appreciate the monicker,” Edge admonished.

Ignoring his brother’s reprimand Red went on. “He’s kinda hung up on the ‘eating kids’ part now that he’s a daddy, like a god old hypocrite. But aside from that they were never a part of the chore chart you are so fond of mentioning.”

“I think they’ll be fine. They’re both easy going if what Papyrus has said is anything to go by, and humble enough to be satisfied with reality. Though they are still adjusting to their new freedoms,” said Edge.

You nodded and glanced back to the table where the flowers were so beautifully arranged.  “I am thankful for the insight. I didn’t really look any of this up or read anything yet so I’m still sorta lost but, I’m looking forward to trying this out. But,” You looked away from the flowers and back at Edge and Red, biting your lip. “But could this be a-a friend date until I’ve talked it over with the others? I want to have this discussion and talk it out with them each before putting a label on it. I appreciate the insight but I need to hear it from them.”   

You shouldn’t have been so surprised by their matching smiles. Red had seemed so eager to go on a ‘date’ with you, but he didn’t look the least bit disappointed while his brother seemed perfectly relaxed with the request.

“Of course, babe, anything you want. I gotta remember you’re still new to all this as a human,” Red said. “Sorry if it it seemed like I was rushing ya, that’s my bad. I’ll pump the breaks.”

“And a friend date is still a date. It is never a downgrade so long as we get to be together,” added Edge. “Of course the human I fell in love would be this considerate.”

You laughed, covering your face with your cold hands to help warm them up from the blush that cooked your face beat red. Edge was unabashedly one of the coolest guys to ever speak words ever. You hoped you’d grow a little more accustomed to it but knew from experience, he’d probably always be able to fluster you somewhat.

 

The ‘friendship-date’ started with a tour of their freshly furnished house where Edge got to show off all the end tables and cabinets he had fashioned himself. More and more you saw the evidence of his skill and care for the craft. He had also salvaged a set of tree stumps that were longer that the span of both your arms to cut into end tables for one of the couches in the living room. When you looked closer you saw the burnished bronze and gold streaks of rein he had worked into the wood before finishing them off.

Red was content to hang back and let his brother show off all the wonderful details he had installed or constructed since the last time you had visited. You recognized the look of pride all other brothers got when speaking or commanding the traits of their younger brother.

In the downstairs bathroom (that neither brother really needed), Edge had torn up the floor and laid down colorful Italian tile to complement the hand crafted sink cabinet and water chest that stood above the toilet that did work, ‘in case a human visitor should ever come to visit,’ Edge blustered.

“Almost all these doors are custom made too,” Red interrupted, knocking on the door to the bathroom. “Get a load of these bad boys, they’re the real deal. All I did was pick out the rugs.”

“What rugs?” you asked, stepping out and looking around the hallway for what he was talking about. When you didn’t see any you looked his way and scoffed at his ‘too big to be innocent’ smile.

“I’ll spare you the drudgery of a tour of our bedrooms, but there is one more room we need some help with, and when I say we I mean I need help with, as you can see.” Edge scoffed easily and gestured towards the stairs at the back of the house. Red took off first and you followed him up the stairs to the loft.

Edge had to duck unless he stood in the center of the room, thanks to the A frame shape of the house, but the corners had already been filled with more custom low style cabinets that matched the only other piece of furniture in the room.

“Did you make the frame for this too?” you guessed when you saw the large California king sized bed already set up with a mattress still in its plastic.

“All the furniture,” Red proudly boasted. “What ya think about this bed? Ain’t it just ta die for?

Instead of answering you jumped onto the mattress and made it halfway across before landing face down on the plastic laughing. You rolled over and wiggled until you were in the center and sat up. “It’s big enough to drown in.”

“Perfect,” Edge chuckled, sounding only mildly exasperated by your subtle punning. “But it still lacks proper decorations. The whole room is themeless.”

“That’s what we needed your help with, sweetheart,” Red said. “You wanna hit the next town over and help us pick out decorations like you said you would 15 chapters ago?”

“There’s an antique shop here in Blackberry I’d like to stop in at after we pick out some bedding and rugs,” Edge said, glancing around the room.

“It looks like it has a good start so far.” You rolled off the edge and popped up. “And I’d be happy to help.” 

“It’s still too bare in here. What about a daybed, maybe something to take up the space here?” Edge asked.

“We can check it out when we get there,” Red said, raising his hands and gesturing for the both of you to huddle close.

A shortcut later the three of your were standing outside a knockoff IKEA furniture and bedding store that was big enough to live in. The whole trip started off very well. Red grabbed on of those hand scanners for pick up purchases while Edge pushed the cart for smaller purchases. You found a comforter set and sheets to match early on, but the other items on your list got pushed back in favor of you an Red joking about the different show rooms by trying to picture the different monsters and people who would live in such places.

“I’m a manhattan lawyer that doesn’t cook or use my kitchen ever, so that’s why there’s no cabinet space and three miles of countertop,” you teased in a low, gravely voice that had Red leaking tears of mirth while Edge gasped at how dysfunctional the kitchen was for someone who actually cooked.

Red crossed over to the showroom closet and twirled with a display dress. “My husband is the Manhattan lawyer the doesn’t cook or look at me anymore unless I’m wearing something completely different, so that’s why I need three bedrooms for all my shoes.”

“Don’t mock the variety of women’s footwear!” Edge fumed.

“I’m going to a fancy collage and my parents are paying for it so it’s okay if I flunk four out of five classes a semester,” you teased from one of the college dorm showrooms that was too well decorated for someone at that stage of their life. You would know, you looked into trying it out once you were free from the Embassy and there was no way you could survive alongside that debt.

“I’m a soccer mom,” Red squeaked out, hands on his hips as he stood in front of a sign in the showroom kitchen that read ‘mom life is best life.’ “But I don’t really have kids, they’re all just kid shaped android robots, as you can see by the lack of mess!”

“The two of you are terrible,” Edge said from the middle of the showroom, looking like he was caught between tired and tickled pink.

You took that as your cue to move on to carpets.

A couple of hours later you were standing in the loading area with Red’s scanner, waiting for the employee to find the box for one of the daybeds you liked in a different color.

“Do you need help loading it into your car?” one of the workers asked, rolling it out on a cart.

Red leaned over and picked the day bed up and rolled it into his shoulder, holding it like it weighed a tenth of what it really did. The employee looked on in mute shock. 

“Nah bud, I’ve got it. Have a good one.” Red then reached for your hand and you grabbed onto Edge on a reflex and the next thing you knew you were in the guest room back at their house. Whistling absently, Red rolled the daybed off his shoulder and set it down with expert care, tilting it just enough to make it straight with the bed.

“We’ll reload, chow down, and then visit that antique place, Boss likes. How that sound to you?” Red asked.

You dropped off the comforter and sheets down on the bed while Edge set down the rug and bag of goodies. “That sounds appropriate. It’s noon so Helen will be on her lunch break, and I’d like to make my purchases with her there so I get that discount she offered.” 

“You know the owner?” you guessed, looking to Edge.

“I’ve helped restore some of her less ascetic pieces so I get a discount as long as she’s working,” Edge explained. “She’s nice, reminds me of Ma and Mini a little bit-”

“-If they ever had offspring that was as old as them,” Red finished with a cackle. 

Edge made you both lunch sandwiches while you helped Red squeeze the last of the late summer lemons for fresh lemonade. It had warmed up so the three of you ate on the back porch. You could see the fire pit from last time but also noticed the stone foundation set for what looked like a shed or guest house of some sort.

“If Ma and Mini come to visit,” Edge explained when he noticed your stare.

“Yeah, we need a place for them that’s not all up in our grill,” Red said, reaching for some of the fruit that Edge brought out to pair with the sandwiches. “They said they wanted to visit at some point. It’s been months.”

Edge huffed, chin raised stubbornly. “I can have the guest house finished in a fortnight.”

“Sure, sure,” Red said, picking up an apple and then replacing it with a pear.

“Why don’t you just have them stay upstairs in the guest room?” you asked.

Edge sighed while Red barked a startled laugh, turning to face you. “Cause they don’t have the same sense of privacy and still think they’re wild bearcats in heat. Thanks but no thanks.”

“Oh stars,” you gasped in giddy embarrassment. “Aren’t they like…old?”   

“Please don’t ask anything that makes me think,” Edge pleaded, grabbing the pear from Red and biting into it.

Red shrugged and picked up a banana. His eye lights went fuzzy, almost like they were going to turn into stars before he turned to you and waved the fruit in your face. “Babe, babe, look. Are you a banana because I find you a peeling.”

“Weak sauce,” Edge grumbled. “That came out of nowhere! Where was the build up?”

Red ignore his brother and leaned on the table, smirking in your direction, encouraged by your pity giggles. “Do you like vegetables, because I love you from my head tomatoes.”

“Sans!”

“Are you craving Pizza? Because I’d love to get a pizz-a you.”

Nyahhhhh!”

You ended giggling all the way to the antique shop, which was only a handshake and a skip away. It was a cute little brick exterior place not too far from Grillby’s in the older downtown district. A few store fronts down there was a vacant building or two but the sidewalks were clear and clean and there were enough people loitering around to look like it wasn’t in danger.

Edge held the door open for the both of you and as soon as you stepped in you could spell the age. It wasn’t a bad sort of smell, like the way dust was, but aged leather, ink, lavender, and so many other things you couldn’t name made you feel small and young all over again. You wondered very briefly if you had ever been exposed to anything similar before you ended up at the orphanage with your brother. 

“It’s nice,” you explained when you saw the curious expression Edge had on his face for you. “I can see why you wanted to come here.”

“Is that Sal’s boy Edge?” a voice from the back called out.

Sal was the foreman who worked the lumber yard with Edge as his boss. At the sound of her voice Edge chuckled and stepped up to greet the gray haired lady in spectacles and Van Halen band tee under her knitted cardigan. She had seven out of ten fingers decorated in rings and a white quarts crystal around her neck.

You turned away with Red to explore while Edge caught up with Helen. At one point when you came back around to the front the pair of them had cups of tea and were gabbing just as steadily as they first had when you walked in.

“You bean, look at you, hitting an old thing like me up when you came with friends!” Helen gasped when she caught sight of you and Red through the clutter of her shop. Red snorted at your elbow before moving with you to greet the older woman.

“Hello Helen,” Red greeted with a lazy wave. You waved as well but stepped up next to Edge to greet the shop owner. It didn’t take long to notice what Edge liked so much about her. If Ma and Mini had been fused the result might have been Helen. She was sweet and kind like Mini had been, but there was an edge and bite to her words sometimes that reminded you of Ma.

“It’s good to finally have a face to bring up for the next time this string bean mentions your, kiddo,” Helen chuckled with a knowing look. “Feel free to explore as long as you want. It looked like you were caught by the sparkles earlier. I’ve got a couple of floor girls who can also help you out if you need any questions answered.”

“There’s a lot of unique treasures with history worth digging for,” Edge added. “It’s almost like a puzzle, trying to find the right thing that speaks to you.”

“You should know, you’ve found some of my best pieces,” Helen cackled.

“Don’t say it like you’re angry about it,” Edge scoffed. “You made your money.”

“Don’t get cheeky with me, skeleton boy.”

“Not likely, as you can see, I don’t even have cheeks!”

Red almost choked on his laugher as he hid behind you, ducking his head and crouching while his whole body shook in mirth. You grinned as well, happy to hear Edge getting along so well with one of the locals. The pair of them sounded like two peas in a pod and that thought filled you with warmth. You felt so happy to see Edge, a dedicated and sweet skeleton who had been through his fair share of hell, getting along with another in such a personal way. When he joked back and forth with Hellen he seemed less like the fierce, underfell captain of the guard and more like someone’s little brother.

Red’s mirth and happy tears took on a new meaning as the revelation hit you. You were seeing Edge being himself, unfiltered, and you were easily in love with him for it.

“I’m glad we came here,” you whispered back over your shoulder to Red.

“It’s kinda the best, aint’ it?” he chuckled back, sounding both proud and delighted at the same time. You didn’t doubt that’s what he was feeling. It was hard to find a brother who was more proud of his baby bones brother than Red was of Edge. You knew the pair had gone through a lot together and Red had weathered the storm as best he could to keep both of them afloat.

The memory of Edge breaking down and disassociating in the hallway was a fading memory. You felt it leave your mind only to be replaced with the Edge you saw in front of you, one who was open and honest and energetic.

“The best,” you whispered back before following him down a new corner of the shop.

You reached for his hand and Red squeezed it before turning around to look back at you, reacting to the touch of you like some old instinct. You had been cold for a while but Red's phalanges had enough warmth to share some with you.  

"Man," Red breathed, stopping in a section filled with dressers. "I must be in a museum or something." 

"Hmm?" you hummed, glancing about the banged up furniture. Some pieces were pretty but you wouldn't think that-

"Cause you're such a work of art," Red interrupted our thoughts with a sly grin and blush that had you in stitches in no time.  

"Babe, you want to see a picture of a beautiful person?"

When you looked up Red had one of the mirrors on a dresser pointed at you and that was all it took to dissolve into giggles that he caught up in his arms and cradled close.

For it’s size, you spent almost as long in the shop, as you had in the Ikea knockoff store. You spent a good chunk of that time chatting up Helen and the other sales ladies, listening to them go off on the history of the town of Blackberry and the people who lived and died there as well as the most current local gossip. Edge seemed intimately caught up on the most recent developments which you thought was hilarious.

Eventually he broke away from Helen to mingle with you and Red, scouring the cluttered corners of the shop that seemed to go on forever. You found the stairs to the second floor open to guests and followed it to even more floorspace reserved for paintings and wall decorations. There was a back corner for lamps and lights you ended going through too.

There were a couple of hanging crystal laps that looked like the came from the 1920’s or the turn of the century when electric outlets were still a thing reserved for the rich. You ended up running your fingers through the strung crystals, making rainbows on the wall behind you when they hit the stray sunbeams.

“Ya like that?”

You looked up, hearing Red over your shoulder, close enough to touch if he reached for you. His voice was lower, soft enough to not disturb the silence you could feel all around you.

“I liked the way it reflected the light. I think I was just playing with it though. Don’t you think it’s a bit fancy for the room?”

“What matters is what you think.” Edge said. He looked over the lamp and then turned around, making a noise of surprise.

You looked to Red first before following Edge down the stairs. Behind the staircase, hanging from the underside steps, there were a number of hanging mobiles. Edge found one with different colored pieces of glass and crystals. He unhooked it and held it up for you to inspect.

“What do you think of something like this to hang above the bed from the ceiling?” he asked.

In the loft area there was a  pair of wide sky lights that let in a heavy slab of light every morning, noon, and early afternoon before the sun traveled too far to reach that side of the house.  It would look perfect, hanging above the bed in between the two skylights and all the crystal colors were ones that matched.

From his hand the mobil shifted a little and the crystals clinked against each other, making something at the base of your brain stem shiver in content joy. It was…familiar or nostalgic in a way you couldn’t explain since for as far as you could tell, you had never seen or owned anything like it before.

Maybe from before the orphanage?

If you tried thinking about it you could almost remember something about a massive oak tree with far reaching branches weighed down with different glass bottles in a rainbow of browns and green and blues. There were a few orange glasses too, tinkling in the wind whenever a breeze rustled the tree and her burden.

Hadn’t that just been a dream?

“It’s perfect,” you said, swallowing back the images in your brain you couldn’t trust or believe in. “It looks like it belongs there.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Edge agreed, handing it over for you to take. “The room deserves a signature piece and we couldn’t have found a better one anywhere else.”

The three of you checked out with Helen, listening as she explained where the piece came from, who crafted it, when he had died, and why he was important enough to be worth remembering. The lady knew her history and you were impressed with how easily the facts came rattling off her lips so coherently.

She seemed so smart.

Red smiled and nodded along, but you knew that glazed look in his eye lights well enough to know he was tuned out and waiting for his signal to leave.

Not much later you were back at the house, helping Edge hang the mobil while Red took a nap on the daybed, snoring loud enough to hear over your own giggles when Edge made a remark about Red’s ‘sawing wood’ skills being useful at the mill.

Together the pair of you fit the bed with its new sheets, comforter, and pillows. There was the rug you needed to roll under the day bed, which Edge helped you with dash of blue magic. Red never stirred, even as the afternoon sun started to dip, leaving the edge of the west most skylight.

“I should start heading home,” you said when you noticed.

There was still a couple of hours of good daylight left, but you wanted to walk back before the temperature dropped with the darkness.  Since Red was out and the barn house wasn’t far it made sense to hoof it.

“I’ll walk you,” Edge offered.

You scoffed. “It’s just through the woods. It doesn’t make sense to walk me all the way there and then back here.”

Edge looked you over and then reached for your face, on of his gloves missing from his hands. You felt his finger bones on your flesh and closed your eyes to better remember the sensation for later. His phalanges ran over your face and then pulled away. “You’re not fevered, but I don’t want to let you out of my sight. You exhausted yourself today and you’re still recovering.”

“I’m recovered. I’m fine Edge.”

He said you name and it sent shivers down to your toes. There was a coil in your gut that wound tighter at the simple sound. It was only your name but you felt so many things with that simple word. Edge, you intimidating bad boy skeleton monster friend, could be painfully soft for you and it make you weak.

“I’ll be fine,” you managed to make out.

“You’re too precious to risk. I’m walking you back.” With a note of finality Edge pulled another jacket off the wall hook and wrapped it around your shoulders. That’s when you noticed you had been shivering. Edge’s jacket swallowed you, but it was warm and heavy and smelled like him.

“Fine,” you relented, not really hating the escort.

You walked with him outside and down the path, sticking close as the natural mulch and forest foliage crunched underfoot. It was a good twenty five minute walk if you kept to your leisurely pace before you could see the farmhouse in the distance.

“Will you let me go here?” you teased, stopping at the edge of the tree line.

“Begrudgingly.” Edge reached for our hand again and smiled easily when you offered it to him wordlessly. “Thank you for joining us today. I’m so grateful I’m your friend,” he said, voice soft for you.

“Just a friend?”

“There is nothing ‘just’ or mediocre about friendship. You’re a treasured person. The only thing that I predict changing in the future is being able to court you properly, but I will never stop being your friend or care for you less.”

“…Maybe it’s a monster thing,” you said.

“What is?”

“Humans usually feel like friendship is a step down from romantic partnerships. It’s not always desirable if you have romantic feelings for that person.”

“Humans are really missing out, then. Friendship is no consolation prize.”

You felt a bud of warmth in your heart, a welcome change from the cold that had numbed you all day long. “You’re too sweet for me, Edge.”   

Edge blushed but ducked his head and leaned in closer. “Then forgive me for a stolen gesture but, I fear I’ve failed my noble intentions.” He tilted his face just enough for his teeth to press up against the crown of your skull and you heard the sound of a kiss before he pulled away, face bright with color. “Thank you for today.”

You jumped up onto the tips of your toes and reached the bottom of his jaw with your lips, returning the gesture. “Thanks for walking me back, I had a lot of fun. We’ll do it again sometime soon.”

“NYEH,” Edge expressed, a hand over his face to hide his smile and the darkening blush. It made you laugh to see him so flustered. On that note you took of, jogging the rest of the way home.

 

 

Later that evening you got a text from Blue asking if you were in the mood for a pair of cuddle buddies. You texted back an affirmation before saying you had something to talk to him and Stretch both about.

There was an unusually long pause while you waited for Blue’s response but it came in all caps about how they would be there as soon as they both finished up with work!

You didn’t doubt Stretch would suspect what the topic would be about with all his keen observational skills, but Blue seemed to be on the up-and-up as well. That was good. It would be easier to bring up the subject.

You cleaned up, putting away a couple of food items Sans had left out for you to snack on after dinner with the kids and the brothers. Inside there were a few glass bottles of tea and juice that made you pause.

There was a tree-

Your brain hurt but the memory persisted, cleaving its way into your skull.

There was a tree decorated with glass bottles. There were so many brown and so many green, but there were blue and orange ones too. There were clear ones as well and they all sounded the same when the wind moved them.

You remembered the tree and how it seemed to stretch on forever and ever.

You remembered Raven too. Back then he had been called something else but you couldn’t remember that far back.

The back of your mouth went tangy with a bitter taste but you were out of rock candy.

Like the image was something you could step into, you saw your toddler brother turn to you under the tree, eyes unnaturally wide and missing nothing. The space on his forehead split and a third eye rolled into place.

“I can’t do this right now,” you whispered to his image. “Don’t look for me. I don’t have my magic.”

“I need to find you. It’s important now.”

You couldn’t see your kitchen anymore but you felt it. You staggered out, grabbing for the handle to the door and then there was flagstone and grass under your feet. You stumbled away from the house and the barn.

“Raven, stop. You can’t do this now.”

“You’ve been hiding from me. I couldn’t find you all this time.” The smaller version of your brother with three eyes turned towards you and reached. There were black feathers trailing off his elbows.

The tree above you tinkled as the leaves and branches shifted with wind. You looked up and saw the branches heavy with black birds, sagging the branches under their weight. More of the bottles clacked together as you waded through the tall grasses.

You were sick in your chest and it spread throughout your body, worse at the places where you knew you still had vents for your magic.

“Raven,” you warned, bracing against the pain. “Don’t try it. You can’t find me right now. I-”

“It’s important. I need you now.”

“You can’t-”

“They’re trying to-”

“-My magic-”

“I’ll come to you-

“Raven!

”-together we can-”

“Stop!”

But it’s too late and you feel it. Across the world Raven had a piece of your soul and he pulled on it. You screamed as yours detached violently and rested above your chest, dripping determination like blood out of an open wound.

The illusion shattered and you see the dusk sky for what it is as you fall into the grass and burn as your soul is split open. 

 

Notes:

You thought this was going to be smooth sailing, didn't you? It was a pretty fun chapter with Red and Edge up until that last moment. This is the last chapter in the Champion arc before the next arc-so if you wanna take a guess what that might be go ahead.

I'll be taking a week off sometime soon, as much as I don't want to I've been struggling with some health issues and I think one weekend where I don't open the laptop and look at more blue light through a migraine might help. But I'm determined to keep the weekly updates going until the 1 year anniversary, so mid September.

Thank you lovelies, stay safe!

Chapter 56: Young & Menace 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Woke up on the wrong side of reality
And there's a madness that's just coursing right through me
And as far as the time, far as the time
Not sure I'm there yet but I'm certain I've arrived, yeah

Young And Menace
FOB

 

Rus felt the magic first and went out, wondering who it was who had come to visit you, since Blue and Stretch weren’t back yet. He saw you, making your way across the field. You were too far away to hear but there was nowhere to go and you were missing your jacket. You had been cold constantly since coming back and he knew with the sun setting the outside world was too cold for you dressed like that.

You said something, he could almost hear it and then there was a light as your soul forcefully detached. You screamed the same moment Rus screamed your name and went running to catch you. Without his ability to shortcut he got to you as parts of your body started to burn and turn black with magic.

Above your chest your soul hovered like a spiked heart, sagging under the wound and leaking determination. There were greater fissures compared to the last time he saw it and he almost sobbed at the deep cracks that were splintering out from around the spike.

“shit, shit, shit,” he muttered under his breath, covering you in his jacket and picking up to carry back. Your HP was falling, staggering down into the single digits even as he tried to heal you while he ran with you in his arms. It stopped your HP at 9 but he couldn’t get it any higher.

sans!” he screamed, voice full of magic as he shouted, not caring if the kids woke. Sans would be mad but-

8HP

He stopped short when Sans shortcut into the space between the barn and the house, turning and seeing Rus. There was a scowl on his face that fell away as soon as he saw your state. Rus was still pouring healing magic into you but he couldn’t get you back up over 8HP

“WHAT HAPPENED?”

“i just saw her like this, she was out walking and saying something then her-her soul just-oh stars sans it’s not healing what do i do?

Black’s eye lights flickered between crimson and purple, but he seemed to regain some control over himself as he gestured to the ground, kneeling there.

“Down, set her down. We’re out of time, this needs to be removed now. Control your voice, it might be aggravating her condition.”

Rus swallowed his curses and knelt in the grass, pulling back his jacket to better focus on healing you up. Your HP slipped from 8HP to 9HP to 8HP again, but he could feel it wanting to fall back down. The second he pulled away it would plummet.

“Dad, Rus?” Black looked up at saw Tron, their oldest, in the doorway . Tron’s eyes were fixed on the floating exposed soul, dripping determination around the wound. “What happened to her heart?”

“It was damaged. We need the help of Stretch. Text him to come over and bring his brother. Call if you can,” Black answered easily, sounding too much like the captain of the royal guard he once had been.

Rus felt like he was falling apart at the seams but his brother was as cool and calm as ever. For a split second Rus wondered if Black even cared before he banished the thought. Black cared more than anyone would ever know. As private and as guarded as he was, he was vulnerable and soft for so few, and no one like you. Black was just suited to these sort of situations in a way Rus never would be. 

“Papyrus,” Black called out, drawing Rus’ eye lights. “Keep a steady stream of magic going. She’s falling because of the intervals. Steady, you can do it, you know how. You’re good at healing magic, far better than I ever was. Steady, like that. Good, it feels like her soul is stabilizing. The external stress is gone too.”

“What do you mean, external stress?” Rus asked. “What was that? What did this?”

“I don’t know. It’s not as important as getting her soul back together. It’s splintering, Papyrus-”

“I got it!”

The stress fractures were cracking from the center outwards in every direction, sometimes cracking deeply and sometimes branching off to create deeper fissures with pre existing cracks. Rus caught them as best as he could and continued to pouring healing magic into the wound, but 9 HP kept dropping to 8 HP the second he thought he was done patching up the injuries and then he struggled to keep you above 7HP.

They were forming faster than he could heal them.

Black reached up with his hands still in his gloves and gripped either side of your soul, almost flinching at the touch before gripping it more surly. It was warm like a flame and sputtering. He could feel the determination leaking onto his gloves and staining them a bleached red color. He held your soul together while Rus hurried to heal what it could, but as long as he held your soul from falling apart he couldn’t remove the spike.

“I need another set of hands to help hold the soul together while I try to remove the obstruction,” Black explained as calmly as he could. “If I try to pull it out now the rest of her soul will crumble into pieces. Help me keep it together until Blue and Stretch get here.”

“But that could be-”

Rus’ voice was cut off as another crackle of magic broke on the doorstep to the house. Tron was in the doorway with the phone in hand looking up at the newly arrived pair. Stretch reached for Tron first, placing a hand on the boy’s jumping shoulder while Blue turned wildly, looking for the source of distress.

When Blue saw the glow from your soul he froze, then screamed out your name, running to join Rus and Black. He fell onto his knees and skid to a stop, eye lights thin and quivering in his sockets. “Wha-”

“No time, Blue help Rus heal the deeper abrasions on her soul. They’re splintering and appearing faster than we can patch them up. Where’s your brother?”

“I’m here,” Stretch interrupted, kneeling in the dirt beside Black. “What happened?”

Black growled, but instead of saying the same thing he instead gestured to your soul. “Just do what I tell you and we can figure that out later. Her soul is coming apart in pieces, you need to cup it like I’m doing and hold it together so I can remove the spike.”

“It’s still fracturing,” Blue worried next to Rus. His magic flowed out into the crevices and cracks, filling them up and securing the broken pieces together while Rus went over the more superficial cracks;  7HP returned to 8HP and then tipped back over to 9HP.

“We can’t stop that. Just do what you can,” Black answered.

He moved his gloved hands out from around your soul and Stretch reached in to replace his hold. When Black pulled his hands back he realized there were holes through his glove where the determination had dripped and burned through the leather, leaving the edges colored red. His bones underneath were bleached a brighter color.

“Careful,” Black warned Stretch.

Stretch noticed the burns and coated his hands in magic, preventing further stains. However, his magic, as powerful as it was, didn’t hold up long against pure determination, meaning he had to keep applying coat after coat of new magic to keep his hands from being burned.

Rus watch anxiously as his brother moved around Stretch to stand by your hip and lean over. Carefully, Black began to push the spike out with his magic, nudging it little by little out the way it came. At one point he felt it catch and Stretch cursed, feeling the edges of your soul want to push out against his hands.

8HP dropped to 5HP fast and Rus caught the fissure where it started, keeping it from spreading while Blue rushed to fill it and heal it with magic.

“What was that?” Stretch asked.

6HP

Black didn’t answer, but grunted out in frustration before stepping over your legs to get a better angle and try again, slower this time around.

7HP

Black pushed the narrowed point out as far as he could and then reached around the front to tug out the larger section of the wedge.

8HP

Rus watched as the majority of the spike was pulled out. He could feel the interior spaces that were sore and scarred with his magic, and rushed to fill them along with Blue. The spike had been lodged deep in your soul long enough that the interior portions had started to heal up around it, and were tearing open as the spike was pulled free like scabs over blood.

As Rus and Blue worked to heal what they could, Rus couldn’t help but notice the unique structure of your soul. Human souls, like Wendy and Peter and Tron’s souls, all had harder exteriors that didn’t conduct external magic, only internal magic. You were a mage and you had told them about what happened to make magic accessible to the chosen children.

There were plenty of old scars and indents shaped like crescent moons where your nails had dug in and peeled open your soul, flipping the inside out so that all that hidden magic could be exposed. Years later and the evidence remained and it rolled Rus’ metaphorical gut. 

Between the two of them, Blue and Rus were able to get up up to 10HP and it looked like Black was nearly finished, pulling the spike from you when Stretch cried out and nearly pulled back. The whole left side of your soul started to deflate and your HP dropped to match. A fresh gush of bleeding red determination poured out from your left side and Black had to pause in his extraction to help Stretch shore up the open wound while their brothers healed what they could.

3HP

“There’s something at the end of the spike that’s catching on the interior of the wound,” Black cursed. “I can’t pull any more of it out until her HP is restored.”

“TRON!” Blue yelled over everyone’s head. From the back door Tron stepped out, phone still in hand. His fingers were white from knuckle to tip in a death grip around the device. “Call Papyrus and Edge. We’ll need their help. Rus is almost at his limit-”

“i’m fine-”

“And I can’t do this forever. We’re relying on you, Tron,” Blue called back.

Tron nodded numbly and then pushed up his glasses. He dialed and turned around to speak, sounding less nervous than he probably felt. Black looked back over his shoulder and frowned at the sight before returning his attention to the wound.

6HP

“He’ll be fine,” Stretch softly encouraged. “What is the issue with the spike? Why is it creating new cavities inside the soul?”

“From what I can see it looks like there are ridges or prongs part way down on either side of the spike. I couldn’t see them during my initial investigation because they were embedded in the soul and not visible.”

7HP

“That explains one of the reasons why it hurt so much when her soul detached. Prongs or spikes on the inside would be jostled,” Rus offered, sounding winded. He could feel the sweat collecting at the base of his skull and knew he didn’t have much longer before his healing magic gave out. Healing took so much more than attack or defensive magics.

There was a pop of magic and Rus cursed when he saw more than just Sans and Papyrus. Behind them were their battered versions. Rus heard their nicknames were Ax and Paps or something close to that. It wasn’t clear if they were planning on staying with those names, but he knew without hearing in as many words, that his brother did NOT want either of them anywhere near the kids.

“WHAt are they doing here?” Black roared, standing up and away from your soul, red magic crackling at the ready.

“Papyrus, green magic!” Blue called out, ignoring the tension among the others.

Papyrus stepped out from behind Sans and crossed the way in a couple bounds, skidding to a stop and kneeling between Rus and Blue. Rus pulled away, giving up his spot to Papyrus while he fell back on his coccyx in the grass. Rus felt so little of his magic left and swore in thanks to the stars that Papyrus showed up when he did. Your heart was a lot to heal and it just kept fracturing. Someone didn’t want you to make it.

9HP

Rus looked up from underneath his hood and saw the other Papyrus-the Horror Paps, leaning over Papyrus’ shoulder to see what was going on. He was taller than all of them, plenty leggy, with beady eye sockets and braces on his teeth. Papyrus had taken him recently to the dentist and gotten him rainbow bands during an adjustment appointment.

He didn’t look… terrible. Certainly not like a man-eater. If anything, he looked the most nervous out of all of them and that was hard to pull off considering the mess Rus was 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

10HP

“What happened?” Sans hissed, jogging over. He stopped short when he saw Black in his way, blocking the path. “Shit, move it, Tiny.”

“Take him back,” Black hissed.  “What is he doing here?”

“That doesn’t-”

“Not around my family, classic!”

“Now isn’t the-”

“MY FAMILY, CLASSIC!”

Sans growled low and glanced up at the house, seeing Tron still in the doorway but no other sign of children. “They’re not up, let it go and let us help. He was the only one there when it happened. He saw what you didn’t.”

“I don’t care, he’s not going to help anything and you knew how I felt but purposefully defied me the first chance you got in an act of favoritism,” Black shouted back.

“It’s not favoritism you paranoid crack, I just told you he saw what you didn’t. You weren’t there. He can help and Paps can too,” Sans argued back.

Black’s eyes were blazing with vibrant colors, both crimson and violet. He was both emotional and charged with magic. “The both of them are barely stable and you mean to tell me they’re going to help someone else out? Now isn’t the time for your selfish japes.”   

“Hey!” Stretch called out, sounding like he had run a marathon already. “I’m running low over here myself. Can we come up with some sort of plan that doesn’t involve measuring your echo dicks with a ruler?” Stretch coughed and added, “Her Determination is burning through my barrier magic like crazy.”

“Send him back, Classic,” Black barked.

“I told you that’s-”

“it needs to be rotated.”

Both Sans and Black looked to Ax who hadn’t moved or so much as flinched since his arrival. In the twilight his jagged hole seemed all the more menacing under the film of setting sunlight. His single, crimson eye light bobbed in his socket, expanding and shrinking minutely as it seemed to spin in the void.

Sans called out to him again and when Ax didn’t respond Sans tugged on his hand. Ax jerked and Sans took a shortcut to behind the big guy, both hands raised in case he reacted poorly, but instead Ax just moved to tug on the corner of his good eye socket. The jerk seemed to ground him as his eyesight bloomed wider and quit spinning.

“Ax?” Sans called from behind him. “What did you mean when you said it needed to be rotated?”

“the spike. that guy stapled it in like with a nail gun.” Ax held up his hand and mimicked the shooting action before rotating his wrist to the side and pulling back. “he twisted it in there like that.”

“We’re wasting time,” Stretch gasped before cursing. Blue cried out but Stretch shook off his brother’s concern. “Just-fuc-ff ugh, hurry up and someone get over here to take my place. I’m running out of juice!”

The soul of a mage really was something else.

Sans stepped in, bumping elbows with Black before kneeling down and taking Stretch’s place. His hands were coated in a thicker layer of magic that held up better against the leaking Determination.

Rus stood up from the grass, still too tired to correct the hunch to his back, and hobbled back over to the house. He sat down on the edge of the porch and beckoned Tron out to join him on the steps. The pair of them huddled there, sharing worried whispers and reassurances while the last of the sun set.

Black cursed and started to head back over but stopped suddenly. “Well?” he barked back towards Ax without turning around. “Aren’t you going to help. You said you saw how it was rotated.”

Sans watched over his shoulder as Ax approached the huddle kneeling down in the grass behind Sans and the others. Where he sat he could see the wound, the spike, and the way your face didn’t flinch for any of it.

“…peaches?”

“The rotation, repeat it. I need to see what I’m copying,” Black ordered.

Ax’s attention was still stuck, fixated on the way your face didn’t twitch, how your chest didn’t rise, how your lashes didn’t flutter. Even when you slept, you had been animated enough, but now you looked like a piece of the earth.

Ax gave his socket another tug and came back in time to hear Black barking about -‘see what I’m copying,’ and understood the gist of the request enough to follow through.

“….like….this.” Ax lifted his arm and mimicked the way Hightower had turned the gun into your chest back before either of them had escaped.

Black nodded and moved to try again. He rotated the spike clockwise, holding his breath as he was able to move it without reaction. Then there was a jab and your HP dropped to 8HP again and he realized he had rotated to far. He corrected easily and began to pull out.

He was nearly out when you gave a start again and your HP dropped to 6. Papyrus and Blue were quick to fix what they could, but anyone who looked could see how worn out Blue was. As impressive as his physical stamina was, he didn’t have nearly as much magic as some of the others.

“What was that this time?” Blue complained, sounding unusually irritated and sharp.

“Something broke off from the spike, I’m removing it now. Hang on it’s-it’s out!”

Sans cursed as your soul shuddered around the open cavity left behind by the wound. More Determination spilled out and your HP touched 6 points. Black stepped away from you and held out the silver wedge that had teeth curving down the one exterior, serated and dirty with the gore from your soul. Papyrus made a sad, pained sort of sound and faltered in his healing, but Paps bent down and set two of his own hands on Papyrus’ shoulder, reminding him of what they were there for.

“focus,” he whispered to his more polished counterpart.

“That was in her?” Stretch hissed, sounding as disgusted as he looked.

5HP

“She’s still crashing!” Blue shouted.

You reacted with a deep inhale and suddenly parts of your arms went up in flames as magic vented out. The grass under you turned black and charred as more tongues of fire seeped through the cracks under your collar bone and behind your neck and out from your empty eye socket.

You choked on a sound, hissing in pain and arching your back as something stretched out from under you. The flames turned blood red and shifted into feathers, choking the wounds like dried blood from a cut. You choked again and new flames broke out of different places, shifting into feathers that hardened over your body in an almost protective armor structure.

“It’s her soul, it’s trying to-what is it-shit,” Sans hissed, leaning in to grab at your soul better. “It’s trying to revert back 'n flip in on itself.”

“You mean invert like a regular human soul?” Stretch guessed.

“Will that heal her faster?” Blue worried, nearly out of breath as the last of his healing magic started to fizzle. He was a stronger fighter than a healer, but he had already pushed his limits and was making new ones for himself. 

“It’s been repairing itself all this time but the damage is too intensive. Maybe that’s the only way-”

“Inverting it the first time caused a reset and nearly killed the kid, you think she’d want that?” Sans interrupted Stretch. “Sides, all the damage is on the outside. If it inverted all that damage would be where we couldn’t reach. It’d be like burying a wound under sand.”

“You don’t know that,” Stretch challenged.

“And neither do you,” Sans said.

6HP

“She’s recovering,” Blue gasped, falling back onto the grass with a final exhale of green magic. “But I can’t patch anymore.”

“I’m still here,” Papyrus said, relaxing at the feel of Paps behind him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’M UNABLE TO ASSIST DIRECTLY, BUT IF YOU USE MY MAGIC THAT SHOULD HELP!” Paps said, pouring his own uncolored magic into Papyrus to use.Their compatibility was so high that there was nearly nothing wasted as magic transferred from one to the other before being converted into healing aid. 

By now your soul was a spiderweb of different colored veins from the colors of those who stepped in to help heal you so far. There were still cracks and splinters, and a huge gaping hole that was left behind, but slowly your HP was starting to climb again.

7HP

8HP

9HP

Papyrus paused to take a breath and your HP dropped the second he pulled his magic back to rest. Sans cursed under his breath, watching as his brother hurried to jump back in and make up for the lost health with renewed determination.

10HP

The hole in the center was the worst. Cracks could be patched and crevices could be filled, but something that big was going to take a lot longer to try and heal.

Days

Weeks

Months?

From the grass Blue watched Papyrus work, his sockets narrowed and his eye lights dark. Stretch stood up to join his brother’s side and sit next to him, on the grass, nearly as exhausted for different reasons.

“Why isn’t her HP rising anymore?” Blue asked out loud.

“I’m repairing what I can, but it’ll take time,” Papyrus said. Behind him the sky was darkening with the last bit of sunlight seeping into the hills and out of sight.

The back porch lights turned on and Black looked up to see Wendy and Peter in the window, looking out. With a curse he shortcut into the house on the second floor and tugged them both away from the window while Tron stayed outside with Rus watching from the bottom steps.

12HP

“…peaches?”

Your head was tilting up, arching along with your back. There were red fathers in your hair, growing out of your scalp in places as you gasped for new breath only to be left wanting. Your empty socket still leaked fire and feathers but your other eye was open and hazy with black seeping across the sclera. Sans startled, not recognizing your magic.

“What the hell?” Stretch demanded, standing suddenly, having noticed it too. “That wasn’t void magic.”

“Nah, but it sure as hell looked similar,” Sans said, leaning over to get a better look while your eye roved in your socket, seeing something that wasn’t even there. Your lips were moving too, but there was no voice there to tell them what you were trying to say. 

13HP

The sun was gone and the porch lights all stayed on, lighting their work with soft yellow glow. In the dark, what seemed like hours later, Papyrus was struggling to heal the hole left in your soul, able to only partially bridge the sides of the wound together. Even with Papy’s extra magic, it was a challenge. He had been at it nearly half an hour on his own. 

14 HP

“Hey, honey,” Stretch softly called out. “Can you hear us here? We’re right here.”

Sans called you name too but you responded to neither of them, too captivated by whatever you saw in whatever darkness clouded your vision.

“She needs to finish healing,” Blue interrupted. “She shouldn’t respond so soon after such a traumatizing healing process and she’s not even stable yet.”

“What’s left to do?” Stretch asked, looking at Papyrus and then his brother.

“Seal the hole as best as we can and get her stable,” Blue huffed. He stood and fit his gloved hands over his hips. “If you have the energy for it help me investigate this accident. Something triggered all this and I’m going to find out what.”

“Speaking of investigating…what about Red and Edge? Didn’t they get the notice?” Stretch said, climbing to his feet. He pat down his pockets and pulled out a honey flavored sucker still in its wrapper.

Tron and Rus were still on the porch, watching and talking with one another in low voices. Stretch headed in that direction while Blue turned around to search the ground for prints, following them to where Rus first found you.

Ax scooted closer to your head alongside Sans and reached down to run one of his hands through the tangle of hair that was littered with feathers. When he brushed your hair several of the feathers fell free, breaking up like ash as soon as they detached. He made a sad sort of sound, but didn’t pull away.

“She’ll be fine, she’s tough,” Sans said, noticing his double’s drawn expression.

When Ax spoke his voice was a rumble that came like far off thunder. “i know, i saw it back there too, but she shouldn’t have to be…”

15HP

A couple of things happened at once.

First there was the crack of void magic in the grasses near where Blue was investigating, followed by Red dragging his brother through a shortcut, part of his jacket smoking from something they both narrowly dodged. Red spun and Edge already had his bone sword out and ready in front of the two of them in time to deflect the attack that came from the third figure to shortcut into the area.

Winn swung with a tendril of black and shot a barrage of projectiles that Edge only barely managed to block with a shield, all in time to keep him and Red from turning into pincushions. Blue cried out and was swinging a giant war hammer through the air without question, taking out a chunk of the ground with the impact.

The other skeleton looking monster with holes in his hands had a vail of black magic coiling around his body, ready to counter strike when a noise from inside the house made everyone hesitate.

The window to one of the second floor rooms exploded and a body tumbled into a roll that he sprung out of easily. Dee brushed some of the stray glass off his hoodie and smiled without honesty up at Black who stood in the empty window, looking murderous.

Down below, both Stretch and Rus stood protectively over Tron while Ax sprung up to crouch in front of you.

A third intruder had stepped into the grass. Raven emerged without ceremony and headed straight for you, stopping only when the giant Ice Axe blocked his way.

“not another step,” Axe warned, voice menacing as it rumbled free. His one good eye light was blown wide and vibrant with color.

“The hell is going on?” Stretch hissed, looking angry and confused between one skeleton intruder and the next. 

Raven was looking at you on the ground behind Axe, seemingly oblivious to the others. The space behind him rippled and a new figure emerged, laying one of his skeletal hands on Raven’s shoulder to lean on as he towered over the human boy.

Axe flinched and Sans felt his eye lights blink out while Black and Stretch went extra still. It was Sans who uttered the name first, even though they were all thinking it.

“Gaster?”

  

I'm just here flying off the deep end
I'm just here to become the best yet
I'm just here for the psych assessment
I'm just here for the, for the

Young and a menace

We've gone way too fast for way too long

Notes:

That's it for the Champion arc and now we're at the start of a new one with the arrival of a new character and a new problem-or is it an old one that was just never addressed. So this should be part 6 of 7 arcs planned with an 8th Epilogue type arc (to wrap up loose ends and maybe write some request content?)

I'm sorry for being late in responding to comments and I'll try to pick it up this week. Look forward to another chapter next week but I'm taking the 21st of September off for myself.

Chapter 57: Young & Menace 2

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You stood under the tree listening as another breeze weaved through the branches. Colored light shiver between the leaves and sent beams of blue, brown, and green down over your skin, coloring you like a mosaic.

“You need to let me go back,” you said.

There was nothing but silence to greet you this time. You rounded the corner of the tree, one hand dragging along the rough bark until you’re a third of the way around. You see the back of your brother, aged up and no longer a child. His hair has lost its color, his body is thinner than you remember it being, and there is a haunted look to his eyes when he turns to face you.

“You can’t keep me here,” you tell him again.

He blinks at you, looking lost and confused. You wait for it to sink in, watching as his face morphs with each new, processed thought.

“What are you doing here?” he asks instead.

“You were the one who called me here and then you left in an awful hurry. Let go of my soul, Raven. I need to leave.”

The adult version of your brother watches you, trying to find the memory of his other self and failing. He blinks and then calls out your name, sounding like he only just noticed you. “What are you doing here?”

You sigh and move past the adult version of your brother, trailing your hand around the trunk of the tree until you are nearly all the way around. This time when you stop it is because you see an old man sitting in the grass, hair gray and skin wrinkled. You don’t know if this is truly your brother in his crone form, but it’s what his brain believes he’ll be in his twilight years.

Dropping your hand from the tree you kneel in the grass beside him and reach for his wrinkled hand. He stirs but doesn’t open his eyes. In this form he only has two, but keeps them both closed.

“Raven,” you call, voice soft. “You need to send me back. Let go of my soul.”

“Why would I do that?” the older version of your brother rasped. “Why let you go again?”

“It’s what you’re good at?” you say.

“A shame.” He exhales loudly and it seems to deflate the frame of his figure. “I never liked it when you left.”

You hold your tongue, unable to say anything to this illusion of your brother that exists in a dream between the two of you. It was a facet of his void magic, allowing him to draw people into an artificial illusion by touching or drawing our their souls. Because the two of you were twins, you had always been the easiest person for him to touch-even across vast distances.

He always had a part of you, after all.

You always thought it was unfair how he could have access to you whenever he wanted while all you had was a mental video game like map you could use to track people down with. You were a little jealous of his ’skill’ list.

The illusion he had pulled you into was one you were beginning to recognize and remember the longer you stayed in it. When another breeze shook the branches and made the bottles clatter musically between the leaves you recognized their shapes. Beer, tequila, whiskey, ale bottles…all in different beautiful glass shades of the rainbow. Each one an escape. Each one a mistake.

Mama’s garden…

“Raven,” you tried again, this time more forcefully. “I’m hurt, I need to go back. Let me go.”

“I’ve already left. I’m going to take care of you,” Raven said. “Out there.”

His response made your blood boil. “You can’t. I’ll force myself to wake up if I have to.”

He chuckled but didn’t open his eyes. “Why haven’t you?”

There was a beat of silence before you answered. “I can’t use my magic. Hightower did something to my soul.”

“…So you really can’t leave here, can you?” he asked.

“You keeping me here is hurting me. You’re using magic to keep me here, and you used magic to tug on my soul to do it. My soul was already hurt. What if you broke it?”

“Then I fix it.”

“You can’t fix dead things!” you shout, standing suddenly. “Let me leave this goddamn place. Seriously, why is it always this stupid tree? I don’t wanna be here.”

“You won’t be here forever. Why not sit for a spell?” he asked.

“I have to get back. People are waiting for me.”

“Who?”

You turned sharply, digging up some of the grass with your heel. “My friends.”

The elder version of your brother hummed and then tilted his head, as if eyeing you anew. “Why do I feel as if…that…isn’t all the way true?”

“It is true. They’re-” you say, voice cutting out suddenly.

You kept the words to yourself, realizing why something was wrong with what you said. Yes, they would always be your friends, but recently something had shifted and you were moving into something more with them. It was nebulous territory but there was little denying the fact that you had feelings-romantic ones-for the skeleton boys.

“They’re my family and I need to get back to them. Let me go, Raven.”

“Don’t make decisions you’ll regret later on, you don’t know what the future holds for you or who it has in store for you,” he waved lowly.

“I don’t care.”

You walked back the way you came, finding the back of the tree empty. You kept on walking and there was no more old man, no more youth, no more child, no more Raven to be found. You were alone with a tree hung up with mistakes in glass and your ambitions.

Raven was a little shit but he wasn’t cruel, at least you didn’t think he was. He probably didn’t know what had happened to your soul. If you weren’t so injured it would have been a cakewalk to burn this stupid tree down to the ground and wake up. His illusions had always been easier to break out of it you had magic, but maybe you could manage without it this time.

You pushed against the tree, palms flat on the bark and back braced to shoulder the force as you pushed, digging in and heaving. The tree didn’t budge, but you could feel the wind pick up. The bottles clinked in the branches and you kept at it until the wind made them crash against one another. A few cracked and one even shattered on the branch below it. Th trunk refused to give but you could feel the world fraying.

“Let me out!” you screamed, wishing with everything you had that your body would catch with flames once more and save you from this place. You visualized you body on fire and pushed, but only the wind picked up. More bottles crashed but the trunk didn’t even splinter.

Again.

And again.

After what felt like hours you slipped down to your knees, bowing your head against the bark and sighing. You needed a breath but you were still determined to get up again and try. The wind eased up and the world went still as you rested.

“Something broke you.”

Behind you there was the child version of your brother, all three eyes wide open and staring at you. The sight in his partially transformed state didn’t unnerve you anymore, but it did make you tense for what it meant.

“I tried telling you that. You don’t listen to me anymore. Tch, not like you ever did.”

“What happened?”

“Let me out, Raven.”

“…Please… tell me.”

You glared back over you shoulder at the child and snarled. “Not here, not in your world, not on your terms! Let me the fuck out you piece of shit.”

You climbed to your feet and pushed against the tree trunk again, hot and angry all over. You shoved and screamed and this time, the bark broke open, swallowing you down.

 

-

 

You couldn’t hear voices. Everything rolled into a singular sound that felt like cotton in your ears. The vibrations were all muffled and it hurt to listen.

There was a dull warmth in your chest, one you recognized even if it hurt to admit; it had diminished substantially compared to what it once was. It was like being twelve all over again, only worse because you knew what you were missing.

You tried your hands first, then your elbows, dragging them back as your face rolled to the side. You could feel the dirt and soil under your finger nails, staining your arms. Someone reached for your arm and the touch made you hiss and jerk.

Papyrus? 

No, Paps. Papyrus was standing up in front of you next to his brother. In front of them Axe stood with the huge ice weapon he was so fond of in his hands. They were staring down a pair while off to your right, out in the field, you could see the Underfell brothers along with Blue facing off against Winn. You were still blind on one side, but you turned your head to the side and saw what was going on your left. Black stood on the railing with his bone sword while Russ and Stretch blocked the doorway where Tron hid. There was glass on the ground and Dee stood on the other side of it, smiling politely.

You realized how similar both Winn and Dee looked now that they were both in front of you. The same pale bone faces, too human to be just skeleton, the same holes in their hands, the same static voice that spoke in old ways. The same-

You shifted and Sans noticed, turning around to look down at you. When he turned you could see past him to where your brother and someone else stood-someone new. You heard Sans call out your name and it was like a loose string running through everyone suddenly went taunt.

Papyrus turned around and Red called out for you but you shut your good eye and braced against the ground. It hurt but you climbed up, sitting against Paps’ side and hissing as your soul still healed in your chest.

“What the hell are you doing here?” you all but snarled, glaring as best as you could through the gap between Axe and Papyrus to where your brother stood. He was cloaked in dark magic, wearing it like armor the way he would before a fight.

“I told you I needed to see you. It was important-”

“Important enough to nearly kill her?” Sans interjected, barking a humorless laugh. “What a good bro you are.”

Raven looked bored over at Sans before his eyes switched back. “You look fine now. You’re angry enough to be okay.”

“Give me your head and I’ll show you just how okay I am,” you sweetly threatened, baring your teeth in a tired, fake smile.

Raven flinched and his voice lacked the usual heat he bantered back at you with. “Don’t be such a drama bitch.”

“Watch me,” you snapped. You forced yourself up onto your feet and swayed, falling back against Paps’ hip as he reached out to steady you, whispering soft words of encouragement and comfort in your ear.

You almost reached for your fire, but the magic was too heavy and buried deep in your broken soul. You felt like pulling it out would result in only more injuries. The only reason you were even upright after such traumatic ordeal was because of spite and that wouldn’t last forever.

It was a good thing your side had them outnumbered.

“You said it was real important but it look like you ain’t got anything to say,” Sans interjected. “What’s wrong little bird, cat got your tongue?”

That’s when you noticed how Raven’s magic, further down, had started to manifest in black feathers, the same way yours would sometimes, only with a color change.

“I’m only here to talk to my sister,” Raven said.

“then what’s with the back up?” Axe rumbled.

“And what’s the purpose for stalking through my home?” Black challenged.

It was Dee who held up his hands and laughed nervously. “There’s no need for that, we meant no harm to any of you.”

“Bullshit!” Red yelled, pointing at Winn. “He attached us.”

You weren’t  c o o p e r a t i n g!”

“Like hell I’d just up and tell ya where my people are. What sort of idiot do you take me for?”

You l o o k e d  the  p a r t.”   

“Maybe his eyes need checking, or better yet, replacement,” Edge cooly replied, readying his own bone sword that wasn’t all too different from the one Black wielded, if a-bit longer with further reach.

“We’re not here to fight,” Raven yelled, causing Winn to snarl and drop his aggressive stance. “It’s important for all of us if you stay here in this world. You’re no good as dust.”

“Because we’re anchors?” Sans goaded.

Raven flinched but looked past Sans to where you stood, leaning against Paps. He called your name, sounding pleading. “Please, just come with me so we can talk.”

“Talk here,” you snapped.

“It’s not for an audience. They wouldn’t get it.”

You took a step forward and leaned against Sans’ shoulder to keep from falling over. “And what about your friends? What would they get? Don’t tell me you want only a little one on one time. You’re saying no to my friends but what about yours?”

“That’s different, they’re a part of this, same as you and me.”

“why that sound like more bullshit?” Axe rumbled.

Raven tried your name again but stopped when the figure behind him stepped up, another hand with a hole in it settling on Raven’s shoulder to silence his protests. You tensed when you saw the figure step forward.

Thinner and taller than Winn or Dee, he had the same hands and the same scars, but there was less strength to him. You recognized him from when you and Axe had been watching from the pipes back during your imprisonment. You remembered your brother and his friends freeing this guy from suspended animation in the cells down below.  He looked like he was melting around the edges.

“And you are?” Papyrus called out, sounding somehow still cordial.

“…” The monster looked to Papyrus, to Axe, then to Sans, looking at Sans the longest before his white eye lights fixed on you. “G A S T E R

Axe nearly dropped his weapon and you felt the reactions amongst those around you. Sans’ eye lights were out and Stretch was cursing behind you.

“Brother, isn’t that…?” Papyrus asked.

Axe had a hand up in his empty eye socket, one finger curling to hook in and pull, but he didn’t pick up his Axe again.

“No fucking way,” Red hissed, his whole body vibrating.

“Royal Scientist Gaster?” Blue echoed, looking just as shocked as Red, only less angry.    

You remembered reports from the first few months after monsters surfaced. There were interviews from monsters who worked with the former royal scientist who gave you more questions than answers when you asked them what happened to the only skeleton monster to come before Sans and Papyrus. One monster said that he "fell into his creation," another said that "his experiments went wrong," and the last claimed that he "shattered across space and time." The space and time part always fascinated your brother while the part about his creation, the CORE, being capable of such powerful magic, made the rest of your people thankful such a monster was lost to time and space.

But that monster couldn’t be the one in front of you right now.

“Look buddy, the best of us deal with a little imposter syndrome now and then, but it doesn’t help anyone in the long run to deflect to a made up impersonation.” You scowled, feeling a deep aversion to him on sight alone. He was the one your brother was so desperate to get to, after all. “What do you want?”

Y O U.”

Sans barked out a harsh laugh and Axe picked up his ice Axe again. You noticed out of the corner of your eye how Winn and Dee got up to move closer to Raven and the monster claiming to be Gaster.

“I’m not going anywhere without putting up a fight,” you warned, voice low. There was an awful vibration in your head whenever he or Winn and Dee spoke, but it was far less severe after loosing your implant. There was nothing to try and filter out the dark speech or the translation of shorthand.

Raven called out your name again, stepping up next to Gaster. “Hightower is in the wind. He’s no longer in control of his assets but we can’t find him. We’re running out of time to act. We can finally end this.”

“What does he want ended?” Paps whispered behind your shoulder, sounding worried as his hands hovered over you, ready to catch you if you fell.

Your lip curled. “There’s nothing I need to end except this conversation. Get out of here, Raven.”

“No, we need you to help us find him.”

You don’t know why but that’s what makes you snap. Him needing you. That’s why he showed up. That’s why he was talking to you. That’s why he was bothering you. He needed your map magic to get him what he wanted.

“Why should I?” you challenged, voice tight in your throat.

“Because of what he did, what he was planning. I tried telling you it was important. He has the other-” Raven held himself back when Winn grabbed at his hand, giving him a hard look before eyeing the rest of the skeleton crowd. Whatever your brother had to say it wasn’t for them to hear.

“The other pit?” you guessed, all too eager to speak in front of your friends. They knew what you saw, they had heard the stories of your days trapped below ground. “The one to the void that’s like ten times bigger than the one under the embassy? Yeah, I know about it already.”

“You saw it! How?” He looked completely baffled. “Why would they-how did you see it? Someone should have been there to stop you.”

He knew about that stupid hole in the ground and what it was for but what about you? Did he even know what had happened to you? He hadn’t known you were hurt when he tried to get to you but…what about the entire period of time when you were being abused? Did he…

“Did you really not know?” You take a step out around Axe, closer to Raven.

Raven didn’t respond right away, but you saw the confusion there on his face. “Did I know what? That you were hurt?”

You want to sound angry and mean but your voice isn’t loud enough for it as you take another step closer to your brother. “Did you really not know where I was?”

“I-no, we knew you were… with Hightower at the secondary facilities but they would have never let you down to the pit. I don’t know how you-”

You moved.

Your magic is too far down to reach but your fist still swing the same and you bury it deep into his gut, swinging up until he’s lifted off his feet and thrown off, gasping for air and drooling in the grass. Winn moves for you but Gaster, oddly enough, holds him back with a hand on his shoulder while Dee watches without commentating.

“Did you fucking know where I was? What they were doing to me?” You reached down to grab at his jacket front, dragging him back up onto his feet only to backhand him when he reached for you.

He didn’t answer but recovered and swung back at you. You were too slow, too tired and hurt to dodge it, but you were numb to the pain and barely moved by the force of it. You screamed and throw your fist wild without coordination. He counters easily but you roll into the strike and land another one, close enough to hurt.

You moved in too close to swing at and grabbed at his head, falling with him as he pulled you down and then flipped onto your back. You rolled before he could kick at you and swiped his feet, crashing him to the ground. You scrambled onto his chest, pushing him back down hen he tried to get up.

“You knew where I was!” You hit his chest with the side of your fist doing little to no damage. “You knew what they were doing to me and you didn’t care! Where were you? Where the fuck-where you?”

He caught your wrists and flipped you sideways, sending your rolling through the dirt and the grass. He crawled to his knees the same time you did.

“You were the one who left first,” he hissed, eyes red at the edges. “You said you would be fine. You told me you didn’t need me! I need you now and all you care about is where you were?”

“You don’t know what they did!” you screamed.

“What could they do to someone like you? You’re better than them! What the hell does it matter?” he screamed back, throwing your own words from so long ago back at you. You had been so proud and angry back then but not as angry as you were now.

“You went there to get him but you never cared about me, did you?” You pointed back at Gaster who stood next to Winn and Dee, watching from a short distance while your boys kept just as close while still respecting the space you tumbled in.

No one had put their weapons away.

“I need him to keep that hole closed and he needed me. You never did and you never came for me so why are you so damned butt hurt about it?”

I needed you!” you screamed before you could stop yourself.

Raven paused, still on his knees, staring at you. “Liar. You got out without me.” He moved one leg out from under him and braced to stand. “You were the one who left first and you never looked back. I waited, but you never…just like all the other times, you never needed me. You got out just fine in the end,” Raven spat.

“Fine?” you weakly croaked. “You thought I was fine?”

“Better than me,” he said with a tired glare.

You paused to look him over, really look. His hair lost its color and the bags under his eyes seemed like they were a part of him. He was thin, thinner than he should have been for someone who worked out enough to fight. Under the coat and layers you could see the shape of his collarbone under skin.

Your anger was like a candle that had been blow out.

“What happened to you?” you asked, then swallowed. “What…what did he do to you?”

There was a pause before Raven answered you in a voice so small and thin you were afraid it would break in his throat. “He made me talk to it, made me grow it too, that’s why it’s so big.”

Behind you Winn cursed and Dee shushed him.

‘The darkness keeps growing and the shadows cut deeper.’

“Talk to it?” you echoed. “Why would you…?”

“I was looking for them,” Raven looked past you to where Gaster stood with Winn and Dee. Winn looked even more pissed than before if that was even possible. “Hightower used me but… but I couldn’t walk away until it was finished. Even if…” He looked down at his hands, at his short nails and their bleeding nail-beds. When he sighed his whole body rattled.

“…Raven.”

“You were there a couple weeks? He had me for years,” Raven said. “Look at what’s left of me now. Look what you never turned around to see.”

You felt angry all over but now the anger wasn’t only for Raven, now some of it was directed at you. He was right. You had left and you hadn’t looked back. The two of you parted on such a horrible note you felt like there was no way you could. You both said terrible things to one another. He told you to never come back and you told him you’d never need to come back because you weren’t a second rate bitch like he was.

“I got out. You chose to stay. You all but chased me out.”

“And you happily ran,” he said.

“The placed was fucked up, Raven. What they did to us was messed up and I’m still not over all of it. You should have left when you could but you didn’t believe me or in what I stood for. And shit, don’t lie to me, you only wanted me to turn back if I changed my mind to agree with you. You can’t blame me for what you choose.”

“And you can’t blame me for what I choose,” he countered, sounding bitter.    

“I mean, I kinda can cause you sound like a dumbass that helped make a bad situation worse. Just because the void didn’t scare the crap out of you like it did the rest of us doesn’t mean it’s a good thing to be messing around with. I know it’s hard to stand up to him but you didn’t have to do Hightower’s dirty work if you knew it was wrong.”

“You don’t know the whole story. You don’t know why I had to.”

You pushed yourself up, standing and staggering. “No, I don’t, but I’m not going to ask. You said you knew where I was but you didn’t do anything about it. If the situation was different I’d have come for you.”

“Because I’m a second rate bitch that can’t do anything?” Raven mocked.

“Because you’re my brother, dumbass.”

Raven stood but looked away, messy ash white hair falling in his face. “You didn’t need me. You were fine with them.” He rubbed at his face, smearing the dirt off. “Just…tell me where Hightower is.”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “I can’t.”

“Quit being stubborn.”

“No, poop-for-brains, I literally can’t. I can’t use any of my magic right now. My soul got jacked up and it’s still healing thanks to someone tugging on it from a distance,” you said. 

“What’s wrong with it?” And because it was Raven who never had any boundaries with you, he washed a veil of his magic over you and felt, in place of saw, the state of your soul. The wound where the spike used to be was still healing and he could rub his magic over the hole and feel into it.

Your soul almost detached, reacting to the nature of Raven’s void like magic. You stopped it before it could leave you completely, but you didn’t miss the way determination dripped down your front from the open wound, burning your fingers and turning them black in places as you pushed the heat you couldn’t see back into place.

“What?” He pulled back sharply and glared at your chest like it had personally offended him.

“I can’t do anything until it’s healed so don’t come back looking for me until I’m better.” You explained with tired words.

“Wait, what was that?”

“A story for another day. Now, it’s time for you to leave.” You were too exhausted to try and answer. You felt the end of your energies approaching and knew you needed to clear him out before falling asleep. “And please don’t come anywhere near this place again. I still don’t trust your friends.”

“I didn’t know,” Raven said.

“Now you do.” You took a step backwards towards your boys, never showing your brother or his friends your back.

It looks like it’ll take you a while to heal up, looking like that, so there’s nothing left for us here to do,” Dee casually explained, turning to Raven then Gaster. “We can try again once everyone’s better.” 

“Or you know, don’t try again,” Sans laughed, sounding anything but jovial.

“Just send me a freaking text next time you ass hole,” you said. “I’ll meet with you but leave the calvary at home.”

“ya shouldn’t need ta,” Axe growled. 

“I doubt they are the type to give up so easily,” Papyrus offered.

“Right, then fair warning, you show up here again like this, in number, I’ll take it as an act of aggression. That’s your warning Raven, you gonna take it?”

Raven looked to Dee and then the one named Gaster, ignoring Winn who was still glaring daggers over at Blue and the Underfell brothers. When Raven looked your way again he nodded. “Fine, have it your way. Next time we’ll call ahead so long as you promise to listen.”

“Just listen?” you echo.

“Just listen,” he said with a nod. Then he reached out and the darkness was all around the others and him. You blinked and he was gone, swallowed up in a shortcut that took him and the others away.

You waited a moment more, tense and patient, listening for them to appear elsewhere. When you heard nothing out of the ordinary to allowed yourself to finally relAxe. And like a puppet without strings, you fell apart in the grass, limp.

Red, surprisingly enough, was the one who caught you, even though Sans and Axe were closer. You felt his hands under your arms, pulling you back towards him as he sank into the dirt with you on his lap. You heard him calling your name, touching your face. Edge was running over too. Black shouted to Stretch to check on the kids and left in a shortcut while you were swarmed again on multiple sides.

You heard either Paps or Papyrus say something about crowding and you felt another pair of hands on your arm, touching you. You were too tired to see who it was. You closed your eyes and let yourself drift.

 

 

 

Notes:

Oof, this chapter might be rough but I'll check it later when I'm more awake.

For anyone curious about the notes I had for this chapter they're mostly about bois and their weapons:
Stretch -Gaster beasts
Blue - War hammer
Red - Red magic/Gaster blaster ring
Edge - Bone ōdachi
Black - Bone sword/rapier
Rus - Gaster blaster (serpent) bodies
Axe - Ice Ax
Even if not everyone had a weapon out, I was trying my best to give each of them a unique angle and weapon. Hopefully each rings true as a reflection on their owner/user.

 

Happy (almost) anniversary to 1 year with this fic. Officially I've been updating weekly, every week, for a whole year and I'm super proud about being able to accomplish that for a first time. I'll be off next week but back after that, I just need a week to rest and catch up with real life work and shit.
Thank you for all the love! Thank you for the comments, the kudos, the favs, the bookmarks, the recommendations, the shout outs, the fan art, and all the many forms of love you've shared for this fic. I'm in awe.

Chapter 58: Young & Menace 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The last eight and a half weeks of his life had been more tumultuous than the last eight months of his life. True, those eight months had been spent depleting remaining resources, starving, hunting, and struggling to survive, but they were stagnant tasting months after years of horrific survival.

After the regicide, after the accident, after the wound, after the first human meal... everything after that was uncomfortably blasé when it should have rattled him more. But that was the thing about horrific circumstances, once they were survived they lost their power to impress. Little could unsettle Paps Papyrus anymore, though he liked to think he still cared enough to react and feel-maybe not as much as this world’s monster mascot, but enough.

Eight weeks was plenty of time for his world to get turned upside down.

The woke up above ground, under a cloudy sky they couldn’t tell apart from a high fog bank like the ones that liked to drift up towards the ceilings in Waterfall. But then the clouds broke open and it was like an overripe egg cracking and spilling its golden yoke when the sun burst through.

Everything hurt a little more but neither he or Sans could find it in themselves to complain.

Food was easier to find. They scavenged and found plenty of good vegetables but it wasn’t much longer before they stumbled upon the derelict hunter’s cabin with a hole in the ceiling and rust on the hinges. The pair helped themselves to the structure, patching the roof and raiding the supply of cans stacked and gathering cobwebs in the cellar.

There were other things down there too, metal traps and weapons from a long ago era. After figuring out how to make most of the snares work it wasn’t much longer before Sans and Paps were tasting meat again.

Things hadn’t been fixed perfectly, but they were close enough to perfect to be able to believe in it so neither brother found it in their souls to complain.

Living had been as good as either of them deserved, maybe too good.

It ended before either of them knew what was happening.

The adults had magic, strong magic, stronger than any monster could hope to compete with even if they were sloppy in their application.

Things had been too good, too comfortable, and too nice, but like all good things it came to a sudden and painful end.

There was a human, a boy with scars on his face that pulled memories from their souls like water from a sponge. He saw what they had done and reported it to the others before being dismissed.

Papyrus never saw that boy again.

Sans didn’t react well to the change and went non verbal for a full week before regaining basic speech. That’s about around the same time the other Grillby came in. 

And as terrible as being underground had been, Papyrus preferred the human’s dungeon to Snowden for one simple reason, there was no starving. It was monster food too, good and hearty enough to satisfied until the next meal’s time.

So!

There was really no reason to complain, right? It’s not like things couldn’t get worse? That had been their reality for years, after all. They had lived worse lives and suffered far crueler circumstances so this was fine, this was adequate. Not perfect! But sufficient.

And maybe it was a bit lonely and a bit humiliating how the humans with their robots would look at him and his brother. It was their loss if none of them wanted to talk to a monster as entertaining and humorous as him! They were probably too serious to have a fun time with anyway.  They were the pitiful ones.

And then the cell across from theirs got rented out.

A human tumbled in, looking a little rough around the edges and way more enraged than any of the others he had seen before. It was funny how this one was locked up while all the others were free to roam. Almost as funny as how angry and loud you were when they left you behind. Papyrus wasn’t sure why you started to bloom flowers and choke on flora, but it was concerning when it rendered you limp.

“Sans, That Human…”

But his brother was only interested enough to check if they were a threat before retreating in on himself again. Sans had never been the outgoing type, but that had only gotten worse after the famine. Thankfully that hadn’t hurt their relationship-if anything it had endured all the more in spite of circumstances. Sans was dodgy, paranoid, and absent minded even on his best days, but he was far more honest now that so much relied upon it. Papyrus had learned to adapt similarly. It had been hard at first, dropping his more playful habits in favor of straightforwardness, but survival demanded it.

“not like the others, not... worth it.”

“I DISAGREE,” Papyrus cheered with new vigor, happy to hear his brother comment. “THEY ARE ALSO IN A CELL JUST LIKE US. IT IS NOT UNHEARD OF FOR HUMANS TO TURN ON THEIR OWN. THIS ONE MIGHT IN FACT BE A POTENTIAL…COMPANION SLASH FRIEND.”

Sans looked out across the hallway to where you lay unmoving, all but dead to the world under a carpet of rotting flowers. “…smells like a trap to me.”

The answer doesn’t come from Papyrus in time, but from the one they share a wall with. Even without seeing, Papyrus can hear Grillby’s comment through the cement surface.

“Can’t be a trap if you’re already in a cage, short stack. What else could the humans want with you?” Grillby mocked, sounding just as bitter as his first day in the cell block.

Sans ignored the fire elemental and scooted over to the window to stare out across the hallway and frown at what he couldn’t see. He didn’t say anything, but Papyrus knew his brother took a little longer to process some things visually as well as auditory. The only thing he seemed fast at anymore was kinesthetic routines.

Papyrus tried banging on the glass and then calling to you, but you didn’t move. Almost a day later and you were still in the same spot and Papyrus was beginning to get nervous. No one had come in to feed you or replace the water in your cell. Those flowers growing out of you had all died off but you were still in the same crumpled spot as last time.

It was when he was supposed to be sleeping that Papyrus noticed you shifting. There was no sound from across the hallway, but he could watch you shift and roll onto your side. You wiped at your face and smeared trails of water stains before hugging yourself and crawling backwards towards the bed. He recognized the tears a moment later.

You didn’t look up when he waved and you didn’t even seem to register the change in environment. You shivered and shook, hands wrapped all the way around you for what seemed like hours.

In the morning they fed you and took blood samples. You’re not nearly as animated as Papyrus expected  you to be for a human- especially since he saw the way they brought you in the night prior. But he thinks he understands a little better when you vomit into the mini sink in your cell and then limp back to the bed you had all but ignored the first day.

When Papyrus called out to you there was no reaction. No doubt the sound proof barrier was up and working, but it seemed like you wouldn’t have heard him regardless with the way you fell limp and boneless atop the skimpy bed left for you.

Papyrus had enough free time to wonder all sorts of things.

The next day when you’re awake the nurse lady visits and Papyrus watches as the two of you talk at length. You’re not…friends by the looks of it, but you’re not fighting either. Maybe that meant you were friendly in nature or maybe just too tired to thrash and kick. Papyrus watches it all from where he sits and it’s like looking through soda straws since you’re so far away but he doesn’t care about his bad vision for the moment. Sometimes he can see clearly before the edges go all fuzzy.

Then the women was up and opening the door.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said before moving towards the androids. Papyrus stays still while their breakfast food is distributed, subtly listening to all the outside noises that are new and unfamiliar.

“…can’t hear ya paps,” Sans softly coughed, turning away with his food to eat in peace.

Papyrus hummed thoughtfully before answering out loud.

“THAT MAY BE, BUT IN REGARDS TO COMMUNICATING OPENLY, I THINK YOU CAN.”

You looked up, drawn out of your thoughts just like Papyrus intended. You had been able to hear him too! That was wonderful news. Happy enough news to make him smile and wave.

“SEE, BROTHER! I TOLD YOU THEY WOULD BE ABLE TO HEAR US NOW. IT’S DIFFERENT. HELLO, HUMAN, YOU CAN HEAR ME NOW, CAN’T YOU?”

“I can hear you just fine, Papyrus,” you sighed, sounding tired and a little too familiar for what Papyrus had been expecting. He didn’t even know who you were but you knew about him already? Wowie.   

“YOU KNOW MY NAME!”

She managed to smile back and it made Papyrus feel all giddy inside. You hadn’t smiled a lot since coming to the cell block, if at all, but it was such a lovely look. It was too much of a shame to think that you didn’t have enough to smile about. The world was deprived of a truly enchanting sight-one Papyrus would gladly continue to try and inspire.

“Something like that,” you answer, sounding tired in spite of your lovely smile. “It might be hard or me to explain how I know that. How much do you know about the world you’re in right now?”

The fact that you’re trying to be helpful made the funny buzz in his bones all the more active and he rushes to try an explain what he can while you’re still looking at him like that.

“WE’RE TOPSIDE, WE SAW THE TREES AND THE SUN AND THE SKY. WE EVEN SAW THE STARS. BUT THEN THE HUMANS FOUND US AND-” he gestured to the space around him.

“That sucks. This world is topside, yeah, but isn’t not the same as the world you came from. This is an alternative version of your world, and as such there are alternative versions of you and your brother already existing in this world. I know them, so that’s why it feels like I know you. I’m good friends with this world’s Papyrus.”

“FRIEND!” 

Your words made him want to stand up in surprise-but in a good way, with good surprised feelings. You had only been talking for a handful of minutes but it felt like you had known each other for years. And then you mentioned being friends with another Papyrus? Did that mean you were going to be friends with him! Could you? Oh, that would be ideal-and just what he wanted more than anything.

Before Papyrus could say more a hand on his shoulder tugged him back. Behind him, Sans stood up and approached the wall. 

Beside him Papyrus didn’t say a word while Sans stared you down. Even Grillby in the next cell over seemed tense as he waited for what would happen next.

You didn’t look away from Sans as he assessed you.

“alternative world you say?” when he finally speaks his voice is deeper and rougher from disuse. “explain.”

So you do.

You tell them other things too, about being a child solider, about the world you grew up in and what it turned you into. The you talked about your work and the other skeletons that got brought over as a result of your brother’s magic. He asked you questions about them, more curious about what sort of monsters they would be. How would they be different if they came from a world-an underground that wasn’t starving and cruel?

Would you still talk so kindly to him and his brother if you knew?

Sans listened and watched, unmoving and unspeaking until the very end of it.

Until Papyrus asked you your name.

Its so…nice sounding too. It’s a human name he’s never heard before, but the sound of it suits you and seems to fit so well. He wants to say it a hundred times over to feel it in his mouth until its as natural as anything else he can still say.  Sans even echoed it a few times, seemingly enchanted with the sound of it.

You’re so nice and easy to talk to so Papyrus ends up asking you about this place before he can stop himself.

Behind him Sans scoffed. “bro you know why we’re here.”

In his cell beside the brothers, the black flame Grillby stiffened.

“BUT, THIS IS A NEW WORLD. EVEN IF WE ARE TOPSIDE AND ABOVE GROUND THAT SHOULDN’T…IT…” Papyrus looked from his brother to you feeling hurt and confusion mix with a little bit of dread.

“Don’t feel too bad about it, these people don’t care for justice and aren’t holding you because you’re criminals or saints. It’s because you’re monsters and they need enemies-so you’re the easy scapegoat.”

Sans’ chuckle is dark and sarcastic to match his mocking expression. “oh that’ rich, pal, you don’t even know what you’re talking about or what we’ve done.”

“It doesn’t matter right now,” you say, then,“Will you tell me about it?” you asked in a soft, voice.

There is silence in the space between you and Sans scoffs, reaching up to tug on the edge of his good socket, like he needed to feel it was still there, buzzing with magic. Papyrus dropped his face and couldn’t lift it again. He wished he could look at you, bring himself to be brave and face the question, but you’re too good for his poor eye lights now that he thinks about all the things he’s done.

Sans was right, he knew why they were stuck.

“I-I AM SORRY HUMAN, BUT THAT IS A-”

“They ate people.”

Papyrus feels like someone had punched him with magic. Dread bloomed through his bones and he wanted to cry when you look across to where the black flame sat. 

“Please,” you called out again, edging closer to your wall. You can’t go any further but you press your hands to the glass. “Please, you can talk to me.”

“You might as well. They’re going to tell her on their own sooner or later,” Grillby growled. “Just tell them what it was like in your world.”

“You weren’t there?” you asked, looking to Grillby. Papyrus kept his head lowered while you exchanged words with the fire elemental

He only looked up again when he heard you call out. “Please, Paps, I don’t mean to offend you, but I know your world was a desperate one. Please, I don’t want to judge.”

Sans had already retreated to the furthest corner of the cell and was crouched down in the darkness.

“I AM SORRY, BUT MAYBE ANOTHER TIME WE CAN SPEAK OF MORE PLEASANT THINGS,” Papyrus called back weakly.

“Next time, yeah, but please, don’t…go,” you lamely replied.

Papyrus managed a weak smile, wishing he felt better around you. You didn’t sound like you hated him but it was still hard to face you with any measure of confidence. He liked putting his best foot forward and showing off his best self, but that was nearly impossible with his sullied past. Maybe you sensed that.

“You wanna hear a story?”

He perked up. “A TRUE STORY?”

You tapped the glass and though back to all the bedtimes with Wendy and the kids. “Nah, just a made up one.”

“A…PLEASANT ONE?”

“I’ve got those.”

“THEN,” Papyrus turned back around to face you fully and straightened up. “I THINK I COULD GO FOR A PLEASANT SORT OF STORY.”

So you told him one. Before he knew it, the darkness in his mood was gone and his spirits were light again. He loved your story almost as much as he loved the sound of your voice. The fact that you gave him a happy ending was like the cherry on top. There wasn’t enough good in the world of reality, but in stories he could feel safe whenever he wanted.

“I LOVED IT. I’VE NEVER HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE.”

“I made it up. Next time time I’ll tell you more.”

His soul throbbed in his chest, wanting to push out and soak up your words without hindrance.  Something about everything you said and the way you said it made him think he was right next to and had been there, at your side, for ages. When you spoke with him it was with an easy going tone that never hid or held anything back. You didn’t flinch at the sight of him or care what he was, what he’d done, what had happened to him. You were willing to stay and willing to give and for a soul as starved for affection as his was, it was almost more than he could handle.

“MORE?”

“If you want to hear them.”

“I WOULDN’T MIND THAT AT ALL.”

With nothing else to do you asked him about the stories he liked, only to look surprised when he admitted to loving the fairytales he could find whenever the materials containing one fell down from the surface. He adored the stories with knights the best, going on about their gallant deeds like they were things to be admired. You said you knew a couple stories with knights in them and offered to share them next time, after you practiced them over in your head a bit.

 

They came and tugged you out of your cell several times each day. Sometimes they even threw you back in and Papyrus was worried you were hurt, but you always got up and hobbled to bed or your food.

He watched you a lot when you weren’t looking. When you slept you were fitful and restless, tossing and turning in familiar ways. He knew that probably meant you were having nightmares, even if you didn’t scream or shout in your sleep. You were like Sans enough in that regards. Papyrus’ brother was a silent sufferer.

When you woke you seemed so much stronger and braver that sometimes Papyrus forgot about the way your cried in your sleep. You comforted him more than he comforted you. His humming did little in comparison to your soothing songs, but you never seemed bother by his inequalities or his awful teeth. You never seemed bothered by any part of him-it made him feel like…like he had before the famine.

“…don’t get too caught up,” Sans mentioned to him one night when he woke up and caught Papyrus in the middle of his staring. “…its not worth the soul ache.”

“I’M NOT GOING TO GET SOUL ACHE FROM ANYTHING HERE, BROTHER,” Papyrus weakly protested. “I’M BEING CAREFUL.”

“…are ya?”

Sans looked up with his one good eye light and saw what most people couldn’t see with two. He didn’t have the time to bother seeing people’s false selves and he didn’t have the brain power to waste on lies. After the famine there was nothing but brutal honesty between them.

“I AM BEING CAREFUL,” Papyrus insisted. “EVERYTHING I FEEL AND EVERY THOUGHT IS… THEY ARE SAFE ENOUGH TO FEEL THINGS FOR.”

“…ah, didn’t mean that so much as…” Sans paused to gather his thoughts and it was a while longer before he was able to finish his sentence, “careful of this world…you get… at-tached to something in a pl-ace like this….”

Papyrus nodded slowly. “I UNDERSTAND, BUT I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT A SOFT HEART AND YOU KNOW THAT.”

“…iz do…”

“I’M BEING AS CAREFUL AS I CAN BE.”

And he was, but when you told him stories and when you sang to him it was like every horrible thing that had ever happened and left its mark on his figure didn’t matter. He…selfishly wanted his own sort of happy ever after-whatever he could grab and hold in his horribly mangled hands and run with-he’d take what he could get.

Then there came the day when they took you and someone came back for him. Sans was so worried when they said they had to work on ‘the one called Crooks’ but there was nothing he could do while they set up the table and bent him over it. He was scared when they tased Sans and pulled him out of the room. It looked like his brother was going nonverbal again, magic stringing against the suppressants, but then Papyrus’ thoughts fell apart.

Oh, the sedatives.

There were drugs that would work on monsters and he felt everything through a dozen layers of cotton. There was the grinding and sheering and sawing and it all happened in his mouth, but he remembered so little of it.

In and out he drifted, trying to stay awake for Sans, but feeling too heavy to keep his consciousness roused.

In and out

In

And

Out

When they were leaving he was rousing out of his stupor just enough to understand what had happened. He felt with trembling digits how his teeth stopped where they once had and fit together. He didn’t know what they looked like exactly but he had a good idea. Maybe the color was still off, and it felt like there was some metal stuck on them keeping them together…

“paps!” Sans was back and stumbling towards him.

“WAIT….WAHT WH-WHAT I-” but then the glass wall came down and he could see in the glare what they had left him looking like.

“SANS…” Papyrus gasped with a broken voice that cracked along with his tears. “LOOK.”

“im looking bro.”

“I LOOK LIKE ME! I CAN SEE ME NOW!”

Papyrus couldn’t help but touch what he saw and tap all over his teeth, recognizing their old boundaries and limits. “DO THEY LOOKS A-AH GOOD?” he slurred, watching Sans in the reflection watch him. There was something old and tired in the way his older brother watched their reflections.

“yeah, told you they would,” Sans weakly answered.

Papyrus’ head lolled before he looked up and saw you behind the glare in the glass, looking tired between two of those androids. He cried out your name and touched his teeth again, laughing. “LOOK, L-LOOK. I’M HANDSOME NOW.”

Sans flinched but ducked his head.

“You were always handsome to me Papyrus,” you admitted so honestly.

It wasn’t because of the drugs that still made him loopy and a little loose, but Papyrus felt like if he didn’t spill his soul he’d be doing you a disservice because you were too good not to. You said such nice things about him so honestly but you were the one who deserved all the nice words. You were so kind and darling and mesmerizing and captivating and soft-not in the physical sense but in the sense that his soul felt soft and safe every time you told him a story or sang him a song. You were-youwere-you were-

“YOU ARE VERY HANDOM-HANDSOME TOO, THE MOST HANDSOME FOR A HUMAN,” Papyrus laughed out loud. “LOOK AT YOU. I AH-I JUST WANT TO LOOK AT YOU Ah-ND-AND KEEP LOOKING AT YOU.”

He wanted to keep looking at you forever, but he closed his eyes just as your face crumpled in a look he wished he could kiss away with his new face. You asked something of Sans but Papyrus was too far gone to understand any of it.

Just that there was noise and heat and he felt warm. He was…was he back home in Snowdin where they had the fireplace going? He felt like that…so safe and warm….

 

When he woke up he was in…a bed?! A bed big enough for him and nice enough to belong to a king or queen. He wasn’t used to such nice things and the jolt of surprised helped him wake up the rest of the way. He scrambled out of the bed and stood up next to it, taking a moment to observe his surroundings.

A room.

A bedroom with minimal decorations-a guest room?

There were noises coming from downstairs he could hear and recognize as voices. Moving without making a sound, the way he had learned to move back when the underground turned into a place where he needed to be noiseless, he crept to the door and opened it a jar. It was enough to distinguish the voices.

Sans! One of them sounded like a very healthy Sans! They had fixed him too! Just like his teeth, Sans got help too and now he was better and he could talk again and-

“Whoah, we got a live one up here!”

Papyrus staggered back, surprised at the proximity. He hadn’t even noticed someone so close and it sent his soul stuttering. It was another monster, close enough to hurt.

But then he saw the monster and some of the fear eased out of him.

“SANS?”

The smaller, edgier versions of his brother held up his hands and chuckled. He had…a gold canine replacement and different scars nicking the edges of his skull.

Not Sans-a different Sans, one of the ones you had talked about.

“The name’s red, buddy, and you’re safe here. You came out of there hot with our Grillby friend. We’re home base. How ya’s feeling?”

“I…I WANT TO SEE SANS. WHERE IS MY BROTHER? WHERE IS…” he said you name after a pause of hesitation, watching the monster in front of him for a reaction. Even with his poor eye sight he could see the way Red reacted to the mention of your name. You had spoken of him so fondly in your stories, he could see that fondness reciprocated if the way Red’s expressions suffered was any indicator.

“She…ah, she and yer brother ain’t here yet. They stayed behind ta make sure you made it. You…hey, lets get some food into you and then we’ll talk. You’re safe here and we’re gonna take care of you until the others get back.”

“OTHERS?”

Red nodded slowly. “We’re not going to leave them behind. They’re gonna be fine until the rest of my friends can bring them home.”

Papyrus felt his soul throb for that single word; home.

“WHERE ARE…THESE OTHERS?”

And that’s how it had started. He had found out the voice of Sans-his Sans, belong to this world’s Sans. He looked just like his brother from before the famine, to the point where it was hard to look at him and not think he was his real brother. He wondered if this Sans thought anything similar to that when he looked at him-did he resemble this world’s Papyrus enough?

Not remotely, he soon found out. This world’s Papyrus was not nearly as tall or gangly, he dressed well in clean bright things, and stood without a hunch and walked without a limp. There were no missing or broken teeth, there were no stains on his canines, and his eye sockets were wide and perfectly able to see.

Papyrus hated how he felt when he saw his body double, suddenly so inadequate and subpar. He was too tall, too long, too jagged at the edges, and his mouth was still full of metal. It-maybe it was a blessing that he couldn’t see so well. He wasn’t…the handsome chap he thought he was-not compared to this version.

But they were so….both so kind and…nice… Even if this world’s Sans looked at him with soft edges in his eye lights and stared too long at the ground between them. They gave him as much food as he wanted, full use of their kitchen, new clothes, even eyeglasses he could wear with the help of scotch tape on the sides of his skull.

They took him to monster doctors who helped and then introduced him to their Grillby….who was working at a bar with the other black flame Grillby. That’s where they took him often, to help out in the kitchen and eat as many leftovers as he could stomach when he wasn’t washing or cleaning. Apparently he was doing your job, since you were ‘away’ and the black flame Grillby helped more in the kitchen.  Neither of them liked touching water or washing anything but needed to in order to keep up with health code stipulations.

In the evening either Sans or Papyrus would show up and he went home with one or both of them. And in spite of all the insecurities and shortcomings he felt, Papyrus couldn’t help but enjoy the warmth of the two brothers who took him in so seamlessly and made him a part of their home. This world’s Papyrus was very active and knowledgeable about local monster law, to the point where he facilitated the setting up of a citizen account and start up funds from a grant he had helped raise money for years ago.

There were a lot of fantastic things to be grateful for as he waited for his brother to come home with you. He really didn’t have much reason to complain outside of that chief worry. There was food for days-so much that he’d not go hungry for months if it didn’t replenish itself each weekend. He had a nice bed, new clothes, glasses to help him see, and braces to keep his teeth straight.

But he was still missing Sans.

And you.

 

Then the big black SUV pulled up and Papyrus was cleaning dishes in the kitchen so he saw it when Red helped someone out of the back-someone who lumbered when he walked.

“SANS!”

There were still suds on his arms when he raced from the kitchen outside, not even bothering to put on shoes before nearly crashing into his brother and sweeping Sans-his Sans-up into a twirling hug that matched his laugh.

Sans-his Sans, was back! And he looked just as put together as he had the last time Papyrus had seen his brother. No worse for wear, just a bit exhausted, but still in one mostly whole piece.

“YOU’RE HOME!” he exclaimed before he could think about what he was saying. It didn’t make sense because neither of them were home, they were just together.

“…yeah, ya got me back paps,” he said once Papyrus set him down on the grass again, followed by, “you’re looking good at least.”

“NYEH HEH HEEH, BUT OF COURSE MY FABULOUS SELF WOULD ONLY FLOURISH WHEN PRESENTED WITH SUCH AN OPPORTUNITY. BEHOLD THE MAGNIFICENCE OF OUR TEMPORARY DWELLING AND COME IN TO GET SOME FOOD.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Red grumbled softly before nodding to where this world’s Sans and Papyrus now stood, having emerged mere moments after the SUV pulled up. “Take it from here, Classic?”

The other Sans nodded, flashing a thumbs up. “You got it. Keep us updated with her recovery. We’ll visit in the morning.” 

Red mentioned you by name before climbing into the SUV and driving off with someone else. It made Papyrus still in his tracks, but it made Sans-his Sans- flinch.

“SANS?”

“…inside…food and …we can…talk,” he offered in that slow broken way of speaking that always got worse when he had to talk about things caught up in his negative emotions.

Were you-?

“Everyone is going to be okay. Being tired and sick is something we can finally help with now that everyone is home,” the other Papyrus explained, stepping up and ushering everyone inside. “Lets heat up some leftovers and get the table filled again.”

“SICK?” He looked to his brother while walking in, hoping there was no bone fever or any other horrible skeleton sickness that infected their magic. Sans looked weak but he didn’t look plagued.

“Food first,” the other Sans echoed, holding the door open for the rest of them to file in.

Yes, that was right, food first and then talking. They’d eat to replenish their strength and then talk about what had happened. Papyrus wanted to know everything, what had happened after the initial escape attempt, where you and his brother had been held, what they had done to the both of you while there, and where you were now. He wanted to know it all since knowledge was the first step in survival.

No one would ever threaten their thriving like that again.

He looked down at his brother, larger and thicker than this world’s original yet still small enough for Papyrus to fold up in a hug. Without announcement he reached down and rubbed Sans’ shoulder to get his attention. Sans’ singular bloated eyesight rolled upwards to better see Papyrus, waiting for an explanation. The familiar sight made Papyrus swell with emotion.

“I AM GLAD YOU MADE IT BACK, BROTHER.”

Sans’ eye light went fuzzy around the edges. “…me too paps, me too….its….good to be….h… home again….”

 

 

 

Now, over a week later, he felt home again for a different reason. Papyrus-Paps sat up with his counterpart and listened with enough intent to remember everything said so he could repeat it back for his brother later. It had been a wild ride he was still reeling from, to show up with this world’s originals and find you crashing in the grass from some horror lodged deep in your soul-to standing back as you pulled yourself up with nothing short of the pure determination monsters starved themselves for. You roared out against your human brother and then as soon as that human and his monster friends were gone you fell back to a deep sleep meant for healing; he would know since he still remembered much of being a healer before the famine warped him

“To summarize, I believe our dear human will recover in time. There is nothing we need to address in regards to the soul wound. Time will have to heal the rest,” Papyrus explained while Paps cradled you in his arms. (He had been the one to catch you first.)

“IT WAS TERRIBLE TRAUMATIZED. I’VE NOT SEEN A SOUL ENDURE SO MUCH AND NOT DUST,” Papa said while remembering the last moments of too many monsters he watched fade.

“Humans are different,” Edge interjected, standing behind the two of them with his sword still out. He was glaring at the glowing green hands still hovering over your soul with a look that might have been envy or possibly something else. “Things that would dust a monster only slow the average human down, while some of the most inconsequential things fell them far more effectively.”

There was a history to those words, one that Paps recognized with grim clarity. He looked back over his shoulder at the slightly blurred figure of a fell verse Papyrus. To Paps, Edge seemed as nasty as a monster cold make himself in the dark. He was scrubbed and leaking red magic while still holding onto his weapon with a grip that transformed the whole of his body. Like he was holding his bone sword with more than just his hand-his whole body was a part of that weapon and he moved like it if his dance in the grass was anything to judge.

If things had been different and they were all back underground and the famine was more than just a terrible memory, Paps would have done everything in his power to get away from a monster who looked like Edge. Sure, he was scary, but more than that he looked like he ‘knew’ how to survive from experience.

How had such a fearsome monster come into your good graces? You were a firecracker of a determination soul, to be sure, but what about that would attract the attentions of a monster as battle forged as Edge?

“We should get her inside before the chill sets in. Honey here was just getting over being sick too,” Stretch interrupted, showing up beside Edge with a nonchalant posture than only made Edge look all the more rigid in comparison.

Stretch glanced sideways at Edge and huffed loudly before patting the taller skeleton on the shoulder, loudly enough to make the leather smack. Edge sneered but dismissed his bone weapon and stepped back. Some of the rigidness eased out of him but he was still sharp around the edges and more than capable of snapping at the drop of a hat.

Papyrus looked up over at you and scooted back. “Would you mind carrying her inside? Her house is just over there, not far.”

Paps almost startled at the question, seeing the barn looking house for himself. “YOU WANT ME TO?”

“You’re strong enough,” Stretch said, already walking ahead of the group.

“I’ll turn down her bed,” Papyrus explained before walking off ahead of everyone. Stretch hadn’t gone far and was easily overtaken by the former monster mascot.

Stretch actually stopped and looked back to watch Paps turn you around and fold you up in his arms to lift up. Stretch’s eye lights flickered to something past you and then he called out, “Edge, you coming?”

“Why should I? There’s nothing for me to do,” Edge snapped even as he paced ahead.

“I’m sure honey would appreciate something to eat once she wakes,” Stretch explained as the two of them fell into step while heading in the direction of your home.

“That could be days from now!”

“You know how to freeze meals.”

“Obviously, but you can buy frozen meals.”

“Can’t buy the ones made with intent from someone who cares.”

Edge huffed but didn’t say anything back to Stretch as he pushed ahead and stepped inside the home where Papyrus had already turned on a number of low lights. Paps followed Stretch in and saw where the kitchen was and how Edge was already making himself at home with an apron procured from the wall hook that fit him perfectly. Almost like it was…meant for him.

“Up here,” Papyrus called, earning Paps’ attention from the second story loft balcony.

Stretch was already on the stairs taking his good old sweet time to traverse them. Paps was careful to keep you close as he followed the lazier skeleton up. Your head was close to his chest and your legs only dangled a little so he was sure you wouldn’t hit the wall no matter how narrow the steps were for a monster of his size.

Paps spotted the extended bed at the back of the room and took note of how many extra pillows had been moved onto the floor to make room for you. Stretch moved to pick one up that was yellow orange with a bee printed on the cover before tossing it into the bed ahead of him. Paps started to feel unusual as he watched Stretch begin to toe off his shoes and toss them across the room.

“UM…”

“It’s his turn tonight,” Papyrus said, sounding like that was enough of an explanation.

“TURN?”

“Hang on, lemme get in first and then you can pass ‘er over,” Stretch mumbled before crawling into the bed ahead of you. Paps was still a little lost. He remembered hearing about the ‘chore chart’ but this would be his first time seeing it acted out with someone other than this universe’s Papyrus or Sans.

Papyrus glanced over at Stretch and then back at Paps, his eye sockets growing wide with a new wave of realization. “Ph-oh yes, we have a standing arrangement regarding cuddle partners,” Papyrus explained with a laugh and a blush. “It’s…it’s not what it sounds like it’s mor-more casual and not really a…a thing! Ah ha, it’s… to help and keep the nightmares away.”

Hopefully Stretch would be fooled into thinking this was Paps’ first time hearing about the cuddle chart.

Paps remembered back to how often you woke up sobbing in the middle of the night or in the morning with dried tears on your face. You didn’t scream as often as he would expect, but your eyes were always wild and manic during the first few seconds of wakefulness before you realized where you were. The nightmares you had endured while trapped had been…nothing short of awful. What made them worse was their consistency.

“A PARTNER IN CLOSE PROXIMITY PREVENTS SUCH NIGHT TERRORS, YES?” he asked, playing along. Stretch was still arranging pillows. 

“More of less,” Papyrus admitted. “It alleviates some of the worst ones and does a lot to help her get a full night’s sleep.”

“AND YOU TAKE TURNS?”

Papyrus looked backwards at the stairs and then over at Stretch. “There is a…standing agreement between us brothers, yes. We take turns and keep each other fair in the sharing of this privilege.”

‘SO HOW DOES ONE EARN THIS PRIVILEGE?’ Paps was desperate to ask. Instead he only nodded along and shuffled over to the bed with his head down before setting you down next to where Stretch was sitting up. Maybe when he and Papyrus were alone he could touch on that subject again…or was it  better to mention it in front of someone else and make his interest known.

Paps looked up and saw Stretch watching him with a lazy stare that was too keen to have missed anything. Their act hadn’t fooled anyone. It was just as well, since Paps was only more inclined than ever before to try and do what he could to make his feelings known. He was taking a page out of his brother’s book and just…going for it!

“AND…. THIS…. ARRANGEMENT IS ONE THAT…IS CLOSED?” Paps asked.

“I wouldn’t say that,” Stretch answered before Papyrus could. “But it ain’t up to any one of us. It’s gotta come from her first and then the lots decide. You should know it’s more than just us here who are involved. My brother will be along shortly, but he needs to make sure the kids are alright alongside Black. Heh, he’s probably racing to patch up the broken window or something.”

Paps felt his soul swoop a little. Stretch didn’t seem opposed to it. Maybe the others wouldn’t be so territorial either!

“HERE, I’LL JUST….” Paps mumbled subentry while turning you slightly so you appeared more comfortable in bed. 

Paps closed his eye sockets hard and let you go before standing back. His hands itched inside their gloves and he folded them under his elbows to keep either other skeleton from noticing how hard it had been to give you up. It felt right when you were tucked up in his arms. It hadn’t been since a long time since he and Sans-Axe had met you but it felt far longer. There was a resonance about you that made him feel…it made him feel like he fit, like he had found the place where he was meant to thrive-not just survive.

He had lived in a dark reality underground for so long that he knew what he could do in order to survive another day. He wasn’t proud of his accomplishments or the depths he had delved to, but he had done all he had so that both he and his brother would make it another damed day. That was survival, but beyond that there was…there was more than just staying alive and it was something he was hungry for. He wanted to live-to truly live and feel full. He wanted to feel the way he felt when he had you in his arms. Everything that spoke to him subconsciously the laws of survival told him to hold on to you, and it was a rare day when he no longer listened to those subconscious instincts.

But with his stained hands, could he? With all that he had done was there really a hope to cling to when he saw who else you surrounded yourself with? It wasn’t just…one or two potential mates you had circling in the wings. Even if that label wasn’t being utilized yet, only a fool would miss the love they had for you. How could he break in? How could he make room for himself? How could-

Paps took a step back when he heard Edge on the stairs. The ‘fell monster emerged with a tray that appeared to have a couple of small plats arranged with food. He marched over to the bed without disturbing a single morsel and started to set up the tray next to Stretch.

“I don’t think honey is in the position to-”

“It’s for you, moron!” Edge snapped at Stretch. “You think I’d feel comfortable leaving you to watch anyone when you look like shit? You depleted your magic, didn’t you?”

“It was…” Stretch started to say before glancing down at the tray stacked with light but warm food items. “Yeah, but you didn’t need to make anything for me.”

“Don’t besmirch my character by implying this was so uncharacteristic of my most hospitable self! There is food here for the three of you. Eat before you go. I don’t want any of you dropping on my watch.”

Paps was stunned for a moment. “ME?”

Edge opened his mouth to snap again but paused. Paps watched the ‘fell monster close his mouth shut and then narrow his eyesights before speaking again, this time in calmer, more measured words. “Yes, there is grilled cheese here for you. I would prefer if you had some of it before leaving for home. It would do you some good.”

Paps was stunned. Edge was the meanest looking monster out of the bunch, with Black and Red being tied for a close second. Edge was the last monster Paps would have expected to be fed by, and in such an unexpected way.

“Here!” Papyrus exclaimed, taking a plate for himself and another to press into Paps’ hands. “Edge is a fantastic cook and makes some of the tastiest snack dishes. You’ll enjoy it, I promise.”

“BUT…WHY ME?” he whispered, hiking up his shoulders and trying to shrink out of sight. He felt so unsure of everything. Was this a joke? Was Edge teasing him? Was it a trap?

“You helped tonight, didn’t you?” Edge asked, sounding less gruff than he had when he snapped at Stretch earlier. “I was incapacitated and unable to, but in my absence you did what I could not. I should thank you for that, first of all, but more importantly…” Edge grimaced before glancing sidelong at Stretch before saying anything else, “you would benefit from my masterful cooking efforts regardless of the circumstances. That is all!” 

“Red would tell you to be more honest,” Stretch teased over the last half of his grilled cheese with a teasing tilt to his eye lights. Papyrus sighed heavily, sounding like the banter was something he had heard before.

“Fuck off, carrot top,” Edge sneered before disappearing down the stairs.

Stretch chuckled before glancing over at Paps and winking. “He loves me, don’t be fooled. He’s just a little rough around the edges but he’s a sap on the inside.”

A bone projectile narrowly missed Stretch’s face but disappeared before it could hit the wall or make any sound. Stretch didn’t even flinch but his shit eating grin did grow.

“You know Edge doesn’t appreciate his buttons being pushed,” Papyrus sighed.

“But I love pushing buttons,” Stretch mumbled before scooting down into bed alongside you.

Paps watched with a bramble of envy that pricked at his soul while Stretch curled one arm around you and tugged you closer. In your sleep you snuggled up against the warmth and Stretch’s teasing grin turned soft. One of his hands reached up to cradle your skull and pull it down onto the cool of the pillow.

“Call us if you need anything or the situation changes,” Papyrus said while turning to leave. He had the empty tray and dishes in his arms and meant to carry them down even though Paps still had his food in his hands.

Paps turned to follow but glanced back and pretended for a moment it wasn’t Stretch who had you in his arms. In his mind Paps saw himself curled around you, sharing his warmth with you and feeling the heat of your breath on his bones. It made the bramble in his soul twinge a little but he looked away before Stretch could notice his envy.

Downstairs Paps followed Papyrus to the kitchen but stopped with his grilled cheese to gobble it down in two bites, filled with new energy and a fresh splash of replenishing magic. Edge and Papyrus were bickering lightly in the kitchen, and by bickering he meant Edge was snapping at Papyrus for washing all the dishes down while Papyrus happily blocked Edge from the sink.  It was an interesting dynamic.

“Oh, are you done?”

Paps startled when he heard Edge call out. “Y-YES, HERE.”

“You needn’t stutter,” Edge huffed, sounding more annoyed than genuinely upset like he had with Stretch earlier in the loft. Edge reached out to take the plate and frowned when he saw how Paps hands were still rattling.

“THANK YOU FOR THE FOOD, IT WAS DELICIOUS,” Paps said before Edge could bark anything else out.

The thanks seemed to surprise the ‘fell verse Papyrus. He blinked hard and his sockets widened a little. Edge didn’t say anything back at first, but he accepted the plate and nodded slowly in acknowledgment.

“It was a simple thing.”

Paps tried his best to master his nerves around the scarier looking monster. “IT DIDN’T TASTE SIMPLE. THANK YOU. FOOD MEANS A LOT TO ME-TO US-ME AND MY BROTHER I MEAN.”

Edge nodded once and then turned up his nasal ridge, grinning ever so slightly with a transparent tint of color around his ear holes. “Naturally you would be won over by my masterful cooking. I expect no less. I can see you are a superior judge of taste such as myself!”

“You’re doing it again,” Papyrus gently corrected from the sink.

Edge grumbled but dropped his shoulders and grin. “I apologize,” he ground out over his shoulder before looking back at Paps with a far more neutral expression. “But I still accept your thanks, however needless they may be. I’m grateful you took care of her when I couldn’t.”

“…I WOULD HAVE NO MATTER WHAT.”

“Clearly,” Edge laughed, sounding…younger? Maybe? No, no, not younger. It was something else but Paps didn’t have the words to accurately describe the way Edge sounded. It was different than the tone he used when speaking to Papyrus or Stretch.

“It’s about time we headed back,” Papyrus said from the sink, drying his gloved hands. “Axe and my brother must be anxious to leave so we’ll see you some other time, Edge.”

“My brother and I will be running permitter sweeps before leaving,” Edge said.

“A fair idea. Safe travels then. Paps?” Papyrus led the both of them out of the house and across the grass to where Sans and Axe stood talking with Blue.

Paps paused for a moment to look back, up at the exterior of your home. It was simple and nondescript but he was different from having been inside and that had nothing to do with the exterior. He had seen now with his own eye lights what it was like to share in a love with you. It wasn’t what most humans would call ‘traditional’ (if what he knew about humans was any accurate), but it seemed the vastly different skeleton brothers were all a little better off for knowing and loving you. Paps wanted that for himself too, he wanted it for both himself and his brother.

One day.

 

 

Notes:

I'm back! And while I was off I decided to reread a bunch of this story and give this chapter a face lift, so it pretty much doubled and kinda ran off on me but I think that's okay. Lots of Horror!Paps and the other Papyrus types getting along in this chapter. Stretch is a little shit -to no one's surprise- Edge mothers everyone, Papyrus keeps the peace and Paps is finding his place. The only one I missed was Rus but that's cause he was hunkered down with Black and the kids, keeping peace in place. He'll get his time to shine later on.

I have a sorta feedback request, for some of the future chapters, are there any specific character or combos that you would wanna see interact apart from reader? (Like Red and Sans or Edge and Blue?)

Chapter 59: Young & Menace 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“I don’t know, I think five days is pretty excessive,” you said.

“Your soul was horribly traumatized, more so than any other human soul I’ve ever seen before in my life. If you had been a monster that would have dusted you. Five days is not excessive!” Papyrus blustered, looking at you like you were the crazy one.

You had been dead asleep for over three days and then unable to leave bed with your level of exhaustion for another two. For all five days there was someone or multiple someones there at your bedside to check in on you, even Axe and Paps, checked in on you. 

Saturday the kids stayed with you, watching cartoons, and once Sunday dawned you felt well enough to get out and join them on a ‘nature walk’ through the small woodland that stretched between Red and Edge’s property and the barn you lived in. But you had to take Rus with you as your chaperone. By the time you got back Blue was home from work and eager to help you in the kitchen as you made dinner the old fashioned way for everyone.

Magic was still inaccessible and too heavy to properly manipulate.

Another lazy day rolled by followed by a lazier night.

And then another…

 

After jogging with Papyrus in the morning you parted at the Blackshire creek to head your separate ways. He had work of his own while you had your own place to be. Only after triple checking to make sure your phone was on and loud enough to hear did Papyrus let you go, watching you with poorly masked worry.

It was unnecessary since the hunter’s cabin where Paps and ‘Ax’ lived was just over the hill.

You saw Paps before he saw you, even though you knew he was capable as long as he had his glasses. He was outside in the garden, on his hands and knees weeding through the different rows of freshly planted produce. It would be a few more weeks before the winter harvest came in.

He turned at the sound of someone in the grasses and brightened when he recognized you. He dropped his shovel in the dirt and got up to run over to your side and pick you up into a squeezing hug while spinning with you in his arms. It made you laugh and squeeze him back, though your efforts were a far cry compared to his.

“Hey Papyrus,” you chuckled, patting the back of his skull. “Nice to see you too.”

“YOU’RE AWAKE!” He stopped spinning and set you down, unwinding his arms and drawing back only a fraction, keeping his hands on your shoulders. “AND YOU LOOK AS RIGHT AS RAIN. HOW ARE YOU FEELING?”

“Better. I’ve slept enough and now I’m just restless. I jogged over without calling ahead, I’m sorry.”

“THAT! IS THE OPPOSITE OF A PROBLEM. WHAT A DELIGHTFUL SURPRISE. AH, WE HAVE BREAKFAST STILL! YOU SHOULD COME IN AND EAT WITH SANS SINCE HE IS STILL ASLEEP.”

“At this hour?” you playfully chastised.

“I KNOW!”

You readjusted the straps to your runner’s knapsack and glanced behind Papyrus, into his garden. “Do you need help cleaning up first or maybe with the weeding?”

“IT HAS BEEN A COUPLE OF WEEKS BUT I’M STARTING TO SEE SPROUTS FOR MY CARROTS. THE WEEDS ARE A MINOR ANNOYANCE AND NOT SO PREVALENT THAT THEY REQUIRE IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. LET ME GRAB MY SHOVEL AND WE’LL HEAD INSIDE.”

You followed Papyrus into the garden, walking carefully between the rows and reading a couple of the signs sticking out of the ground, naming the different autumn plants he was growing. You saw Pak Choi, carrots, asparagus, spring onions, perpetual spinach, garlic, onions and shallots, some with sprouts and heads peaking through the dirt while others continued to slumber beneath the soil.

“It looks like you put a lot of work into this, Paps,” you said.

“AH YES, WITH THE LATE AUTUMN SEASON WE WERE LIMITED ON THE NUMBER OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES WORTH PLANTING IN THE GARDEN, BUT WITH A LITTLE RESEARCH AND ELBOW GREESE WE WERE ABLE TO FIND A NICE VARIETY, DON’T YOU THINK?”

“Tell me what you’re most excited to try?”

“I THINK THE ASPARAGUS, BUT I’M VERY FOND OF SPRING ONIONS AND CARROTS. OH AND THE ONIONS ARE SO HEARTY I CAN’T HELP BUT FEEL PROUD OF THEIR GROWTH.”

You chuckled, watching him preen and fret over his vegetables. This was the sort of thing he should be worrying over, not what his next meal is going to be because resources are scarce. He should only fret over which veggie to try next and which plant to name his favorite.

“It all sounds good. Maybe I should try planting something behind the barn.”

The suggestion seemed to make Papyrus beam. “YOU SHOULD! MAYBE A LITTLE FLOWER PATCH TOO. I WANTED TO HAVE SOME BUT THE FOOD WAS MORE IMPORTANT AND THE SEASON WASN’T RIGHT FOR MOST FLORA.”

“Do you have a favorite flower type, or do you just like all the colorful ones?”

Papyrus gasped comically and held his hands over his teeth. “HOW DID YOU KNOW?”

His reaction and words made you laugh. It was too cute and you were having way too much fun watching him react to all the different things.Your Papyrus was much the same way, and you figured a couple of things would be the same between them.

“What did you make for breakfast?” you asked, following him out of the garden. Papyrus held open the gate, waiting for you to exit before he latched it behind you both. “FRIENDSHIP SPAGHETTI, ALTHOUGH IT WAS JUST NORMAL SPAGHETTI THIS MORNING SINCE THERE WERE NO FRIENDS HERE. I STILL HAVE SOME LEFTOVER IN THE TUPPERWARE.”

“That sounds great, but I was wondering if you would mind letting me make you some brunch, or like, second breakfast,” you said.

Papyrus’ face went bright orange all over, lighting up with the familiar color. “MA-MAKE BREAKFAST FOR ME!? I-I ALREADY ATE AND IT’S NOT EVEN BEEN THE FIRST-AAH AND I’M NOT DRESSED FOR SUCH…”

You recognized the fluster as a positive one.

You reached behind you and pulled out a home sealed carton of batter that had been mixed and prepped earlier for easy application. “It’s sort of like my friendship food until I can cook with my fire magic again. It’s not the best, but I wanted to share some of this with you and Sans. Though if you’re full I can always save it for-”

“NO!” Papyrus blurted out. “NO THAT WON’T BE NECESSARY. WE ARE-I-THERE IS ALWAYS ROOM FOR FRIENDSHIP FOODS FROM FF-FRIENDS!”

“Cool, let’s head on inside and see if Sans is up.”

Papyrus hurried to hold open the front door for you, nodding slightly as you passed before ducking in after you, bending slightly to fit through the smaller doorway. He rushed ahead and started to set the table with plates before asking what sort of utensils he needed to put out.

“I think just a fork and butterknife or just a fork if that’s more your style. I’m making browned butter waffles to go along with this spiced pear topping I’ve been hankering for. I used to just rip my waffles in half and dip them in syrup like toast when I ate them as a kid.”

You recalled a heartbeat later Sans’ aversion to knives. You weren’t sure why or what it was about knives that unsettled him, (or even which ones were okay and which ones weren’t) but you didn’t want anything potentially setting him off if you could help it.

“WOWIE, IT SOUNDS MARVELOUS. BROWNED BUTTER HOMEMADE WAFFLES WITH SPICED PEAR TOPPING, YUM!” Papyrus held a plate to his chest and spun around with it before setting it down on the table mat.

Cute

You plugged the waffle maker in and turned it over to let it heat while assembling all the different ingredients. The batter had already been prepped and you had a mason filled with the spiced pear Black picked up for you at the last local farmer’s market. You weren’t sure how he would feel knowing you intended to share it with Paps and Axe, but didn’t care enough about his biases to hesitate.

After sleeping for nearly a week plenty had gone on without you there, but from the looks and sounds of it, a reconciliation between Black and the brothers from the ‘horror’ universe wasn’t one of them. You had hoped that their ability to work together to save your soul had healed some biases, but Black still insisted on a strong separation between them, and the kids.

Sans had filled you in on the details during one of his visits. From his point of view, the road to reconciliation was a long one that only got a fraction shorter.

Russ had been mute on the whole issue, voicing neither his agreement or disagreement. You got the feeling that he didn’t see the situation as Black saw it, but respected his elder brother too much to say anything against him in front of others.

When the waffle maker beeped you opened the lid and poured in the first four slots with creamy, rich batter that already smelled of butter and cinnamon. You locked the clasp in place and flipped the waffle maker over so it could heat on the bottom for half it’s time before needing to be flipped back.

From the other room someone heavy started to stir.

“Its the waffles, he can smell them,” you stage whispered over your shoulder to Paps.

“DON’T BE TOO SURE OF THAT. IT’LL BE ANOTHER FIVE TO TEN MINUTES BEFORE IT’S ENOUGH TO ROUSE HIM OUT OF BED.”

“Oh, you know this for a fact?” you said with a teasing smile.

“OF COURSE, I AM HIS BROTHER AFTER ALL.”

You watched Paps a moment longer before turning back to the mason jar to unscrew its lid.  There were a few more things in your bag you unloaded onto the counter, but not everything was edible.

“WHAT ELSE DID YOU BRING?”

You almost answered but the beeping from the waffle maker pulled you away. Flipping over the iron you unlocked it and removed the four waffles. Paps already had a glass dish at your elbow for you to fill before pouring more of the batter into the iron and resetting it for another rotation.

“Stuff for later,” you answered easily, working to make the rest of batter into something edible. “I was hoping it might help Sans with some of his memory problems.” Paps shifted behind you and before he could say anything you reached for the plastic holder, turning it over and showing off the red cross first aid insignia. “I’m not a doctor, but I was hoping it might help.”

When you turned to look back Paps was still wearing his glasses but they were a bit smeared with the traces of leftover orange magic. He sniffed loudly and then laughed, a familiar Nyah ha ha. “THAT IS KIND OF YOU TO THINK OF US AFTER ONLY JUST RECOVERING YOURSELF. YOU SHOULD BE A BIT MORE SELF-FOCUSED.”

You didn’t look up at Paps’ metal smile or horn rimmed glasses. “I’m a lot better than you think I am. Humans bounce back from all sorts of things all the time. You don’t think a week of sleep was enough?”

When you turned around Paps was already there, but the easy smile was gone. Instead he was bent over you, arms ready to catch you before you could bump into his chest. He leaned down and you felt his hands move from your shoulders to your face tugging gently at the skin of your cheeks before moving away.

“You Should Have Died.”

His voice was soft and full of magic, a contradiction in your ears and in your soul and he caged you with his form. You didn’t have a response ready and your mouth was dry and tired.

In a moment you went from overconfident to humbled. You had made a mistake thinking Paps would treat you like Papyrus. Papyrus would have worried and fretted but let it go if you told him so. Papyrus had years of listening to human media handlers and human personality experts. All Paps had was his gut and a lack of unhealthy boundaries.

Paps was nothing if not honest. When he said you should have died it wasn’t because he was trying to be purposefully ominous, but because that was the truth. You imagined the underground he left behind not being the sort of place one could pussyfoot around sensitive issues or subjects. Horrible truths were too frequent and his survival too uncertain to be nothing if not brutally honest.

“I was in good hands,” you finally managed to voice. “Thank you for worrying after me.”    

“I Don’t Understand It, But I Wish I Did.”

“You mean about my soul?”

Paps nodded. “Forgive Me For Being So Direct, But It Is My-Our Nature.”

You rolled your shoulders easily. “It’s nothing I haven’t shared with the others, but that was before we met. You know I’m a mage right?” When he nodded you went on. “Let me start there.”

You freed the finished waffles and poured enough for another four while explaining to Paps how children were taken and trained from an early age, then dropped into a scar to the void until their souls detached. You modeled breaking your nails into a fruit and turning it inside out, not nearly as grossed out as you had been the first time you admitted it to the boys. When you looked to Paps to read his expression you weren’t surprised to see the lack of judgment or disgust, but a soft pity. 

The beep of the waffle iron made you jump and you hurried to flip it over and peel out the newest batch of waffles before finishing off your batter with one last batch of four.

“Inverted, Of Course. No Wonder Your Soul Was So…Vibrant. I’ve…Never Seen Such a Bright Human Soul. I thought It Might Be Because You Were Hurt, But Your Story Makes More Sense.” He inhaled sharply, standing upright a bit more and smiling brighter. “Thank You For Trusting Me With This.”

“Of course. Like I said, it’s not anything I haven’t shared before and I’m willing to bet you would have figured it out on your own from one of the other guys.”

Papyrus doesn’t deny it, but he smiles warmly down at you and reaches for your face to cradle between his gloved hands. The texture of his gloves is rougher than you’re used to, but his touch is feather soft and gentle enough for a lamb, almost like he handles you the way he would something precious. “It Means More Coming From You.”

You’re intimidated by how charming Paps is with his stylish glasses and colorful smile, having not expected him to be so smooth. It was a side you weren’t used to seeing or expecting.

The beep of the waffle maker behind you is enough to save you from a floundering reply and you turn away to flip over the iron and pry free the last four waffles before dropping them on the first of three awaiting plates.

You drizzle spiced pear and syrup on the first while Paps excuses himself to rouse his brother with an innocent chuckle.   

Innocent?!

…waffles?”

You brought the dishes out to the table, smiling when you saw Axe Sans lumbering out of the hallway in front of his brother. You winked over his way before turning around and heading back into the kitchen for the glass dish with all the other waffles inside. There was a little bit of Spiced pear left for seconds if anyone wanted more that you placed on the center of the table.

“How’d you sleep, sleeping beauty?” you teased, grinning over at Sans who stood looking still half asleep on his feet.

“ap-pear-ently not as deep as you thought if i missed you making all this.” He reached out for the nearest chair and grabbed the back of it to drag out before whistling low. His face didn’t move but you knew he was looking at you when the red glow in his socket moved up to narrow in on your face. “all this you?”

Bone appetit, Sans”

Paps huffed loudly in soft disappointment, but you could tell from the fond look on his face that he really wasn’t that upset with the early morning puns.

In short order you all sat down and dug into the morning meal, making even shorter work of it and all the seconds left in the glass. Once the waffles were gone Sans asked for the pears left at the bottom of the mason jar to swallow whole, claiming they were almost as ‘good as peaches’ like that was supposed to make you fluster.

You wouldn’t think about how successful he was or wasn’t. You were getting worse the closer you came to admitting you had feelings that weren’t wholly platonic for each of your skeleton companions. You really were unbelievable since just this week you nearly died and here you were, sitting at the table and thinking about date mate opportunities.

Something was seriously messed up with you.

“how ya feeling there, peaches?”

You looked up and saw the way Axe watched you, almost the same way Paps watched you. You weren’t sure if he was asking about the face you had just been making or about the whole nearly dying bit he had seen firsthand last time you were in the same vicinity together.

“I’m holding up just fine. I’m sorry I didn’t come to visit sooner, but I was a little out of it,” you admit, resting one elbow on the edge of the table.

Sans almost snickered. “ya don’t say?”

“Yeah, something about my soul nearly ripping in half just takes it out of me these days,” you laughed sarcastically. “I’ll be better about it next time.”

“PLEASE DON’T LET THERE BE ANOTHER NEXT TIME!” Papyrus exhaled, eye sockets round and wide with worry, causing you to dissolve into snickers.

“I’ll try, but only for you and because you asked,” you teased before you could help yourself.

“good, it’d be a shame to lose our favorite human.”

Your elbow slipped off the table and you recovered in time only to avoid banging your head as you scrambled to sit upright. Looking over at Sans and the tired but easy expression he paired with his permanent grin you felt your stomach roll again.

“I brought something for your today,” you admitted, standing up quickly. Your voice was a little louder and maybe a tad more strained, but you ran back to grab the first aid kit while Paps cleaned the table for you. Sans sat forward when he saw the kit and wrinkled his nasal ridge (or what was left of it) at the smell.

“human healer stuff?”

“Not quite.” You reached in and pulled out the first of a dozen identical pads before peeling back its packaging to expose the material inside. “This is stuff for mages. I had a lot of issues controlling my magic when I was younger and I’ve got scars to show for it. There are these places on my body where I leak excess magic and I had to wear these whenever it got bad. Basically, they’re magic bandaids.”

“…don’t think that’s gonna stick, peaches,” he chuckled, sounding a little lost. “‘m a little past-a what bandaids can help.”

“They’re not gone heal anything, I understand, but they are designed to trap excess or leaking magic, and I can’t help but noticed that’s what you’re dealing with.” You swallowed, uncomfortable with the silence and rushed to fill it. “I know this isn’t ideal and I wish I could do more, but apart from green magic that I can’t even use, this is the only thing I could think of.”

Sans blinked hard and looked up, red eye light dilating back to its usual blooming size. “why?”

His question made you feel funny. “What do you mean why?” I want to help you because I care and I don’t want to see you hurt or uncomfortable.”

He looked from the pad in your hands to your face and then down at the pad again. You catch the way his fingers twitch but don’t comment until he is ready, no matter how long that takes. You’re proud when he manages to refocus without tugging at the edge of his eye socket.

“…ya want me ta try it then?”

“Please.” You hold it up again, looking hopeful.

His gaze fixed on you and then went soft along with his shoulders. “do what ya want, I don’t care,” he said while leaning back in his seat. The way he said it reminded you of the time he told you to call him whatever you wanted, and that he didn’t care about the nicknames.

Sans.”

He looked up at the sound of his name and the significance wasn’t lost on him. You folded up the bandage and kept it between your hands. “Only if you’re comfortable with it.”

“what does that matter?” 

“It matters to me.”

He looked up at you, watching you long enough for his singular pupil to dilate and go a little fuzzy before refocusing a minute later. He blinked slow and then inclined his head in your direction. “…k…but…only cuz its you,” he finally rumbled.

“IT WON’T HURT OR INTERFERE WITH HIS DAILY HABITS WILL IT?” Papyrus asked, wiping the water off his gloves with a patterned dish towel.

“No, but it might need replacing every few days or less. I’m not sure how much magic you’re leaking but you’ll know to change them out when the color turns and it gets saggy.” You pulled back the paper on the first pad and stood up with it.

Papyrus watched you as you stood behind Sans and leveed the first bandage over one corner of his head wound, careful to slowly descend the adhesive ends until they came in contact with the edges of his skull. He inhaled sharply and you felt the venting of his magic over your knuckles with your hands so close. When you puled away you saw how still Sans was.

“I’m sorry this isn’t a more… permeant solution, but it’s all I have.”

“EVEN IF IT ISN’T A PERMEANT SOLUTION, IT IS BETTER THAN WHAT WE HAD. SANS AND I ALWAYS ASSUMED THIS WOULD BE SOMETHING TO MANAGE DAY BY DAY AND THAT’S NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF.”

“-who said I was ashamed?”  Sans growled, bracing on hand on the edge of the table when he couldn’t find armrests to his chair. His remaining eyesight wobbled in his socket more than usual.

Papyrus made a sound of fond disappointment. “NOT YOU SANS, OUR HUMAN.”

Sans went still then turned in time to see whatever expression you were wearing. You weren’t sure what it was, but tried to fix your face back into something more neutral. You weren’t sure what Sans saw, and you weren’t sure if you could read him well enough to know what he thought when he looked at you.

“What'd I do?” you asked instead.

Sans let go of the edge of the table and reached for the sleeve of your shirt. “peaches, it ain’t your job to fix me up, not even I could do that.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“not with your words ya didn’t.” 

You glanced down at the second pad you had in your hands, still sealed and unopened. You could guess what sort of expression Paps had recognized when he saw you working on his brother. They were right, there was nothing for you to beat yourself up over and pity probably did more emotional harm than good. But it…wasn’t pity you felt. You’d pity anyone with an injury so severe, but because of who it was…because it was Ax-no Sans, because it was him, it meant so much more.

You probably would have died without him back int he cells. And even if you had survived, you would never had made it out of there as well as you had apart from him. After the hell his life had been, he nursed you when you were sick, shared his food with you, and wrapped you in his coat. He had given you a nickname and carried you over that facility, worrying about your naked toes getting cut and sore.

He was important to you. Maybe more than you were willing to admit or think about.

Your conversation with Red and Sans came back to mind, but you pushed it away, unwilling to revisit it after the drama with your soul and brother.

“Sorry.”

“’s not something to be sorry about.” Sans moved his hand from the sleeve to your arm and squeezed once before letting you go.

“NOT AT ALL. THIS IS MORE THAN WE COULD HAVE HOPED FOR AND I’M SURE IN TIME WITH A PROPER DIET OF HEALTHY FOOD AND AMPLE REST THERE WILL BE NOTHING BUT IMPROVEMENT TO LOOK FORWARD TO.”

“oh, that sounds like a good idea for today,” Sans rumbled playfully. “you planning on staying for a mettaton marathon, peaches?”

You laughed weakly, feeling lighter at the suggestion. Even if Mettaton marathons were hilariously bad and best endured with alcohol, you’d gladly sit through a thousand and more hours if it was next to your precious people.

“I’m sure I could find the time,” you said before lifting up your hands. “Here, let me finish with this next bandage on the other side.”

This time Sans leaned towards you and offered you access to the scar on the side of his head more readily. You gingerly applied the next bandage, covering up another third of the hole. The wound was large enough that two whole bangs weren’t enough to completely cover everything, so you finished off with a third and final pad that covered the last exposed fragment of his head wound.

None of the bandages looked loose and you checked each one to make sure the adhesive took to bone like it took to skin. You ran a single index finger along the edges and only hesitated when you saw the way your touch made Sans shiver. When he didn’t say anything to make you stop, you finished checking and stood back to admire the work.

“IS IT ANY BETTER?” Paps asked, looking expectantly in his brother’s direction.

“…it ain’t any worse.”  Sans admitted truthfully.

“That might be because I just finished slapping them on.”

“YES, IT HASN’T BEEN LONG ENOUGH TO NOTICE ANY DIFFERENCE. QUICK, BROTHER, TELL ME WHO IS THE MOST HANDSOME SKELETON IN THE UNDERGROUND?”

“oh no, that’s a hard one, Paps, lemme think for a minute,” Sans playfully ribbed, perm-grin growing wider with the comment.

Paps flustered dramatically and stomped his foot. “NO, THAT IS NOT HOW YOU WINGMAN YOUR BROTHER YOU TERRIBLE PUN CRIMINAL!”

Sans faked a lazy stance and shrugged his shoulders. “-don’t know about any underground, but in the world it can’t be anyone but my bro.”

Paps’ earlier frustration was replaced with a loud ‘NYEEP’ and a hastily mumbled excuse about blow drying his VHS tapes. You watched the taller skeleton turn a dark shade in the face as he ducked his head between his shoulders and dashed for the living room to get their movie marathon set up.

When it’s just you, Sans quietly admits, “i hope i can remember that one.”

You reach for his hand, taking it with yours before tugging him up to follow you into the same living room. “I do too, but even if you forget I’ll be here to reenact it with you whenever you want. How does that sound?”

You felt Sans hand squeezed you back as he lifted himself from his seat at the table to follow you out. “Oh, ah, yeah, that sounds just peachy.”

 

You think it’s cute when Sans falls asleep after the first movie, but can’t really blame him when you start to doze a couple hours later. The couch was warm and soft enough to sink into. Outside the world was cold and you still felt the chill too much to go anywhere without extra layers, but on the couch between the brothers and underneath a blanket, that was a whole other story.

You planned on having another conversation with them soon; a conversation about labels and boundaries and expectations if things between you three were going to change, but first you needed to get a few more ducks in a row. You knew where Paps and Axe stood on the issue, more or less, but now you needed the insight from a couple other brothers before you decided to make any more moves.

Notes:

Someone said they enjoyed the soft horror bois so who am I to disappoint? They deserve some down time after all that drama. A few more fluff chapters are on the menu boys!
Eventually Axe and Paps are going to get new names, but that'll be around Halloween time so just a heads up there. It might have been confusing with me throwing in 'Sans' when they're on their own at this point in time.

 

Cue ramblings: Also, last week I started playing around with this brain-worm of an idea and now I'm 25K deep into another fic for myself that may or may not see the light of day once this epic is wrapped up. I have two (now three) other undertale side fics I've been messing with but I'll still be updating this main work faithfully until the end of 2020 since I have enough prewritten chapters for it.

Chapter 60: Young & Menace 5

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Sans grinned, almost nervous, as he watched Grillby clean another glass. There were not words spoken, and the crackle of his fire was absent of intention so Sans had no obvious clues to work with, but somehow he still knew what his old friend was thinking and feeling just by watching the fire elemental’s body language.

That glass had been clean a long time ago but Grillby was still at it.

“You think… I should have told you something so scary right off the bat?” Sans asked, too impatient to wait another five minutes for a response.

Grillby didn’t answer and he didn’t move to prep a plate of Sans’ usual for him.

“It’s all over now and I’m sorry you felt outta the loop there. I match it up to you somehow,” Sans said.

Grillby stopped cleaning and glared pointedly down his nonexistent nose at Sans. There were no words spoken but Sans knew enough about Grillby to pick up on the fire elemental’s crackling language. It was a rough understanding, but Sans pieced it together just fine.

“There is nothing for you to make up to me. I do not want anything from you except your honesty. You should have told me.”

“What if that wasn’t what ‘they wanted?” Sans asked.

“Then that would be different, of course,” Grillby admitted with shallow pops like logs on a fire at the end of its burning. “Still…you know I would have appreciated the knowledge.”

“You’re real hung up on what happened to them, ya know.” Sans nervously leaned agains the counter before asking, “any particular reason for that?”

“What are you implying, Sans?” Grillby challenged with a forward leaning posture that put Sans on the defensive.

“Nothing, just asking.”

Grillby pulled back but through the flames Sans could see his friend sported an unimpressed expression. “I’m not the same as you, skeleton if that is what you wanted to admit, but I don’t owe any explanation to you if you’re drawing this line between them and myself to keep things from me.”

“Sorry Grillby, you should have know.”  Sans bowed his head a little and that averted his eye lights. “It was somewhat of a sensitive subject.”

“Too sensitive to share with people who worried?”

“With most people, hell yeah.”

Grillby didn’t respond right away but retreated to the kitchen. A few minutes later he returned with a boat of fries and a tub of ketchup for Sans to drown his fries in. It was a simple gesture but it mattered immensely to Sans.

“If…they come back here…no work for…for a while…” Grillby crackled thoughtfully. He sounded less tense and more introspective, almost distracted. “Rest is best.”

“Not gonna argue you on that one, flame stick, but don’t think anyone is gonna keep ‘er from your famous burgs. The kid is hungry, ya know.”

Grillby hesitated and the slowly nodded, looking as if he was thinking about something Sans had just said. “An appetite is good…that’s a good sign.”

“We told you the spike is out so all the soul needs to do is heal. We’re out of the woods.”

“You would like to think that, wouldn’t you, Mr. Scientist,” Grillby scoffed, exhaling a roll of new flames from where his mouth might have been. “Souls are… delicate and wear scars more easily than anything else. There will be consequences…. to these wounds. Do not take them lightly,” he warned.

“There’s a difference between taking them lightly and trying to stay positive,” Sans nervously chuckled, sweating a single beat of magical sweat down the back of his skull.

Just thinking about your soul falling apart in his hands made his own magic flutter; one half concaving and sinking in on itself while Papyrus struggled to patch and prop it up. Yeah, it had been a hell of a horror show and it would likely haunt him for a while after this. Anyone else should have died from the trauma. It had been only because of the combined efforts of everyone that you had pulled through and the fact that you were DETERMINED. If they hadn’t been there…

“Is Fuka coming home anytime soon?” Sans asked with a forced smile. “Heard she had some break time coming up?”

“It’s not until late November,” Grillby huffed, clearly upset. Sans knew the fire-dad wanted his only daughter to move back home or stay somewhere closer, but Fuka was a wild sprite and needed to be out on her own, living life at her own pace and Grillby respected his daughter too much to hold her back.

Still…the fire-dad seemed a bit more ‘put out’ than usual when Sans brought up Fuka.

“Is everything okay?”

Grillby glared up through his glasses but there was no real malice to his gaze, only irritation with the subject of their conversation. “It’s…that… ‘uncle’ Grillby you brought back. He wants to…get to know her.”

“You don’t think that’s a good idea?”

Grillby’s flames flickered oddly and Sans had to pay extra close attention to decipher what Grillby was trying to say when he started talking faster. “He hasn’t told me what happened to his daughter in his world yet, and I can bribe him with anything expect my daughter which is the one thing he seems interested in and the only thing I wouldn’t ever use cause you know she’s not. Bargaining chip. She has her own opinions and… I don’t like it, but Fuka wants to know him better and…that’s her…choice.”

“You’re a good dad.”

“…Then why can’t I keep any of my kids around?”

It took a second longer for Sans to catch it, but Grillby had used the plural form of ‘kid’ when grumbling. Kids…as in…more than just Fuka. Who…?

“Grillby, who’s your other kid?”

“…I don’t have another child, Sans, you know that.”

“Nah, who were you thinking about when you just said ‘kids’ a second ago?”

“I didn’t say kids… your understanding is flawed.”

“Sure, but that sounded a hell of a lot just like….oh.” Realization made Sans’ expression drop and his eye lights flicker out. “Oh!”

Grillby glared hard. “Don’t,” he threatened aloud with his actual voice instead of the flames.

“Do they know you think of them as your other kid?” Sans gasped, entirely too excited to care anymore about how annoyed Grillby seemed.

“No, don’t-I didn’t confirm that.”

“You didn’t deny it either.”

“Sans, drop it.”

Sans couldn’t help it, for a while he was worried that his old friend might have ‘carried a torch’ for you in his soul, but if Grillby just saw you as another child of his…well, that was different! It was cute!

Grillby as a father in law? Not a bad idea. 

“You sure you don’t want any help?” Sans teased with a wide grin stained in ketchup. He was still grinning like a fool when he heard the door behind him open and chime the arrival of someone new.

Grillby inhaled and stood a little straighter so Sans swiveled in his seat to see who it could be.

“What are you doing here?” Sans asked in surprise, staring down from his stool at the well-dressed skeleton.

Black scowled at his counterpart in typical fashion before turning back to address Grillby. “I’ve come with the restitution allotment I mentioned per our last communications.”

Grillby flickered and then slowly leaned over the counter. “That’s not necessary…I didn’t do it for…money…”

“That changes very little, my friend. Though he may be your alternate, he is still from my world and therefore my history. Things may be different up here on the surface but my promises do not change. This is less about you and more about what exists between me and him,” Black explained before sliding the envelope across the counter.

“I…don’t feel comfortable…taking money for it…” Grillby said before looking to Sans.

“You should, hot stuff,” Sans encouraged. “This guy won’t be hurt from the loss of it and you know Fuka is coming back so why not put it towards a gift for her or something of that nature? She’d love a fancy new gift. What do kids her age like anyway?”

Grillby hesitated and then pushed the envelope back towards Black. “Thank you, but I… still can’t accept… the money.”

Black narrowed his sockets and his eye lights shrank in response. “I see your resolve, however I am no less steadfast with mine. In place of a money gift, as crass as it may be, let me repay you with a token gift for your daughter. I have one of my own and value her delight over any finite amount of wealth. You won’t deny me that, will you?”

Grillby hesitated and Sans watched the flames on his old friend flicker in thought before finally he nodded. “Very well…for a gift…she may enjoy…but how would you…know?”

“I told you, didn’t I? I’m also a father and know my daughter well enough to know how to watch for her interests. I’ll find something your Fuka would appreciate,” Black said before inflating along with the boast. “I’ve a very successful track record when it comes to gift giving that I pride myself on.”

Grillby nodded before looking to Sans and then back at Black. “A drink then…on the house…in thanks of your generosity…”

Black hesitated, noting Sans already at the bar before stiffening and approaching the next nearest bar stool. “I shall accept a drink then. Something light please, I still have business to see to.”

“Business on such a nice day?” Sans teased. “What could hold a land barren like yourself up?”

“Don’t sound so crass,” Black scoffed. “You own even more property than I.”

“But you don’t see me working my ass off, do you?”

“You don’t have an ass,” Black muttered lowly.

Sans’ felt a thrill as he recognized the joke as one from you. Black would hate to admit it but your humor had rubbed off on him and it showed.

“What else do you have to do for the rest of the day? Is it so much you can’t put your feet up for a few and enjoy a drink with a friend?”

“We’re friends?”

Sans grinned knowingly as Grillby returned with a tall glass of swirling red and orange liquor that sparked as the ice inside turned and swam. A heavy black began to drift down and cloud out the other colors until the entire drink was a murky black brown with sparks of red still running through it when the ice turned. Black took a sniff an then a sip before knocking back a whole mouthful, seemingly satisfied with the taste of the monster beverage even if it wasn’t wine.

“Maybe nothing so simple, but we understand each other, don’t we?” Sans said, digging another french fry though the mound of ketchup.

“You’re gross.”

“Rude.” Sans took a bite and grinned at the taste. “I guess I couldn’t ketch-you in a good mood after all. What a shame.”

“Don’t push it, Comic.”

Sans chuckled and ate another french fry while Grillby busied himself behind the counter, coming back over with a soda and another boat filled with Sans’ usual burger combo. Black barely paid his alternate any attention until Sans spoke up again, speaking of the side of his mouth that wasn’t filled with foods.

“So how’s the rest of the family?” 

Black paused, glass halfway to his mouth. The usual scowl started to slip and he readjusted in his seat with a short huff. “They are…well. No sickness at the moment, each are prevailing in school with help of course, and we’re ahead of schedule in assembling costumes for the human’s monster day tradition.”

“You mean Halloween?”

“That’s the one,” Black confirmed, touching his glass and tracing the designs the ridges made. “They’ve been quite educational in regaling me with the cultural significance of this Hallow’s Eve. It’s been…an experience.”

“I remember our first Halloween on the surface. We went with Frisk before they grew up.” Sans swallowed and glanced off into his reflection in the soda glass. “You don’t forget your first, it’s sure to be a treat.”

“No pun from you, Comic?”

Sans took a moment and looked over his burger and fries. “What can I say, time fries when you’re with the little guys. Enjoy it all you can before they grow up and take off for some fancy private high school overseas or community college out of reach.”

Black hesitated before taking another sip, glancing over at where Grillby stood just within earshot and likely privy to everything they said. He was a smart enough guy to put the pieces together and understand what Sans was trying to say without saying it explicitly.

“It’ll be fine. We have money, we can travel  if they move away and still invite us over, and they know how to use technology to keep in contact. If they do decide to grow up and move on with their lives we’ll figure out what that looks like when we get there.”

“Even if you’re not a part of the picture?”

“Like I said, Comic, that’s something for us to figure out when we get there, not now.” Black inclined his chin and turned up his nasal ridge, looking as he might have when inspecting his troops even though the only thing in front of him was a half finished drink. “One must neither count their chickens nor their basilisks before they hatch, no one knows what the future holds.”

“Heh,” Sans huffed, turning back to his burger and taking another bite, diminishing it by a good fourth. He didn’t look up and he didn’t say anything while Black sipped from his drink and the diners behind them mingled quietly during early lunch. When Black cleared his throat Sans looked up again.

“The children would not hate it if you wanted to join them for Friday pizza and movies. Obviously you are not their favorite skeleton, but I don’t think any of them are entirely repulsed by your presence so you wouldn’t be unwelcome.”

“Gee, thanks, I feel so appreciated. I’m not entirely repulsive, huh. Is that what the kids are calling it these days?” Sans snickered in spite of himself. He didn’t want to laugh but it was worth a chuckle to hear Black admit anything positive about another skeleton. “What about you? Are you so eager to open your home to one more skeleton?”

“I would hardly call it ‘opening up’ considering how often you’ve been by.”

“I didn’t mean me.”

Black’s eyesights shrank to pin pricks and his sockets narrowed. “Careful,” he warned Sans in a stern tone of voice that was reminiscent of the voice Sans expected to hear in a harsher underground.

“I mean if you’re gonna sit there on your high horse, captain, and talk down to me about life and not staying stuck in the past, then shouldn’t that be good enough advice for you to take yourself?” Sans taunted with a craft gleam to his eye lights.

“This and that are entirely different matters. Choices have consequences.”

“But yours don’t?”

The room was quiet even with all the noise of other patrons. Between Black and Sans there was a tension that muffled the world around them and muted everything but their projectile words.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Nah, not really cause you’re not the most forthcoming about what went down underground, but I could piece the parts together with what I know from your brother and the other fell brothers. You don’t get to be a captain of the guard with clean hands in a kill or be killed world, do you? Not saying what you did was any better or worse, but hopefully you can see what we all have in common here?”

“I don’t think I like what you’re implying, Comic.”

“I ain’t implying anything, Blackberry. I’m telling you to your face that you ain’t any better or worse than the next guy who does what he has to in order to survive. The world went dark for those two and they did what they had to with no ounce of happiness or joy between them and trust me, I still see it haunting them to this day. Is that a good enough reason to keep hurting them?”

“I’ll not be baited into anything by you, I’ve said what I said and I meant it. I don’t feel comfortable with those two being near my family.”

“Yet it okay you’re sharing your love with ‘em?”

Black didn’t say anything, but there was a static around him that was threatening and cold. He had excellent self restraint but didn’t bother to hide his capabilities while holding back on displaying them. Sans didn’t flinch, confident he could take on the tiny tyrant if it came down to a fight. He had more magic, after all.

“It is unwise to antagonize me,” Black warned.

“Don’t mean to, but someone has gotta look out for those two. It ain’t a big deal right now since they’re still recovering and adjusting to a whole new way of living, but it’ll come up before too long. They want their names added to the lots drawn.” Sans shrugged. “Red and Edge agreed easily enough and you know the swap brothers wouldn’t kick up a fuss about it if they let you in on it.”

“I can provide. What can those two do other than shed dust and look scary?” Black snapped before he could measure his words and their impact.

“It ain’t about providing or deserving and it really ain’t up to you at the end of the day, is it?” Sans warned. His grin was threatening until something made him hesitate. Sans leaned back in his seat and chuckled, expression suddenly incredulous. “But you’re too smart to not know that so is it insecurity making your bark bigger than your bite, tyrant?”

The static around Black snapped and just like that it was gone. The menacing aura was popped and he glared with empty anger.  Sans realized as soon as he saw Black’s reaction that he had been right. Black really was insecure.

“You-”

“Are you quite finished?” Black hissed in a voice that was both tight and thin. 

“Nah, I don’t think so. You’re digging yer own grave here, pal. I’m not saying this because I care about what happens to you one way or the other but I know princess’ thoughts on the matter and how it would impact ‘er to know.” Sans shifted in his seat. “It’s not a pie you have to worry about running out.”

“…Affection might not be a pie, but time is,” Black said in a low voice.

“Does that matter with any of your kids?” Sans challenged. “You only love them if you spend x amount of minutes with ‘em?”

“That’s different.”

“Not as different as you’d think. Sure, it’s a different kind of love, but it ain’t gonna run out anytime soon. What she has with you is important, even if you don’t believe it. At the same time what she has with Paps and Axe is important too. Don’t make her feel like she has to choose cause you’re insecure.”   

“I’m not.”

“Don’t be a liar.”

“Insecurities aside, I wouldn’t make her choose,” Black snapped, correcting Sans’ misconception. “I know enough to maintain my dignity in such a situation and I’d hardly be the person to insist on unfair or biased conditions.”

Sans nodded slowly and some of the tension between them ebbed when Black’s shoulders dropped. It wasn’t a complete abandonment of his picture perfect posture, but it was a shift worth noticing.

“I…will make an effort to see past my biases, though…a meeting on neutral grounds might be…preferable before a house call.”

“…wait, what?”

Sans blinked, a little surprised that Black had come around so quickly. Sans had been prepared for a fight with weeks of snide comments and insults, but Black was shifting his perspective already! How? It had taken Sans literal years to admit his own shortcomings and see past his paranoia. That almost wasn’t fair, but like Black said earlier, it wasn’t worth it to dwell on such unchangeable histories.

“I WILL MAKE AN EFFORT, NOT A PROMISE. GRILLBY, GOOD DAY,” Black barked before turning sharply on his heel and marching out with his hands folded behind his back.

Grilby came over to pick up the empty drink and paused next to Sans. “…Not… as bad as you made him out to be…”

Sans slumped back in his seat and was forced to agree.

 

 

 

 

 

A tree

A pit

A shock

You startled out of your dreaming and jerked upright. You felt the seat cushions under your back and the armrests under your fingers. A second later you recognize you familiar surroundings and remember what you had been doing before you mind went blank. You must have fallen asleep in the armchair while reading to Phil?

You pat at your lap but there is no small child and the picture book is on the far table in the living room. In their place there is a knitted blanket that’s been haphazardly draped across your front. You recognize it as one of Peter’s.

Across from your chair, Stretch sat on the floor with his leather journal spread out on the coffee table. He looked up from his writings to eye you curiously.

“Did I-how long was I snoozing for?” you asked, rubbing at the back your neck and feeling damp sweat leftover from your shallow nightmares. You hadn’t though you could fall asleep enough for nightmares on a recliner at 3 in the afternoon.

“Not even half an hour. The kids thought it was funny and this is the quietest I’ve heard them all week. No one wanted to wake you.” Stretch flipped over his pen to drop in between the pages and save his space before standing. When you started to stand up he gently pushed you back down. “They had the right idea. You should rest.”

You playfully laughed and gently slapped his front. “I’ve been sleeping a butt ton these days.  I’m turning into you.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Being a la-zy bones?” you teased, dragging out the word that never failed to earn you a reaction.  Predictably, you watched the soft blush bloom across his cheek bones to complement his nervous chuckle.

“It’s not so bad,” he mumbled, ducking his face into the bottom of his hoodie. The rest of his words came out almost muffled. “We could… be a pair of lazy bones together.”

You didn’t respond, mouth empty of words as you took the time to actually study Stretch. In front of you and as close as he was, you could see all the details that made him unique among his iterations, smell his own personal scent, and feel the near transparent vibe of his magic that all monsters wore like a second skin.

Your own magic was still too heavy and buried too deep down to pull up and use like you once had, but you wished you could if for no other reason that to push up against Stretch’s and see his reaction. Instead you sigh and sagged into your chair a little more.

His words made you oddly contemplative.

Did he like you? Really like you? Enough to be the like, like kind of liking someone? You wanted to…. believe it, but what if that was just you reading too much into it and being vain? What if he did like you but it wasn’t as much as you thought? What if he wasn’t willing to be with you if there were others? What if he didn’t like humans like that? What if this was all in your head and you’re just getting ahead of yourself? What if-what-what if-

You brain hurt with all the worries.

There’s a black pit in your mind yawning wider, your mouth tastes magic, and you smell the damp grass in your mind and it’s a shock to your system that jostles you unkindly from your worries. Stretch watches you like he noticed and knowing his knack for observations he probably did. You pat at your pockets but it’s been ages since you last remembered to stuff them with candy.

“Here.”

You hear the crinkle and look up in time to see the wrapped rock candy Stretch offers to you. It’s right in front of his face and he bops your bottom lip with it once you notice. “It’s cotton candy flavored. Sorry, that’s all I have on me unless you want one of my honey sticks.”

Gingerly, you accepted the soft blue rock candy on a stick and peeled back the plastic. “How’d ya know?” you asked before tasting it behind your teeth.

Stretch watched you with a lazy look, eye lights flickering down to the candy between your lips before moving back upwards. “You humans are a lot easier to read than you think. Your pupil dilation and skin tone are easy give aways but if you’re looking for it, there are other signs.”

“Like?”

Stretch hummed and glanced at your candy once more like he couldn’t help it. “Your magic is always warm, but when it’s off…the air around you feels cold.”

“The room temperature doesn’t change though.”

“Nah, it’s only like…right next to you and only for a second. Wouldn’t notice it none unless you were looking for it, like I said. Plus, your magic is so much thinner since we all played operation out on the lawn with your pretty, red soul.” Stretch playfully wagged his phalanges in your direction. 

You turned the rock candy over in your mouth, rolling it with your tongue and stopping it with your teeth as you thought back to the incident last week with your soul falling to pieces.

Since then, your magic had been thin and distant, nearly out of reach. You were worried that it would always remain like that but each day after, you could feel the difference. There was more there. You were filling up, little by little, but it was like putting a bathtub under a leaky faucet and waiting for it to overflow into six more bathtubs. You naturally had a lot of space for magic and since the ‘operation’ you felt like your stores had only increased in capacity.

But capacity did you little good if you were still on empty.

You were tired of being tired.

You bit off a section of candy and crunched it between your teeth, sucking the flavor out of it to help chase off the tang in the back of your mouth. Sour candy would have been better to help ground you, but rock candy always did you well in so far as helping you get over the taste of your panic or bad reaction to magic.

“Wanna talk about it?”

You looked up through your lashes to see Stretch fiddling with the end of a honey stick. He hadn’t moved back and was still close enough to reach out and touch you or hand you more candy if he chose to.

“I’m…”

You almost told him no. It was almost habit to deny help and move on, but you were getting better about that. “I don’t know where to start. I’ve always had nightmares and you know they were getting worse before I-before my brief vacation.”

“They’re still bothering you?” he asked, sounding worried.

“Not at night, not when I’m with someone, but…I feel like I’ve hidden too many times from something and now it’s desperate for me to face it.”

You hadn’t meant to admit that to him. You hadn’t even admitted that to yourself, but you found it easy to talk to Stretch. He had been the first to see your darkness and hold you through your post traumatic stress tears on a rooftop nearly a lifetime ago.

With Stretch, you felt comfortably exposed.

“I don’t know if I’m just traumatized and dealing with it, or if there is something more to this,” you said, watching him for a reaction. “I don’t know if what I feel is trustworthy.”

“What makes you think there is something more?” he asked.

“My brother? He seemed pretty in deep with his whole perspective on the situation. And…sh-crap I don’t like admitting it but I dropped the ball with him. He’s-I don’t know what Hightower did to him and I don’t know what he saw or what happened to him, but we’re twins and he’s my little brother so I can’t…not…feel for him.”

You heard your voice cracked and felt it like an echo in your chest. You were afraid for Raven and you were sorry for your history of mistakes.

A year ago if you woke up like this that would be it for the rest of the day. You’d be depressed by yourself at home alone with a mattress and a couple of pillows to lay on top of while the world moved on in spite of your unbecoming. It was scary when there was no one who cared if you lived or died-no one who would care if you got up out of bed and went to the store for food.

You were determined, not persevering.

You sucked hard on the candy but also reached for the fabric of Stretch’s hoodie sleeve. He moved without prompting to catch your hand and hold it in his. Each bone against you was warm with magic.

“I think I fucked up, Stretch,” you softly admitted.

“Maybe, maybe not. It’s not something you should hold against yourself if that’s the case,” he answered honestly, unwilling to allow you to fall into the disillusion that you were perfect or worthy of all the shit you felt inside of you. “But you can work through this. You’re not alone and people are here to listen.”

You squeezed his hand back. “You’re a younger brother. What would you have done if you-if you and Blue got really into it with a fight to the point where you couldn’t see eye to eye anymore? What-what if he left you?”

Stretch went still and you could see him thinking it over, the way the question made his face scrunch up and the realization that this…this thought had been one he had come up against before. He had probably though of this exact same scenario after learning about you and your brother for no other reason than professional curiosity.

The bond between skeleton brothers wasn’t something to be considered lightly. Each set was tight in their own way and you knew in a heartbeat that any one of them would lay down their life to see their brother safe. That’s just how they were.

The relationship you had with your brother…it was probably hard for them even to conceptualize.

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I’m not the best out of the brothers here, but I… I wanna say something but can’t cause I don’t know. It’s a hard question, but Blue isn’t Raven and ‘brother’ is a loaded word anyone can use. Sorry honey, but I don’t think I can answer you cause I have no idea what I would do.”

He sounded so wounded you wanted to believe him, but hated what that would mean for you. There was no such luxury for you. The rift between you and your brother wasn’t hypothetical and as long as it existed it would throw shade on to all the other steps forward you wanted to take in life. This time around you wanted to…wanted to try growing. You wanted to live and be a little selfish. You wanted to love and be loved. You wanted to mend rifts and make things right.

Sans and Red would understand. Papyrus and Edge would get it too.

“I want to make things right.”

“I believe you,” Stretch said.

“And then when I do I’ll have more to talk about.” 

You caught the way Stretch flushed, even if his expression didn’t change. It was almost like he was expecting those words but not ready for them.

“Okay?” he said, sounding unsure or maybe just nervous. “I’ll be here. You know me, all ears.” You chuckle at the weak joke and it seems to only embolden him further. “You know there’s nothing you can say or do at this point that would honestly get under my skin.” 

The jokes were old, overused, and familiar enough to be forgiven.

“Is that cause I’ve already rattled your bones too many times?” you playfully bantered, grateful for the distraction once the conversation got too heavy.

Stretch’s expression was caught between delighted and pained, and you don’t miss the way his skull heated up with magic to color it that pretty tangerine shade you loved. “Shoot, honey,” he admited in a weak voice, sounding far off or out of breath. “Never knew you to be the lewd type.”

“Of really, and what do you think I was doing with all that lazy bones nonsense, huh?” You made a face and nearly lost it when he reacted

Stretch wheezed and you laughed too, feeling his hands brace on your elbows. “Too much, honey doll, oh no, that’s it for me. Next thing I know you’ll be tromping through the house in your high socks out on display for all to see.”

“Okay, we should probably talk about this because I thought it was a meme joke for the longest time after monsters surfaced and they all came up saying socks were underwear.”

“Well, do you wear them over your shoes?”

“They’re just socks.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t had the benefit of six years above ground to live among the humans to acclimate to their casual perverted ways.”

“Casual perverted ways? This is coming from you?”

Stretch leveled you with a disbelieving look. “I’ve seen way too much lite human porn masquerading as food advertisement to think otherwise. There is nothing sacred of the human experience.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one, it’s weird and humans have no excuse. I think that’s weird too.”

“Maybe you’re the weird one.” 

He tugged at the extra long sleeves that fell over your wrists and you grinned, knowing it hadn’t been the first time someone told you that. Weird didn’t mean something terrible in your ears anymore-if anything, it felt like a title of liberation.

You didn’t have to look like all the other humans when you took your clothes off and saw your magic scars. You were…growing accustomed to seeing them more and more. Now you could look at yourself in the mirror longer than a handful of seconds without getting sick. Maybe one day you’d even grow enough to love them. Maybe you’d be that weird one day.

“I’ve been called worse.”

“Not by any monsters,” he chuckled. “I’ve never seen anyone so brazen with their soul before. You get a giggle out of being gawked at, huh?”

“Different cultures, different values. I’m not embarrassed by what my soul looks like, but maybe that’s because I can’t even see it anymore.” 

Stretch made a noise in his non existent throat and looked you over once more, seeing or realizing something new as his deep set eyesights glimmered in his sockets. It made you squirm a bit in your seat, recognizing the look.

“What?”

“You’re embarrassed?” he asked.

“I just said I wasn’t.”

“Not of yer soul, honey, of this,” he said, grabbing at your hand and holding it up. His phalanges rubbed gently against the soft skin on the back of your hand. It would have been comforting if his words weren’t so humbling. 

“My hand?” you playfully jokes, hoping to throw him off by planing dumb.

“You know what I mean,” he said, sounding patient enough to make you believe he wasn’t about to let it go.  It was enough to shake you from your deflective habits. When you spoke again your voice was little softer, just for him.

“It’s the default human condition. We’re all a little unhappy with what we look like.”

“That’s a crying shame. You’re the prettiest soul I’ve ever seen inside and out.”

You hate how easy it is to blush. “Shut up.”

The way Stretch’s grin grew made you think he wouldn’t let up anytime soon. “The prettiest hair, the prettiest face, the damn cutest smile-”

“Shut up!” you groaned, trying to bury your face in the blanket even as his hands reached for you. He tickled behind your ear and then under your neck, causing you to yelp.

“The most adorable laugh, the most darling lil nose and ears even if they don’t have any bones to brag about-”

Stretch!” you groaned through your giggles as he tickled you shamelessly.

You twisted away and nearly fell out of the chair but he caught you and pulled you back, letting up from his tickling attack for only a moment before returning his fingers to a space under your jaw. You tried to drop your jaw and keep him away but he was determined to get around your defenses until you were kicking at the air in an attempt to get away.

“Oh, looks like someone needs help.”

Both of you looked up from your compromised positions to see Rus staring down at the pair of you from behind the back of the chair. He grinned in a way that made his eyesights twinkle.

“Rus!” you made a grabby hand, hoping he would help you out.

He pulled on one of the throw blankets and snapped it open, still grinning. “She can’t struggle as much if you burrito her first. Hold her down.”

“Traitor!” you moaned. Stretch laughed watching as Rus wrapped you up in the blanket and nuzzled his skull against the side of your face in affection. “I remember when the two of you couldn’t work together and I never thought I’d wish to return to those times.”

“Some things are worth sharing,” Rus playfully quipped, sighing against your side.

He still had shadows under his sockets and you could feel how thin his magic was, the way it always was if he went too long without resting. As upset as you were at the subsequent betrayal through teamwork you were still worried about him.

“Fine, consider me conquered. Now take a nap. You look like the dead.”

“I am a skeleton.”

“I live among several vibrant and active skeletons and they don’t look like they dragged their boney butts out of a grave plot. Shut up and sleep, dummy.” You managed to wiggle a hand out to rub your thumb under his eye socket. He nuzzled into your touch, too content to pull away and repackage you in the blanket. “Did you pull another all nighter again?”

“It wasn’t that big of a deal. You know monsters don’t need as much sleep as humans, right?”

“But it does sap at your magic, which is why it’s this thin,” you grumbled. You looked back up at Stretch for confirmation and he nodded.

“We’ve got too many stubborn babies in this family,” he sighed, more to himself that to either of you.

Then without warning, he picked up the both of you and shortcut all the way downstairs, dropping you both atop Rus’ bed. When you poked your head up to ask Stretch pushed your face back down and climbed in behind you. Rus was already settling into his pillows, content with the situation.  You started to protest but Stretch swiped his thumb over your lips, sealing them for the moment.

“Hush,” Rus whispered in a low gravely tone.

“Just to nap, don’t worry. I’ll wake you up in another hour. Your magic has been plenty thin too. Don’t complain,” Stretch explained, pulling the comforter over all three of you. 

“It’s too early for me to sleep,” you protested

“Then snuggle,” Rus complained, clinging to you. “Cause if I’m stuck here I’m taking you down with me.”

“Be honest, your nap did nothing for you,” Stretch said with a pointed stare.

You stuck your tongue out at him, stained blue no doubt, and he grinned in victory before settling down on the other side of Rus. Under the pillows his hand found yours.

Noticing the shift, Rus turned around and wriggled down enough so that his back was to you curled up beside you as the little spoon. With Rus tucked down lower than you on the bed, you could see Stretch watching you over Rus’ skull. His expression was one you recognized too well.

Smug bastard.

Admitting defeat you nuzzle into the back of Rus’ skull and threw your free arm over his shoulders, tugging him back against your chest like a giant teddy bear. You felt his teeth against the side of your arm but he didn’t pull away, so you weren’t worried.

“Just for the hour,” you begrudging admitted.

“Sure,” said Stretch.

Even though you both knew it was a lie, you let yourself fall asleep.

This time your dreams were dull and harmless. 

 

Notes:

I meant to write a brand new chapter but I ended up going back to this one and doubling it instead. A few chapters back scrub said they wanted Black and Sans so that's where the first part comes from!

The rest is just fun Fluff for Fluff's sake.

Chapter 61: Young & Menace 6

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It was cold outside, even for regular humans who weren’t dealing with the loss of their fire magic.

It had been long enough that you could feel a significant pool of your magical stores replenished and you were testing your limits with a little bit of noon-time practice in the fields behind the barn. You were halfway to the forest that separated your property from Edge and Red’s so it made sense for Edge to meet you at the halfway.

You dropped your jacket onto a nearby boulder that was slowly being broken open by the ancient roots of a long lived tree and stretched your arms up over your head. You felt the static and looked back over your shoulder to see Red sitting next to your jacket. He shot off a pair of finger guns in your direction, making you chuckle.

“I’m rooting for ya, sweetheart.”

“Boss is gonna be so disappointed.”

“Nah, I’m sure he’s rooting for you too.”

There was another pop and then next to Red Sans appeared. With the attention on him he raised a hand and gave a lazy wave. His other hand held a trio of hotdogs dripping in ketchup that Red scoffed loudly at.

On the other side of the field Papyrus stood and waved, one hand holding Edge’s leather jacket to keep it free of grass stains.

“Is this how you guys get your jollies, now? You show up and turn out to watch me get my ass handed to me?” you asked.

“It’s a pretty nice looking ass, sweetheart.”

Red’s comment made you snort and you had to look away before he could see the blush he was responsible for.

You started to jump up and down in place, cold in just a sweater and pants. In the morning you could see your breath if you got up before the sun. The holidays were coming up fast but instead of dreading them you were actually looking forward to making some new memories alongside everyone.

The boys were planning on celebrating gyftmas once the new year was over. The plan was to celebrate ‘after all the holiday decorations went on clearance and got thrown out’ since that’s how it was underground. Gyftmas was the time of year when all the holiday junk dropped into their landfills for monsters to recycle and rebrand.

The only ones celebrating the other holidays were Black and Rus and they said it was mostly for the children and because they were more than capable financially speaking. Black insisted on you being a part of the festivities and even made note of it in your last paycheck as a way of explaining the surprise bonus.

But before all that happened you had to make it through their first Halloween, AKA Monster's favorite holiday since surfacing. 

“Are you quite finished?” Edge exclaimed.

You looked up, surprised at the outburst only to realize he had turned on Papyrus and was talking to the former monster mascot. Papyrus looked unbothered by the outburst but was grinning cheekily at his look-alike. You looked for it and noticed the slight color high on Edge’s cheekbones. Papyrus was occasionally capable of being terrible when it came to teasing some of the more uptight brothers. 

Something about being desensitized to socks after so many years above ground?

You wiggled your fingers and channeled magic through each one, turning your nails black and skin a shade of flaky charcoal gray. A moment later you felt the fire that flickered out of your fingertips. The heat was welcome and you breathed deep. It felt different, hard to pull up and then harder to control, but you would get the hang of it all over again. Like a pokemon you had evolved and this was just the stage where you needed to relearn how to do all the basics over again.

“Edge!” you called out, gaining his attention. “Ready to go?”

Behind you Red cheered out your name while Sans cheered for Edge around a mouthful of hotdog, claiming he wanted to see someone finally kick your butt. 

“Magical weapons?” Edge called, clarifying with you as he manifested his bone sword.

You clapped your hands together and pulled your palms apart, growing a red rod that ended in one sharp point like a pole arm. The formation was a little rough due to the underestimation of how much magic would flow once you summoned it, but you were falling into old habits so you were able to self correct the mistake before anyone else noticed.

You twirled it once and grinned, happy with the balanced weight at both ends. “I’m game.”

“Of course you are,” he chuckled darkly. “Ready yourself.”

“I’ve been ready,” you playfully mocked.

“Then block!” Edge lunged at you.

With a pole arm you had the advantage of range, but Edge was too familiar with how to spar with someone who utilized your type of weapon, so he closed the distance quickly and swiped at your hands. You dropped your pole arm, letting it burst into sparks and flames while you summoned a pair of blunt batons that caught his sword and blocked his swing.

He kicked you away, before you could reach for him, longer legs giving him the advantage. You took another handful of steps back, snapping the one baton into a whip you cracked the air with. Behind you Red whistled and made a loud lewd comment you tried to ignore. You swung the whip over your head once and it cracked in the air, making Edge flinch as he attempted to find an opening. No matter what weapon you had, each one required a different type of strategy. You needed to keep him on his toes if you had any hope of winning. Edge was too good at adapting and was lethal once he knew how to close the distance. 

Edge rushed you, dropping his bone sword and pulling a blunt bone club out of the air. You caught it with your whip and yanked it out of his hand-but realized too late that’s what he wanted from you.

He was in your space and his fists came swinging. You dropped both your weapons to free your hands and bat his swings away, wearing your magic like armor to increase your defense. You were almost as fast as him, but he caught you once, forcing you back. When he tried to press his advantage you surprised him with a hooked heel around his shin that toppled him backwards. He pulled you down with him and then flipped you over. In midair you rotated to land correctly, only to have to jump back to avoid the long reach of his sweeping kick as he stood.

He charged with a sword so you met him with one of yours. Back and forth, your fire and his bone collided again and again. You could feel sweat on your neck rolling and dripping back underneath your shirt in spite of the cold. Beads of magic collected on the side of Edge’s skull, making you soul swell with pride. It took a good deal to get the boss guy to break a sweat. It wasn't lost on you that neither of you had made a comment to the other since the start. The banter you enjoyed with Blue or Papyrus was lost when Edge picked up a weapon. 

Edge was so quick on his feet and he had a wealth of history on the battlefield fighting different monsters. Out of all the skeletons you sparred with, Edge was the most adaptive. No matter what you came at him with he met you head on and forced you to adapt to him. If you weren’t careful he would overwhelm you.

You sparred for a while longer with your weapons before you swung too hard and made yours burst into sparks of fire in front of his face. You hadn’t meant to, but you took the opportunity for what it was. With the distraction blinding him you pushed him down and the spar continued with open hands and grass stains. He had the advantage of reach thanks to his size, but you were flexible in ways he couldn’t be.

Over his arm your eyes found his eye lights and it was a different sort of expression he made when you saw him from so close up.

You reached over him and then felt a tug before the space between you crackled with energy. Edge choked and scrambled off of you, holding a hand over his chest and forcing his magic back. A heart beat later you realize why; that had been his soul he hurried to push back into his chest before you could see or sense it.

You climbed to your feet and stretched, feeling too bruised and sore to keep going after seeing his flushed skull. For being such a sharp eyed bad boy type, his embarrassed expressions were undoubtably his best weapon. How were you supposed to fight with him anymore after seeing him look so dang cute?

“I’m tapped. A draw?” you called out.

“Acceptable,” Edge said, voice casually neutral if a bit thin.

You sounded way more out of breath-which made sense since you were the one who actually needed to breath. It had nothing to do with the way his face stayed stuck in your mind.

You really needed to have that talk with the rest of the boys soon.

You rubbed at your neck and grimaced at how damp it felt. You had worked harder than you first intended and the sweat would likely get you sick if you stayed out in the cold with it.

“Lunch at my place? I need to shower up and get clean first but I’ll help out. It seems like I can cook just fine after all.” To illustrate your point you made your hands flare with flames and grinned.

Edge nodded. “Also acceptable. I’ll allow you to assist us if you’re able to clean in time, but don’t be too shocked if lunch is already finished by the time you emerge.”

“Lasagna takes hours, Edge.”

He scoffed at your comment, making you giggle. “I do know how to prepare a number of different dishes appropriate for mid day consumption. Friendship lasagna is far more suited for dinner time after all. You should know this by now, it’s the only time I make it.”

“Would you blame me if I said I was craving it?”

You tried to hold back your smile as the color on his skull spread. His voice pitched low. “You need only say when and I can have more friendship lasagna ready to share. Tonight even.”

“I wouldn’t wanna trouble you twice in one day. How about tomorrow or are you busy?”

“I will check my schedule and make time. Consider it your reward for tying with me for victory in our spar today. There are not many who can boast of such a thing, not even my brother since we’ve emerged topside.”     

“Then what will be my reward for you since you tied with me?” you asked, walking alongside him as the two of you started heading to where Papyrus, Sans, and Red all gathered, talking amongst themselves in a huddle. “I could make you something.”

“I wouldn’t mind that,” he laughed. “Whatever you decide I’m sure to enjoy.”

“Eh, stick around after lunch then and I’ll make us some chocolate chip cookies with the nougat dinosaur eggs.”

The way his eye lights flickered was especially adorable.

 

-

A little less than an hour later you were dressed and standing in the kitchen with your sleeves rolled up to keep clean as you assembled all the different ingredients you would need. Your hair was still damp, but twisted up into a bun and then wrapped with a bandana to keep the dampness in check.

You mixed in your dry and wet ingredients with practiced ease, ignoring the printout recipe taped to the side of the fridge you were following. Next you sprinkled extra flour out onto the counter and moved the dough out of the dish and onto the slab, kneading the end of your palm into it to stretch it long before folding it back in on itself. Out and under and out and under and out and under you kneaded the dough until it was just right.

You pulled a chunk free and rolled it between your palms before tossing it into the baking sheet with a satisfying ‘thunk’ sound. You rolled seven more perfect balls and then slid the filled up pan into the oven.

The sound of the refrigerator opening beside you made you glance over and grin at Red who was pulling free another beer with a sheepish sort of smile.

“You know I only keep those there for you guys, right?” you joked.

“Nah, I just didn’t wanna break your rhythm, you looked so cute woking on your cookies.” Red grinned and shut the door before leaning over. “Sweet enough to eat, if ya don’t mind me saying, doll.”

“Wanna taste?” you playfully teased back, holding out a finger with a scrap of raw dough caught on the end like an offering for him to reach for.

Red grabbed for your wrist and tugged you closer, his eyesights spinning in glee as his grin stretched. “Don’t mind if I do,” he rumbled, completely ignoring the dough on your finger and instead bending his face close enough to your neck so that his teeth brushed up against the edge of your jaw. It made you squirm, ticklish to the touch but he only followed as you tried to pull away.  You squealed his name but he didn’t seem to be in the mood to show you any mercy.

“Come on, q-qu-shhh-quit it I gotta finish this,” you moaned, bending away and out of reach.

“Then finish it, ain’t nobody gonna stop you doll face.”

“Red, let me go.”

Instead he shuffled around, keeping one arm loose around your waist while the other set his beer back onto the counter. You could hear the sounds from the television set up in your loft where Papyrus, Edge, and Sans all sat watching MTT reruns with the leftovers of lunch.

“I’m more comfortable here,” he grumbled low, hot breath fanning the wet curls around your ear.      It made you shiver but that only seemed to delight him all the more.

“I’m trying to work. I’ve got a double batch.”

“I’m not stopping you, sweetheart. Have at it and don’t mind me here.”

You made a dissatisfied sound and moved, but true to his word he followed smoothly, arm around your waist doing nothing to obstruct or keep you from your baking. When you glanced back over your shoulder to glare playfully his eyesights only flashed a brighter shade of crimson that made you think he was not-so-secretly delighted with the developments.

“You’ve gotten awfully handsy, lately.”

“I’ve always been handsy, you’re just more sensitive to it now that you know I’m head over heels for ya,” Red said confidently.

“Sh-that-that may be a part of it, but even with that perspective, I think you’ve gotten worse. You never used to hang on me as much and I can’t go anywhere without you or something being in reaching distance.”   

He nuzzled the side of his skull against your shoulder and then sighed, deflating a bit on you. “Heh, maybe you’re onto something. It’s getting harder to hold back. All I wanna do is fold you up under my arm and take you with me everywhere I go, keeping you safe from everything else in the whole damn world.”

You felt his arm around your waist righten as his voice lowered in pitch. You glanced back but Red had already buried his face in your shoulder, hiding his expression from view. His phalanges crept up under the hem of your shirt, kneading the soft flesh above your rib where one of the longer, lighter colored scars could be felt. You almost pulled back, hating your scars almost enough to tug free, but you don’t because its Red and you trust him with your ugly parts.

“You don’t have to be worried about me. I’m fine now.”

“For now,” Red softly rumbled into your side. “What about tomorrow, or next week? I ain’t gonna quit feeling this way about you anytime soon. I’ve got all of my life left to love and worry in equal measure.”

Your throat swelled with emotion and you shut your eyes, suddenly too dizzy for his casual confession. “You know humans don’t admit that easily to their significant others, and usually not before they start dating them.”

Red’s arm around you squeezed you closer. “I love you, don’t tell me not to say it,” Red rumbled, sounding authoritative enough to be listened to in spite of his confession. “Ya don’t have to say it back or even address it, but don’t believe I don’t mean it. Ya drive me crazy, ya have for a long time now and I’ll give you all the time you need before you’re ready to talk to us about it, but I ain’t taking any of what I just said back.”

You had a hand on the batch of dough, ready to pull out another chunk and start rolling, but your hands wouldn’t move. Everything below your neck felt too stiff.  Very quietly you whispered back over your shoulder. “Since when?”

Red’s chuckle was one you felt more than heard. “Shoot babe, I had a thing for you as soon as I set my lights on ya. What monster worth their salt wouldn’t when you got a soul and body like this ‘ere? But if you’re asking when that actually became love… it might have been that night back on the bus when you lost your sight and we stayed up. You were talking about comic book heroes and bouncing back even if you couldn’t see and it was just too much for me. That’s when it started but I’ve fallen a little more in love every day I see your face or hear your voice. It’s always just that fast and hits just that hard.”

You can scarcely move for how electrified you feel after hearing his words. It was Red behind you, but you almost had to turn around and prove to yourself you weren’t hearing things or making his confession up. It sounded almost too good to be true.

“Why?” you whispered in a voice even softer than before.

“You think there’s a reason for it?” he chuckled like you had asked something funny. “It’s cause you’re you. Maybe if I understood how any of this worked I would have stoped myself before it started or got so serious, but ain’t no logic to it, doll face. It’s the way I am, and I’m too damn gone to be saved now or wish for anything else.”

The oven hummed softly as the cookies inside inflated, spreading across the pan as they baked, unaffected by the turmoil in your heart or the static in your head. Red’s touch was gentle and his hold was strong, comforting enough to want to fall back in, but what he told you only made you unsettled.

You’d dated before. You had tried ‘hooking’ up with other messed up people but it never made you feel anything good. You had never felt valued or treasured or…seen, and it was driving you insane.

Red knew you, he had seen your ugly side and been there when you were vulnerable and struggling. He wasn’t someone who was passing through, interested in sniffing out a one night stand. He saw your horrid history, your toxic past, unconventional family, and still…wanted to be a part of that.

And he wasn’t the only one.

You could ask him ‘why’ a hundred times more but you didn’t think you’d ever hear an answer that would make sense to you. You were defiant, scarred, disobedient, unrepentant, unconventional, stubborn, and…far too touch starved than you’d ever admit to being.

You really didn’t want to let go.

Your silence must have lasted too long since Red laughed behind you, rumbling with mirth as he nuzzled the side of his face into your shoulder. “Don’t think about it too deeply, sweetheart. I’ll be here tomorrow to bother you with these same feelings. Maybe after enough exposure something’ll click, eh? Ask me as much as you want or don’t, it’s all good to me.” 

You shake your head and reach for another handful of cookie dough to work through. The sticky texture between your fingers is distracting enough to help you manage your thoughts. “Then, please be a little more patient with me.”

“Always, babe.”

 

Later in the evening after dinner was served and desserts disseminated, you found yourself chased to the edge of the bed by a disgruntled looking Blue while Stretch dozed on the opposite end.

“Your hair is still wet!” he complained with one hand pulling the longer strands out of your sagging bun.

“It’s only a little damp because it’s been up all day.”

“You’re not going to bed like this. Hold on, I’m getting the blow drier out and another towel. I thought humans could get sick from going to bed cold with wet hair.” 

“Who said I was going to bed cold?” you huffed. “You and Stretch are plenty warm.”

From where he was already half out Stretch snickered into the bedsheets and Blue flustered.

True to his word, Blue returned moments later with the hair dryer and a comb he used to work through your hair while drying it. You tugged the towel around your shoulders to keep the top of your shirt dry as Blue managed your longer hair. Compared to how it was when you first met the skeletons, your hair had grown to the longest its ever been, thanks partially to your use of magic. Magic had a way of stimulating hair and nail growth, but only minutely.

You shut your eyes and hummed in contentment, feeling the way your scalp tingled under Blue’s hands as he worked through your tangles and damp curls. Even if you hadn’t been sleepy before you were drowsy now.

“You’re adorable,” Blue chuckled softly, seemingly to himself after hearing you make a soft sound in the back of your throat. You shivered when his comb caught on a knot and he reached up to massage the tangle free.

“You’re the adorable one,” you mumbled tiredly. “Where’d you learn how to do things with human hair? I’ve never seen you practice before.”

Hump, I’ll ignore the comment about being adorable this once just because I’m sure you’re not in the right state of mind to be scolded in any meaningful way. But as an answer to your question, the internet is vast and I have a lot of free time considering I only sleep for four hours a night cycle.”

“Papyrus is the same way and I’m sure Black and Edge are too,” you chuckled. “ Just don’t tell ‘em I said that. Papyrus at least likes to pretend he’s the same as everyone even though he shouldn’t feel that pressure.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it my dear,” Blue chuckled mischievously in a way that made you shiver all over.

The tip of the comb drew a line down the back of your scalp and you bit your lip to keep the sounds trapped. It was such a simple action, but it made you feel unwound and unraveled all at once. Oh stars, why were you suddenly so sensitive? 

“Regardless,” Blue spoke, “I’ve become quite fond of some of these hair tutorials I’ve seen online. I might have practiced a few times on Wendy before Black found out and forbid me. He was just jealous because Wendy started asking for me more and his invitations to her tea parties all dried up. What a jealous bastard.”

You barked a short laugh before you could help it and slapped your hands over your mouth to keep from being any louder. When you try to look back and see if Stretch is bothered by the noise Blue turned your head back around with a gentle ‘tut-tut’ sound.

“Don’t worry about him,” he said, referring to Stretch. 

“I’m sorry, but that sounds too much like Black, I couldn’t help it.”

“Don’t apologize for laughing. There isn’t a sound I enjoy more. Aside from that, Black could stand to share a little more and be more generous, like me!”

“Oh,” you laughed. “I’m sure he’d love to hear you say something like that to his face.”

“I  have, multiple times,” Blue answered easily, seemingly unbothered with the call out. “It was necessary once Red spilled the beans about your talk with Sans and Papyrus. Honestly, I was more worried about bro having a hard time of it but Black is stubborn.”

You almost turned around to face Blue but his hand on your scalp, replacing the comb, keeps you in place. If you insisted on it you could force your way around but you didn’t mind the stern handling for once, knowing Blue enough to trust him limitlessly.

“What-what are you talking about?” you stuttered.

“Stretch mentioned it earlier, how it would be too hard for only one or only two of us to court you when you’re this close to all of us, and how you didn’t seem to see anything wrong with Ma and Mini’s arrangement with their late husband. Were we wrong?”

“You were…you talked about this?”       

Blue chuckled and in the dim lights it seemed so much more sinister when you couldn’t turn around to see him smile. “There’s not a lot else to talk about that’s worth half as much effort. I don’t mean it disrespectfully of course!”

“S-sure…”

Blue set aside the comb and pulled apart a section of hair, keeping four quadrants apart before wearing one strand under a larger section before repeating the action on the opposite strands and sections. “Does it make you uncomfortable to know that we’ve talked about all courting you in our own ways?”

“No…it’s just…new?” you answered honestly, closing your eyes to the gentle ways he pulled and tugged your drying hair into familiar patterns. “It’s kinda hard to wrap my head around but… I’m…trying?”

“You say that like you’ve never been courted before.”

“You mean asked out? Not by anyone I ever knew, just random people who liked the way I looked from certain angels.”

Blue’s hands in your hair stilled and you almost tried to turn around to see what sort of expression he was making when he spoke again. “Not even while you were at the Embassy? There was… no one?”

You shrugged. “It wasn’t a priority for a group of kids who didn’t know if they’d even live long enough to become adults. We were supposed to be heroes, remember? Heroes get love at the end of the movie if they’re lucky but there was no such ending for us. After I left the Embassy I tried…but it’s hard to connect with people when you’re hiding and ashamed of everything you are.”

Blue hummed thoughtfully, braiding even more of your hair as he fell into the rhythm of his winding work. “Just…humans or were… did you get asked out by any monsters?”

“Me? I…no I didn’t get out that much. I was still dealing with the whole, ‘raised to be humanity’s savior against the monster army’ brainwashing bullshit, so flirting with the people I felt so guilty towards was kinda out of the question.”

“I’m glad that’s not the case now,” he laughed. “I don’t care where you came from or what you thought in your yesterdays, I’m glad I know the you right now.”

“Me too,” you sighed. “I feel like I fit a little better in my skin. Back then…the only monster I actually got to know on a friendly basis was Grillby, but that’s because I was there so often and the fire language thing.”

“What about your other friendly encounters?” Blue casually inquired, braiding your hair down your back and reaching for a hairband on the end table to finish his careful work.

“The first had been with Grillby, the second with his daughter Fuka, but I think it was more along the lines of being excited to meet someone else who spoke their language and had a soul on fire. I was just so happy that they didn’t hate me even though I was a mage.”    

“You don’t think Grillby was flirting with you?” Blue teased playfully, letting your braid go so that it fell against your back and freed you up to turn around. “All done.”

You stared up at Blue, kneeling on the mattress and resting on his heels as he stared down at you, his eye lights soft and fuzzy around the edges. There was a brighter glare to the tint of his eye lights that made you glad it was dim in the room, least he see and notice how flushed you face was.

“What about you?” you asked, blurting out the question before you could think otherwise. “Never had anyone worth dating in the underground?”

The question was enough to make him laugh and he pulled you up, falling off his heels so that there was room on his lap for you to fall. “Never anyone that made me feel like this,” he chuckled. 

Subconsciously you reach out with your magic, still thin and growing, and brush it up against his. You feel the tickle of grass and the warmth of the sun as his magic washes back and drowns you in pleasant undertones. There was a resonance as he eased into your magic while you settled into his. It was like a song with fitted layers and melodies that went perfectly together. You felt it and it made sense.

The same sense it made when you sparred with Edge, or swayed with Red, or snuggled with Stretch and Mutt, or worked alongside Sans or Black or Paps or Axe.

Blue seemed content to wash in the waves of your intermingling magic but you reached up and cupped both sides of his face and dropped your forehead against his, bumping his softly. “I feel like I’m finally home with you.”

His eyesights turn and spin into soft edge upside own hearts that throbbed more white than usual. He wraps his arms around and underneath you, picking you up with ease and maneuvers you until your head is on the pillow. He tucks you in, pulling the comforter up over you and nudges you closer to his brother, who opens up like the fingers of a claw machine to tug you tight.

“Sleep sweetly, love,” Blue whispered, snuggling down into bed facing you. “You’re home.”

Notes:

Props to anyone who got that Mass Effect reach and flexibility joke! Edge is the superior fighter but if you look at him wrong he goes weak.

Chapter 62: Young & Menace 7

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Rus was pretty comfortable on the internet. It wasn’t the undernet and he didn’t have the same range or reach on this world wide web above ground, but he was comfortable enough to do what he needed to do.

Server username and password?

Rus clicked through the log in page and waited the half second it took his system to boot him through with the hacked credentials. Compared to other things, this step was a piece of pie.

For the next hour he combed through the online posts and uploads, speed reading huge chunks before clicking through to the next page and then the next page. Before too long he found something worth stopping for.

The link was to a video he hadn’t seen before, but it loaded clean enough for him to recognize where someone had taken it. The walls and floor were the same as all the other times he watched videos of you and your peers from back when the program was still active.  Videos like the one he just found were the needle in the haystack since Hightower’s people had done a good job of scrubbing the internet of leaked footage.

The MAGE project you had been a part of was declassified and discussed but the true extent of their program was largely concealed from the public, left to seed into outlandish and colorful rumors that ended up on message boards like this one. There were a shocking number of crazy humans who were obsessed with knowing more about the MAGE program, and a sliver of those enthralled fans were sadists who got a kick out of watching vids like this one.

In the video the child wasn’t you, but some other girl with darker hair and skin, dressed in the pale gray uniform and shoes. In the video her attempts at controlling her powers went south and thorny vines tore through her from the inside out, writhing to freedom from the wounds on her back as she failed to manifest something. She fell down screaming and her blood germinated a cluster of purple flowers while she sobbed.

In the next part of the video there was distortion as the camera phone was dropped into a pocket but not turned off. There was another twenty seconds of muffled darkness and then it cut off.

Rus stared at the frozen video a moment longer, picturing you on the ground, coughing up blood and flowers. This girl must have been Thrive, the one you mentioned before. She had been there when you tried to escape. She had taken steps to keep you locked up and separated from the rest of your family…and for what? For who? The people who took dumb kids who couldn’t know any better, and hurt them until they were weapon shaped?

Rus knew his underground wasn’t the ideal place to pop into, it was one of those kill or be killed worlds after all, but even his underground of monsters knew to keep their hands off kids in their stripes. The Thrive in this video had to be no older than Tron. She was still an elementary schooler who should have been riding the bus to school, not bleeding out of a busted lung and choking on flowers.

The comments that came after the clip went to town on trying to prove it was fake or legit. Rus watched them come in as more people weighed in on this issue, but this wasn’t the topic he wanted to waste his time on.

One of the programs in the background dinged when one of his keywords was mentioned. Most of the time ‘fire’ didn’t yield him the results he hoped for, but sometimes he got unlucky enough to find something on topic. So, with a shred of trepidation he clicked through to pull up the thread. 

Someone wanted to pit Jersey Devil sightings on ‘The Phoenix.’ The accusation didn’t stick, but there were still people in the chat talking about a member of Hightower’s Embassy they dubbed ‘The Phoenix’ based of that person’s fire based abilities. There was another name too, but it wasn’t as popular.

Someone claiming to be a monster (and labeled as such) spoke up and asked what people were making a fuss over. That set off another chain of comments from everyone explaining at once. Out of all the thousands and hundreds of thousands of threads on this locked site he was combing through, he finally found one worth worrying about.

Rus picked up his hands and began to type.

He had a family he had to keep safe.

 

 

You stared down at the phone, reading the words but not understanding them. A minute later you were aware enough to understand what you were looking at. It was an address.

The message underneath the address read, “I’ll bring three, feel free to do the same.”

It made sense. Raven had three other allies and no more, or at least that’s what your intelligence said. He’d want to be at full strength and hope you kept to your word. If he still believed in you he knew you would.

That left you with a problem. Who would you bring?

Sans was a smart first choice since he had the most magic and could shortcut out in a snap if things got messy. The ability to shortcut made you think you should take Stretch with you as well. His magic wasn’t as robust as Sans’ but he was crafty, observant, and balanced Sans out. That just left the last slot for you to stress over.

Who was busy? Who could you rule out. You weren’t about to let Ax and Paps anywhere near Raven and his monster friends if you could help it. Those two were still working through their own traumas and needed the peace more than anyone.

Papyrus and Blue were busy with either their work or community outreach. If you asked you knew they’d drop anything they had in their hands for you but you didn’t want that.

Rus….still didn’t do well with confrontation. Black would follow if you asked, but you wanted him with the kids. Raven and his monster friends knew where the children lived, and no matter how unthinkable the thought, you didn’t want to leave the kids with just one line of defense. You didn’t think Raven was the sort of scum who would attack kids, but you didn’t know about the other guys he ran with.

So that left Red and Edge, the Underfell brothers. Red could shortcut which was an advantage, but Edge was the better fighter with higher levels of health.

You turned your phone off and slid it into your back pocket. You could ask the boys about it later and get their feedback on it. Making all the decisions by yourself was too exhausting and you felt icky if you didn’t have another voice to bounce ideas off of.

You hadn’t been built for leadership. The most you had aspired to be was the body that threw itself on a bomb and bled for a better future. All those lessons on strategy were never meant for a mind like yours.   

“I’m baaaaaack!” Wendy cheered, coming into the room with Black being led in by the hand behind her. He didn’t look upset by the disturbance and you doubt he really was, even if you knew he had work he needed to get done.

“Looks like you got caught,” you teased, smirking up at Black while Wendy began to make pretend tea for the three of you.

“There’s nothing I can’t get done tomorrow,” he huffed.

You saw him try and fail to hide the smile at how Wendy still clung to his hand while she pretend poured tea for him. It wasn’t hard to see why he doted on his human daughter. Wendy loved Black shamelessly with all the innocence of a child who didn’t know how to judge or hold bias. 

The three of you shared a pretend meal and gossiped about the latest drama going down in the doll city. You and Black pretended to be shocked about the newest vegetable worshiping cult that was taking the place of the teeth brushing cult from last month’s adventures. It was all adorable and silly and innocent but before long the party came to a close when Peter barged in to tell her that her cartoon was on television.

Wendy abandoned her tea set screaming about ladybugs and kitties, leaving you and Black alone with the mess.

“What an imagination,” Black sighed, picking up one of the dolls who had been recently arrested for sacrificing children to the broccoli tree spirit king. “I’m not sure where she gets it.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s typical for human children,” you laughed.

“Were you like this when you were her age?”

You helped Black tidy up some of the mess Wendy left behind, putting nothing away but making sure there were clear paths for the both of you to leave. “Probably, I was sorta obsessed with death cause I still didn’t understand it as a concept but had seen it enough times to be impacted.” 

Black paused for a moment to turn and look at you before ducking his head. “I forgot who I was talking to,” he chuckled without humor. “Forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive.” You stood and brushed your hands down your pants and then paused. Your watch said it was late enough for both Blue and Stretch to be home. This late in the day Rus would be awake as well and the kids were all engaged in something else.

“Hey, Black,” you called out. He straightened and turned to face you with his hands behind his back when he heard your voice. “You think I could talk with you and the others about something right now?”

His eyesights narrowed. “The others…as in… the other skeleton housemates?”

“I’d appreciate it, yeah.”

Black nodded slowly, removing one hand from behind his back to pull out his phone. “Of course. Should this be somewhere we won’t be overheard or…?”

“We can talk in Rus’ basement,” you said.

It was the one place in the house the kids never went. Apart from their fear of spiders and dark spaces, Rus needed his own space to fall apart and not have to worry about others seeing him in that state. You figured it would probably be better to have your talk with the guys without the fear of interruption.

Black nodded curtly and sent off a quick text before reaching for your hand while his eye lights stayed fixed on his phone screen. It was almost an unconscious thing, the way he reached for you. You took his hand and closed your eyes in time to feel the rush of a void magic jump you from one place to the next. When you opened your eyes again you saw the sheet rocked walls and then the movie posters Stretch had been buying and framing for Rus. There was one for the Shape of Water that made you smile.

“Oh, you meant like now?” Rus asked, speaking up from somewhere behind you.

You turned and smile while Black sighed at the state of his brother’s dress…or lack of.

Rus grinned lazily before shuffling off to find his jacket and throw that on over his pajamas, knowing Black hated it when he didn’t change during the day.

“Did you just wake up?” you asked.

“Nah…or maybe? I’m not sure. I was up late programing stuff. If I don’t look at the clock I have no idea,” Rus answered before pulling his long fur trimmed jacket out from between the sofa cushions. “Time is an invented concept.”

From behind you could hear the door to the ground level open and someone come down the stairs. When you looked up Blue was there, smiling thinly at Black who openly glared. Before you could greet him there was a pop and your felt a new pair of arms drape around your shoulders from behind.

“The little lord wanted to see us ‘cause of you, honey?” Stretch asked around a yawn.

He still smelled like the chemical plant he had just left. You noted absently that he was dressed for an office job with a button down and slacks. It was a bit jarring to see him dressed in anything that wasn’t his comfy orange pull over.

“You think you can stay awake a few minutes longer?” you teased him.

“You gonna let me hold you like this?” he teased back.

“Not necessary!” Blue interrupted, peeling his brother off you and setting him up straight so Stretch stood on his own two legs. “You’re perfectly capable of keeping yourself propped up, mister.”

Stretch smiled down at his brother but you saw when his smile went from casual to strained. He looked from his brother to you and then back over at Blue as if that would explain something. Then, slowly, he seemed to gain some sort of realization. You watched the way his skull shifted in a way you would have missed if you hadn’t been looking for it.

The Skeleton brothers were, generally, less expressive than humans or even some other monsters, but you knew them all well enough to know how to watch and look for the places where their emotions leaked out.

You didn’t doubt they knew how to read you just as well, if not better, by now.

“This wouldn’t have anything to do with what Red went blabbing on about, would it?” Stretch asked slowly.

You don’t even try to hide it when you feel your ears heat up. “Maybe…? What… what did he say to you?”

From behind you Rus dropped something that had been in his hands and you glanced back to see the semi plastic water bottles he had been collection off his desk. There was still one left in his arms but his hands looked slack. When you glanced up at his face you saw why. His sockets were blank- both eye lights snuffed out while he reeled.

“Let’s take a seat first,” Black barked, marching over to his brother and gently guiding him towards the couch.

Stretch nodded and followed behind Blue who seemed a bit more put together, oddly enough. You expected to be able to read Blue at least, but his face was a perfect mask of poise. You trailed behind the group, holding your folded elbows but didn’t take a seat. Instead, you rocked gently back on your heels, too stimulated with emotion to be still.

“So…” you started.

“So,” Black prompted.

You glanced away to where Blue sat and swallowed when you saw how calmly he was watching you, never looking away with an encouraging smile that suited parents at kindergarten recitals.

“Yeah, so…” you tried again. “I, uh, thanks for all gathering here. I…I wanted to talk with you before I did anything else, just-just to…to clear the air…and get everyone on the same page f-finally.”

Your heart was racing in your chest. It was only your boys, but it felt like you were speaking in front of a stage of people. Was this how it felt to give a public speech? Your chest felt like it wasn’t strong enough to keep all the energy your heart created, your ribs weren’t strong enough to cage what you felt.

You turned and coughed deeply into your shoulder, forcing yourself to calm down. Your mouth was tingling with want for something sweet, but there was no true danger here. You were safe. You were with your boys. You could do this.

You turned back to face them and nodded slowly, feeling the pounding in your heart settle. “Sorry, for that, just…” You swallowed again. “Anyway, I was thinking this over and it came out and I’m trying to…to address this as rationally as I can but I’m not smart and I can’t look the answers up so just-forgive me if I say something wrong, but I’ve been…” You squeezed your eyes shut and tried once more. “Okay, I know about the chore chart for the sleeping with me thing since it got mentioned once by someone and I-I don’t mind that  if you’re worried about that cause ya’ know, but I also would like if it was something mo- uhh, something with a name on it that-that could label it for clarity’s sake, not that I don’t think we’re being clear here but I’m not the clear one, or I’m not being upfront with you I guess cause some things have changed for me and-and-uhhhh…” you babbled until you got to the point where you could see you lost them.

You paused and the room was silent, waiting for you to figure out what you needed to say. Blue called your name and his expression was one of patient encouragement. You needed to rip this bandaid off and just say it.

“Oh fuck it,” you exhaled. “I like you all in a romantic way, not the platonic best friend sort of way and I’m sorry but I don’t know what to do with those feelings, but now you know, so fuc-so yeah.”

You staggered backwards and fell into the armchair behind you and covered your good eye with your hand to block out your sight. You didn’t want to see what any of them were thinking, because you probably could tell just by looking at their faces by now. You didn’t want to know if they saw you as less.

“Finally,” Blue gasped first, loud enough that it made you flinch.

You looked up suddenly and saw how Stretch was struggling to hide his grin while Rus stared over at his brother with a knowing smirk. Black’s entire skull was flushed with color and he sat hunched over with his hands clasped and face downturned.

“How ya doing m’lord?” Rus teased with love, sounding way too happy for you to believe. “Dija hear all that ‘un?”

“We’re dating now!” Blue exclaimed with spinning stars in his eyes, jumping up to stand on the couch cushions. “Datemates, all of us, but mostly me, with you!”

“You’re taking this too well,” you moaned, sinking a bit in your seat. How was Blue so…comfortable with this curveball? He didn’t look confused at all!

“Nah, you’re just used to the rigid culture of human monogamy, but monsters are different, sweetness,” Rus purred. “Monster folks make prides all the time-least they do in the fell ‘verses from what I’ve heard.”

“It’s not as common where we come from, but everyone knows someone who was a part of a group like that,” Stretch explained. “We didn’t call it a pride though.”

“Yeah, I figured that’s a ‘fell thing,” Rus said with a nonchalant shrug. “Don’t change facts though, and considering how we were all iterations of the same damn set, makes sense we’d feel similarly.” He gestured to everyone in the room with a circular hand motion. “This works.”

“How the hell does this ‘work?’” you laughed, using air quotes. “I googled it, trust me, I tried to look it up but it was just a lot of bad fanfiction and how to get away with cheating self help masquerading as polyamory.”      

“Yeah, humans don’t have the best track record with the poly set up,” Stretch said, “but you’re thankfully not dealing with any of those right now. We’ve got a better handle on how to work through this. It’s part of our DNA practically.” 

You remembered hearing it so often, how Monster SOULs are made of love, hope, and compassion like that was the excuse for how much better they seemed at dealing with trauma and angry customers in the check out line. Sometimes you felt like that was just something humans said to excuse their racist, dismissal of monsters, but sometimes you felt like there was a truth there you were just beginning to understand.

No one had ever taught you how to hope, so you never expected this sort of agreement.

“You’re not…what about feelings of jealousy? You can’t be fine with that.”

“I mean, yeah that can happen and it likely will come up,” Stretch said.

“But it is something we’ve all more or less dealt with when figh-f-figuring out how to best, ahem, how to best help you with your nightmares,” Blue rushed to explain. “We’ve been sharing your attention all this time, it’s not much different from sharing your affection.”

“Of course we’ll get a lil jealous of whoever gets to hold your hand, but that’s cause we really like you and want that for ourselves more so than any feeling of not wanting someone else to have you,” Rus explained. “It’s come up, we’ve talked before.”

“What…what did you say?”

Rus snickered looking over at Stretch who shut his sockets, purposefully blocking out the other skeleton while Blue just sighed before stepping up to answer you.

“I won’t lie, it’s been tense before between some of us, but we’ve worked it out thus far. Sometimes that means a friendly spar or two, just to vent those extra energies, but we all know better than to bring that negativity home. No matter how badly we each wanted to be more of your focus.”

“Also, we’re not assholes, we knew you had other things to worry about,” Stretch added. “We weren’t going to push you to feel anything after getting kidnapped, nearly killed, and traumatized….both physically and emotionally.”

  You rubbed at your face and stared across the room at the only one who hadn’t said anything this entire time. “Black? What are you thinking about?” It would break you if he wasn’t a part of the conversation because he didn’t want to be a part of your life.

He looked up suddenly, but the color still stained the front of his skull.  His sockets were nearly blank, but you could make out the contracted pin pricks of his eye lights shrunk so tightly they were barely there.

He pushed off of the couch and approached you, reaching into his pocket to pull free a purple velvet pouch. Wordlessly he handed it over to you.

It wasn’t heavy enough to make you weigh it carefully in your palm, but you still handled it as if it was before pulling open the drawstring. You felt the cold touch of metal and pulled free the thin gold choker studded with five dark, blood red rubies in a princess cut style. When held up against your neck it looked as if the rubies were floating on your skin.

“What-what is this, Black?”

“I’m not so crass to accept your affections empty handed. M-my date mate should only have the best.” 

“Don’t you mean your wife,” Rus teasingly called out from his spot on the couch. Blue snickered behind his hand while Stretch did a far better job of hiding his smile.

To his credit, Black didn’t turn around and scream at his brother like you thought he would, but his skull did darken with even more color.

“I know you are hesitant to adapt certain titles, but date mate or w-wife, how important you are to me and this family won’t change. It doesn’t matter what you think or feel for anyone else, even those horror brothers, just as long as…as you’re here with us and me like this now. Please…be a part of this family, our family.”

You looked up, the weight of the gift in your hand feeling too much like the knot in your throat. You saw behind Black how Rus grinned like an edgier mirror of Stretch, how Blue seemed with eye lights spinning like stars at you. It was…

You remembered late summer bar-b-q’s with them and the kids, shopping adventures, dinner disasters, picnics and parties….all things you had never once dreamed of having for yourself.

What felt like a hundred years ago you had been a child swallowing a lie for the sake of making yourself into humanity’s hero. You had never thought in a million years you could be so loved. You have been meant for other things, to battle and blaze, but ultimately burn out like a falling star for the sake of others.

Could you really be so selfish?

Could you really make this your family?

Black called your name softly and you felt the moisture on your face as another heavy tear streaked down, out of your bad eye. You took a breath and felt your lungs shudder like they were made of wet paper. You felt too full, too loved, too good.

Taking your words from earlier Black used them on you, “What are you thinking about?”

You swallowed and took another breath that was supposed to ground you. Using your wrists you rubbed at your eyes and sniffed loudly. You tried to gather your breath once more, determined to answer them clearly.

“I’m home,” you whispered as loudly as you could without breaking your voice on the well of emotion bottled up in your throat. You’d break down sobbing if your determination wavered even slightly. “I’m home…I’m home…here with you, finally.”

You hadn’t even known you had been missing this, but now that you verbalized it the title felt perfect. Home; they were your home more than any apartment room, building, or house ever could be.

“Welcome home,” Blue said, sniffling a little while smiling wide.

“Thanks honey,” Stretch said.

“We love you too,” Rus added.

When you finally broke and started to sob Black gathered you up into his arms and Blue was at your back while Rus and Stretch covered your left and right sides. You were loved. You were home.

Stars, you were home

 

Finally…

Notes:

Confession time! Also, Rus doing his part to keep his family safe.
But yeah, I've been waiting for this last confession to happen and it felt great to get it done. Black is ready to put a ring on it-in monster tradition I head-cannon the shorter necklace as an engagement ring, Blue is 10000% ready for the new title and isn't shy about it while Rus and Stretch are a little star stuck.

I'm sorry this had to come out late. I am just really stressed and tight on time right now, so I'm not replying to comments and getting this out hours later than I usually do. It's also rough cause I didn't reread or edit it before publishing so, take it as it is, please and thank you.

Also, thank you for the 1000 Kudos! I was so excited to see that finally. Yay~

Chapter 63: Young & Menace 8

Summary:

Halloween Episode - Was there something about Halloween that made skeleton monsters horny or were you reading too much into it?

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

A date was set for a rendezvous with Raven, but first festivities were in order. It was finally Halloween and there wasn’t a bigger holiday for monsters or children, so all the world ending talks and life changing decisions were put on hold for one day more so everyone could enjoy, arguably, one of the best days of the year.

You were proud of how quickly your costume came together, considering how you had significantly less time to prep and plan compared to some of the guys.

Edge had been piecing his outfit together for months, since he started working in Blackberry at least, and now he just needed your help for the last, final touch.

You collected your magic into your hands and the fire crackled between your fingers before jumping to where you directed it. Edge didn’t flinch as fire engulfed his entire skull and made his Ghost Rider cosplay complete.

Red whistled low, appreciating his brother’s look from the doorway to the kitchen. He had another caramelized candy apple in hand that you hoped didn’t stain his own outfit.

You weren’t surprised he went as a pun, but you were surprised he pulled it off as well as he did. In place of his usual parka he wore a thinner leather riding jacket with spikes to match his black jeans and studded boots. He had avatars washi taped in place and a perpetual smirk. The whole look was pretty rocking, until you noticed the dozen or so toy chicks taped to the front of his white teeshirt. ‘A chick magnet’ was the best he could do, apparently.

Before you could tell him off the door shook with a few rapid knocks that you recognized. Red blipped over to the door and swung it wide to let Blue and Stretch in. Blue’s costume wasn’t a surprise, since he had told you which ‘superhero’ character he would be dressing up as, but it was still interesting to see how well he pulled off the costume.

When you saw Stretch you almost burst out laughing on sight, but held yourself back before you could give him the satisfaction. He was wearing a very cheap looking Alice in Wonderland blue dress with wrinkly black and white striped socks and a hair bow that was taped to the side of his skull. Around his neck were a number of plastic chains to match the ones on his wrists.

“Alice in chains?” you squeaked. “What did the kids say when they saw you?”

“They were merciless,” Blue laughed. “Only Tron got the reference but he lead the others along like he wasn’t any wiser than them.”

You turned and smiled for Blue, really liking how well his costume came out. “You look great, Blue. Give it a turn!”

All too eager to please Blue twirled and showed off all the angles of what he had been working so long on. The Shazam costume was simple enough, but he brought the personality to it, making it extra special.

“Everyone looks amazing!” you cried in delight, suddenly too happy to contain it. You felt giddy all over and you weren’t sure why, but you had your suspicions. Holidays hadn’t been celebrated or acknowledged while growing up. None of you had birthdays or coming of age celebrations either. Any festive joy you could get your hands on was stolen…until now.

You heard Blue laugh at your outburst but when you looked up it was Stretch who was watching you with a knowing expression. You weren’t surprised he had seen right through you.

“I’m just real excited is all,” you explained around a cough. “It’s my first real Halloween.”

“You never celebrated on your own?” Blue asked, reaching for your hands.

You smile wide and squeeze his hands back. “Never had anyone to celebrate it with. I probably went to a bar or something for the drink specials but this is the first time I’m actually celebrating it.” 

“We can still make good on that drink special at Grillby’s,” Red interrupted. “Once the tiny tots are all tuckered out we’re planning on crashing that new nightclub other Grillby is so excited about.”

“I’m only going because someone needs to keep an eye on you,” Edge grumbled, pinching one of the chicks on Red’s shirt. No one was surprised when it squeaked.

  The plan was to meet up with Black and Rus at the old town square after they had gone to visit a few trick or treat friendly houses with the kids. The town square had been transformed for families and friends to meet up with neighbors for homemade chili, cheap carnival games, and a few blow up bounce houses for the kids.

Blue and Stretch were running a few of the carnival booths while you and Edge had signed up to do a few ‘magic’ tricks for the kids on a cheap home made stage. The square was set up to be family friendly until 9:00PM and then the kid games went away, leaving alcohol friendly options for the adults who were so inclined. Otherwise anyone could get their booze on at Grillby’s or one of the other local pubs-it just wasn’t an option to carry outside during ongoing events.

Sans and Papyrus were staying up north with Ax and Paps for the night. Sans had mentioned to you that if everyone felt up to it, they might come down to visit, but Ax especially was hesitant to go  near kids after getting chewed out by Black.

Even though you, Rus, and others had all brought it up to Black, about how the kids were perfectly safe around their new neighbors, Black still felt uncomfortable about it…even if he was willing to admit you all were right and he was wrong. ‘I understand what you’re saying is logical, but I can’t help but shake these nerves.’

You hoped tonight things would go well for all of you.

“We’re going to shortcut over then, if that’s alright with you, Nicholas Cage,” Stretch said, mock saluting to Edge.

“Don’t insult my hard work so easily,” Edge scoffed. Then he turned to you. “Would you mind fixing the bike before you go?”

“I got it,” you chirped, already out the door.

Blue and Stretch waved you off before blipping away on another shortcut. Outside you knelt down next to Blue’s bike that Edge was borrowing for the night, and gently spread you harmless fire over it, letting it latch onto specific areas and drift harmlessly elsewhere. When you were done you stood back to admire your work and whistled low.

Edge followed you out and approached the flaming bike as soon as you were finished. With a wolf whistle from Red and a cheer from you, he mounted the bike and started it up. Responding to the new vibrations, the harmless flames danced higher.

“Looks nice, boss.”

“Of course it does. It was a group effort!”

“You’re the coolest, bro.” Red laughed and then reached for you, wrapping one arm low around your waist to drag you closer. “Don’t mind me picking up this chick here. I’ll see you at the main square in a few.”

Edge nodded sharply before revving the engine, flaring the flames, and pulling out of the driveway on a squeal of dirt. Before you could get caught in the spray Red had already pulled you through and was on the other side of the void with you. 

“Red, you’re off by about a block,” you laughed when you realized where you were.

“Oh darn,” Red drawled sarcastically. “I messed up. Guess my mind isn’t working with all cylinders or something, eh babe? I think I need some help starting up the old engine.”

You lifted a single brow in disbelief. “Really?”

His arm sagged a little lower around your waist, brushing up against your hip. “Just a little sugar, real quick? You know you’re the only one who can light my fires, sweetheart.”

“Consider this a toll fee then,” you giggled before leaning over to kiss the underside of his jaw. You pulled back only enough for him to hear what else you whispered. “And this is because I like you.”

You loved the sound of Red hitching his breath when you kissed him again, lower, down the neck. There was a section between his neck and shoulder he shuddered for and nearly moaned when you kissed it again. You peppered his chin and the upper side of his jaw with butterfly kisses and then made a sound of delight next to his ear bone. Through the tint of his aviators, you could tell his eye lights were extinguished.

“How’s that engine, big guy?”

“s-shit…” he breathed, trying to regain his senses before chuckling again. “Damn me, doll face, if I ain’t spoiled and rotten. I really just wanna keep you here between the wall and me for a few more hours.”

“You think we’d last that long?” you teased.

“…i am so ready to find out,” he wheezed.

You laughed and rubbed at his face, pulling away so only his hands rested on your hips while your wrists stayed locked behind the base of his skull. “Easy there, tiger. It’s still early, literally and emotionally speaking.”

“For you maybe,” he pouted playfully.

You knew he was teasing but you also knew you needed to be transparent with all of your date mates. “I’m head over heels for you, Red, and that’s not in question here. I’m just still learning what to do about it when I’m also pining for your brother and others. I want to do right by all of you. You’re too precious to me to mess up, okay?”

Red watched you intently. Through the tinted glass you could see his eye lights fixated on you as he listened. When you were done he nodded and leaned down to kiss the crown of your head. “I’m so damn lost in love for you too, sweetheart. Don’t worry about me. Take your time. I’ll always have my arms open to you, no matter what.”

You smiled in appreciation. “Thanks, Red.”

He squeezed at your hip and dipped his head. “I mean it, really. No matter what happens or what you do, my arms are always open. You can’t dissuade me just cause there’s someone else out there with taste as good as mine.”

You gave him another peck and then pulled away, turning towards the exit of the alley behind the local ‘Slice of Heaven’ pizza parlor. Red jogged to catch up with you and grabbed for your hand to hold as the two of you exited out onto the main street proper.   

You could see that the street was already blocked off and several of the shop owners had decorated their storefronts with orange and purple lights for the season to help keep things festive. A few were staying open and selling food and drinks throughout the night while others had closed up and were dark apart from their decorations.

For a moment the scene in front of your was overwhelming and you had to stop on the sidewalk to take it all in. Red’s gaze was something you could feel and when you didn’t move after a while he  shook the hand he was still holding.

“You okay there, sweetheart?”

“It’s my first halloween.”

“Yeah, you said so earlier, back at the house. You ain’t never seen this before?”

“No, I’ve seen it, I just…we never celebrated things like this growing up, and then when I was on my own it was just…something I didn’t know how to appreciate. It was just another day where drinks were cheeper at the bar and food tasted more like pumpkin. I’ve never celebrated it like this before,” You blinked hard and looked purposefully up at him. “-at least not with people I care about.”

“I’m honored ta share this first with ya, doll,” Red laughed, tugging you closer before leading you down the blocked off street towards where some of the events were being set up.

Blue and Stretch were already at one of the booths getting it ready for kids and you heard the shouts of newer monsters helping out their human neighbors. Halloween was easily one of the monsters’ favorite holidays as a species, since they were all welcomed stars on such a night. Many of them didn’t dress up but you saw plenty rocking costumes of their own, delighting in the chance to dress up and be flamboyant.

You could smell the chili and street cart food and it made you smile when you recognized Red’s cart parked off to the side, waiting to be set up.

“Should I save a dog for you, sweetheart?” Red asked when he caught your eye.

“Dibs on your first sale.”

Red laughed and squeezed your hand. “As if I would let my date mate pay for my own cooking. Not a chance, this is an opportunity for me to show off.”

It didn’t take him long to set up his cart and get a couple of dogs ready for you. Seeing someone in front of the cart a few monsters started to approach and linger on the edges, hesitant to step up until they were sure Red was open.

“It’s fantastic,” you said to the nearest monster, smiling over what was left of your hotdog. “You’ll enjoy it.”

With one last wink over your shoulder you slipped away to find the coordinator for the ‘show’ stage where different acts would be preformed for a small audience. You had a fire show every twenty five minutes in between other acts (magic and juggling) but that was only for the first hour. After that you were free to explore and mingle until your final set at 8:55PM which would help close out the ‘kid friendly’ part of the night.

“Ready for the first set?” the coordinator, Helen from the antique store, asked once she saw you.

“I’m good to go. I don’t have any props aside from myself,” you explained while gesturing to your body.

Helen chuckled at your answer. “We got mirrors behind the stage you can use to fix yourself up in between sets if you think your wig is crooked,” she said. “Otherwise, make sure you enjoy yourself with your family. It’s a shame to spend so much time occupied.”

“It’s only one hour,” you laughed.

“That’s true, but I know Edge has been looking forward to tonight for weeks. Speaking of the smelly bastard, where is my boy?” Helen asked, looking around.

“You should hear him pull up soon. He’s hard to miss.”

And like your words were the magic cue, there was a distant cheer of excitement that drew closer alongside the muffled purr of a motorcycle engine. You and Helen looked out to watch Edge maneuver the bike around the barricade and slowly drive it down the road, content to let himself be a showpiece for others to admire.

“Look at the little preening bastard,” Helen laughed in pure delight. She pat your shoulder in passing to go out and greet Edge who was parking in a spot close to his brother’s hotdog cart. Already there was a nice line and more and more families were trickling in to take photos next to the ‘actor.’ 

There was a magic show and then a juggler who went before you on stage, so you checked your wig like Helen said to and then poked out to see if you could see Rus or Black.

The magician was just finishing his first performance when you spotted the family at the far end of the street, talking with Blue and Stretch outside the carnival booths and set up games. You ran up behind Peter and Wendy, picking both up and laughing as they squealed in delight. Black didn’t even flinch but calmly turned to greet you.

“You all look great,” you laughed, admiring Black and Rus’s complementing outfits. Rus was a traditional, dirty skeleton pirate, but Black was a fancy, decorated privateer officer with a powdered wig and full uniform.   

Tron was casually coupling as a jedi with a nice purple lightsaber, Phil was a pumpkin, and Peter and Wendy were both Pokemon trainers. Peter really liked all the dog looking Pokemon while Wendy was a bit more all over the place with her likes, but each wore a belt full of Pokeballs. 

“Did you guys score lots of candy?” you asked, bending down to let the kids out of your arms. When you saw Phil wriggling for attention you leaned over to kiss his forehead and he settled in Rus’ arms.

“No fair, I’m jealous,” Rus complained with a pout even as the kids at his feet began to show off their bags filled with trick or treat candy. “Where’s my booty?”

Black roughly elbowed into Rus’ side, careful to avoid Phil. “Can you keep yourself civil for one night? I swear to the angel, you’re infuriating.”

You could tell by Black’s tone Rus had been pushing his brother’s buttons for a while now. “Was it a long trip?” you asked, looking to Black purposefully.

Black looked down at the kids first before answering, and when he did you saw how his shoulders deflated. “It was profitable and rewarding for the crew’s moral.”

“That’s us!” Peter exclaimed loudly. “We’re the crew, we’re the crew!”

“Does that mean you’re not going to defeat me at my own game?” Blue playfully taunted from his booth.

It was an effective strategy that quickly diverted both Peter and Wendy over to the game booth. Tron naturally followed, but glanced back at you and the brothers with a knowing expression that made you blush.

Great, now the kids knew. How long had that been a thing?

“It’s fine,” Rus whispered in your ear before kissing just underneath the wig’s edge. “They understand more than you think and are excited for any family they can get.”

“It doesn’t mean your teasing can be so progressive in public, brother,” Black interrupted. “We are not underground anymore and I at least have some standing in this community that should be maintained, thank you very much.” Black looked over your way purposefully and you shivered when he grinned. “Save such words for when we’re home where we can act on them instead of in the street.”

You felt a frisson of heat race up and down your spine before pooling in your belly. Black’s intentional stare when he talked about acting on such words made your body react uniquely. It was definitely a turn on, but there was also a flavor of surprise to accompany the delight. Out of all the boys, you had thought Black was the most reserved. He cuddled with you less than Axe, and you had known him five times longer.

Black must have seen some sort of reaction on your face because his devious expression only sharpened.

“Between the two of you I thought for sure it was going to be the horn dog over here that was the  nasty one,” Stretch interrupted, covering Phil’s ears as he hissed lowly.

“Jealous?” Rus taunted, eyesights flashing in challenge.

Stretch almost seemed startled by the rare show of soft aggression from Rus. More than anyone, Rus was usually the one folding over and backing down. Stretch shared a look with you before staring back at Rus.

“Not jealous, just surprised. You’re not buzzed, are you?” Stretch answered for you.

“More like horny,” Black hissed, watching that Stretch kept Phil’s ears covered while he answered for his brother. “But that’s still no excuse to forget to act with decorum in public, Mutt. Where are you manners?”

“Left them in my spare uniform, m’lord,” Rus grumbled with a familiar eye light roll.

You leaned back and saw the end of the Juggler’s performance and tapped Stretch on the back before stepping away. “I got to go get ready for my first show in two minutes. I’ll connect with you all later, once I’m done with my set.” 

“What are you doing for your talent?” Rus asked.

“Show up and find out,” you giggled before darting off.

After the juggler finished his set the crowd had a couple of minutes to get up and explore while new faces filled the seats. There were a few parents who stayed in the back on their phones while their kids watched every set until the acts started to repeat themselves.

The whiteboard outside had the names of the three sets with their times listed and your act title was called The Phoenix. You checked you Jean Gray costume once more time before your music started to play. On cue you climbed up the steps and jumped to the center, turning on your toes to bow to the small growing audience. You didn’t have words for them, but stood up from your bow and began.

You brought your hands together and fire began to race up your arms, hitting your face and turning your hair to fire along with the rest of your body in a whoosh. You heard the crowd’s excitement and looked out to see a mix of humans and monsters, all interested in what was in front of them. Rus and Black had corralled the kids into seats and they were all cheering for you.

The tempo of the song picked up and you bent dramatically backwards, making a bridge out of your body before kicking your legs up in the air to show off how they too had become fire. Then you  finished the flip and grabbed at your ankles, keeping your back exposed for the flames there to sputter and spurt.

The nature of your magic shifted as the first pair of wings emerged. Pure fire first, you felt them solidify with bone as more of the feathers grew from black to red to gold crimson. When you stood with an impressive pair of wings on fire the crowd was as excited as expected.

You grabbed at some feathers to tug them free and then slapped your hands together, when you pulled them apart there was a whip made out of magical fire. You cracked it a few times in the air before tugging a few feathers free to throw up as projectiles. You hit each one as it fell down, creating miniature fireworks for the amusement of your growing audience.

You disappeared the whip and then waved your arms, watching as the vents for magic filled with feathers before another pair of wings emerged out of your forearms. They were smaller wings that quickly wrapped around your arms as armor the same way the ones out of your calfs did.

Your horns wanted to manifest but you held back, knowing such a look didn’t complement the act. You did a few acrobatic tricks before folding your wings around you and turning them black like a protective shell. There was a new burning as two more sets of wings grew out of the black. When you stood upright once more you had manifested three sets of wings on your back as well as the ones on your arms and legs.  That was enough for a few more exciting tricks with weapons made out of fire.

The music neared its climax and you wrapped your wings around you, hardening them all so perfectly that you were enterally cocooned on stage. You felt their detachment as the wings changed from an extension to a shield. The music peaked and you emerged from your black shell with a whirlwind of magical fire that passed harmlessly through the audience, much to their amazement.

You bowed once and then skipped off stage. Behind the set up you saw the magician that came after you who was now giving you an incredulous look. “How am I supposed to follow that?” he joked.

“Hey, there was a reason they slotted me for last,” you joked back.

“Hell of a light show,” he said while standing. “I’m sure my kids loved it so thanks for them.”

When you emerged a few minutes later the kids were there to congratulate you and brag about how popular you were. You basked in their praise before asking if they were hungry for something healthy to eat. You didn’t pay too much attention to how quiet Black was or how tight Rus’ voice sounded when he answered your questions.

It was a busy night and you were just as hungry as the kids who hadn’t eaten dinner yet. Thus, you all ended up in line for Red’s hot dogs. You ate yours next to Edge as he showed off his bike and looked to impressed humans and monsters alike.

“Didn’t you already have two of those?” he teased when he saw you wiping your face with the heel of your palm.

“I get hungry whenever I use magic, and besides, they’re good.”

“Did you have to expend a lot of magic for the show?” Rus asked from nearby. He was sitting on the curb with his back to you but turned around slightly to crane his neck and look your way. His voice was back to normal, but he still didn’t look directly at you.

“Eh, the tempering is the hardest part. I gotta be careful I don’t get carried away and hurt myself, but apart from that, it’s not bad. I’m sure I’ll only use a small fraction of magic for the rest of the night,” you answered while finishing off the last of your dog. “But it does make me hungry.”

“Don’t feel da need ta justify yourself, doll face,” Red called back to you while making up a few more dogs for a customer. “You eat as much as you want.”

“I’ve not seen you manifest wings during our spars,” Edge said, reaching for your back to trace the length of your spine. “Is there a reason for that?”

“Not practical,” you forced yourself to answer after swallowing. “They take too long to manifest in a fight.” Edge’s phalanges running down your back made you want to vocalize something that wasn’t proper to put sound to in public. Did he know he was riling you up or was it innocent?

You glanced back over your shoulder and saw with your good eye the way he grinned knowingly when you looked back. There was nothing innocent about the way he smiled at you. 

Was there something about Halloween that made skeleton monsters horny or were you reading too much into it? Stars help you. The juggler was halfway through his set and you needed to do your routine again with a clear head.

“It was real pretty,” Rus said, sounding soft compared to before. “All… angel like.”

“It’s-” you shook your head and rolled your shoulders to get away from Edge’s teasing touch. “It’s just theatrics. A while back they tried building a set of engagement strategies for when I was airborne but it just was never worth the energy considering how terrible my regulation and control were.”

“And now?” Rus asked.

You forced yourself to grin as the juggler finished up his set. “I guess we’ll see at the end of the night, won’t we?”

Your second and third set went perfectly. They were a little different with new music and new movements, but the wings and the fire were pretty much the same thing. You were surprised with the familiar faces in the crowd of people, coming back for show after show. Some asked you off stage how you managed to create your ‘illusions’ and you had to tell them all it was a trade secret. Explaining what mages were, a popular urban legend, wasn’t worth the time. Someone else asked you what monster helped you with their magic before another person suspected it of being the Ghost Rider next door. You didn’t correct either of them but left them with a coy smile and a wave.

While the magician started his last performance you took to wandering again, surprised when you saw someone show up on your magical map.

You didn’t bother to walk but ran for the corner of the street where Papyrus and Sans were walking Ax and Paps out. They saw you coming and when you threw your arms open for a hug you weren’t surprised when both Paps and Papyrus swooped down in front of their brothers to claim the hug. It was like a reflex for the both of them, as soon as they saw open arms they couldn’t help themselves. You pulled away and touched Pap’s face gently before looking back at Ax who stood next to Sans.

“You guys came down! I’m so happy to see you guys here.”

“HAPPY TO BE HERE!” Paps answered while Papyrus backed up to give you and his friend some room. “MY BROTHER AND I WERE HOPING TO BE ABLE TO MAKE THIS TRIP, BUT WE WEREN’T SURE WE WOULD LAST THE WHOLE WHILE. SO, WE COMPROMISED WITH ATTENDING ONLY THE LAST HALF OF THE NIGHT.”

“How was the trip over here?” you asked, looking to Ax and Sans.

“Uneventful,” Sans answered first before glancing sideways at his larger counterpart. “Aside from a few fun compliments on the awesome costume.” 

You noticed that Axe and Paps weren’t dressed up in costume, and Axe wasn’t wearing the bandages over the hole in his skull. They looked perfect for the night, but you were worried how they felt. Paps was more self conscious about his appearance while Axe didn’t seem to care apart from the people who made trouble for him because of it.

You hoped this could be a positive experience for them.

“Well, you both look amazing as always. I can show you around and then I’m going to insist you stay for my show.” You grabbed for Axe’s hand and took Paps’ hand as well. “The fourth show is actually the best one of the night cause it backs up into the send off, but that’s not for a while. Let’s go see Blue’s games first.”

You actually needed swinging by Red’s hotdog cart and saying hello to Edge again while the boys ordered some food for themselves before moving on. Before you could catch up with them Red tugged at your elbow and passed you another hotdog, giving you a sly but knowing look.

“Ya know you want it.”

Honestly, you could eat Red’s food all night long. You weren’t sure if it was his intent you could taste, but his food tasted different from anything else and it was something you craved. You gave him a quick kiss on the cheek before running to catch up with the others who were in front of the games.

You skid to a halt when you saw why the group was stopped.

Black had a hand on Peter’s shoulder and was watching Axe wearily as he stood in front of his family, posed and ready to move if need be. The tension was there, ignored by everyone else who passed by, but there nevertheless.

A moment passed before the most unlikely person to break tensions ran out from behind Black with her Pokemon plushy in her hands. Black made a grab for Wendy but held himself back when Rus reached out to his brother.

Axe flinched when Wendy stopped in front of him, looking quickly to you and then to Sans before following a cue from his brother to kneel. Even on one knee he was so much bigger than Wendy.  From the last time you had seen her there was now a temporary tattoo on her cheek of a skeleton and another one of a ghost on her hand next to a unicorn.

“I remember you because you’re so big. You’re the one who showed up and helped when the bad guys were at our house!” she exclaimed. She looked up at Paps too and he squeaked from the attention, fiddling with his fingers and trying to look busy.

“…yeah, kid… we was… there with everybody else,” Axe answered with stilted, hesitating words.

“Here, thank you mister Dusk!” Wendy exclaimed while holding out her plushy. From the tag you could see its name was Duskull and when Wendy handed it over you almost gasped at the childish irony. The Pokemon had a skull for a face and one bolted red eye light.

“…dusk?” Axe echoed curiously. He blinked hard and then accepted the toy before pointing at himself, “that’s me?”

“Yeah, cause you look like Duskull, so you’re Dusk,” Wendy explained with a wide smile that was so classically her you almost laughed.

You watched as his eyesight expanded and went fuzzy around the edges, like it was trying to shift into a new shape but was unable. He blinked hard and slowly drew the toy closer to his chest. “-tha-thank you,” he rumbled with hesitant words, “for the…name.”

“You like it?” Wendy exclaimed with a little bounce in place.

He stared down at the plushy and then up at Wendy. His eyesight roved back to where Black stood with the rest of the family, then to you and then to his brother. He took a shaky breath and nodded. “heh, yah, yeah i like it… the name especially. thanks kid.”

“So it’s Dusk now?” Sans asked.

Dusk nodded and grinned. “yeah, that’s my name now so don’t get it confused with anything else, no more axe.”

“I like it,” you said, speaking up. You gave Wendy a thumbs up and a wink. “You have the best naming skills, girl. First Black and now Dusk? Great work.”

“Hey, now that’s something the two of you have in common,” Rus said, rubbing at his brother’s shoulder. “Ain’t that fun?”

Black spared his brother a bored look and you could almost hear the silent conversation in that look. Black was willing to play nice with Dusk but he didn’t have to like it. You also suspected he was a little jealous of Dusk getting a name from Wendy, since he thought he was the only one who was special enough for a name. But Black wouldn’t say anything and ruin Dusk’s fun. Not after the skeleton had survived so much hardship and horror.

You loved the look on Dusk’s face and how Paps’ expression was a mirrored version of the same joy Dusk was feeling. Your heart felt light when you glanced around at how everyone else was relaxing into the change.

“You’re on in two,” Helen whispered from behind you, reminding you where you were.

You thanked her and waved to Papyrus, explaining where you were going before running off. Over your shoulder you noticed the group slowly making their way to the standing room only audience that was already waiting for you.

There was only enough time to check your wig briefly before the music for you last set came on and you went out on stage. This time there were additional platforms for you to dance onto so others in the back could see better. You noticed a pair of fire elementals in the back of the crowd one red and one purple, watching from outside their respective establishments.

The set was similar to all the others but as it began to draw to a close the music transferred to the main speakers and everyone in the area could hear your show. That was your cue to pick up the black bag waiting for you atop the highest point, above even the light poles.

You perched there and folded your wings around you like a cocoon while Helen made the announcement about the events changing. While she explained and thanked the audience you gathered your magic up, not caring if a couple of pale horns manifested. You wouldn’t be looked at too closely so you could get away with it.

The time to hold back was behind you now. This next send off would need more magic to fuel the takeoff…something you realized you had way more of. The accident with your soul nearly destabilizing had been horrific, but after that you found your magical stores near doubled. There were things you could do now that were impossible before.

“And with that, we wish those of you departing for warm beds a goodnight. Please enjoy our fond farewell,” Helen announced.

That was your cue.

There was way more fire than before and even more wings as you unfolded and launched yourself off the platform to take off upwards.

You were like a bullet from a gun and before long you were arching in the sky, flying into position high above the town. Everything was a speck below you, the people, the places, the trees, the roads even. They twinkled below you in a beauty too similar to stars to not be awed by as you cut into the night sky. You were more rocket than human in that moment, piercing the sky like a fiery arrow.

You found your point and threw the black bag up as far as it would go and then let your flames turn white before launching a fiery projectile at it. The fireworks detonated and the sky around you was a kaleidoscope of color as your flames turned down to let you fall back to earth. 

Perfect.

 

 

Or…

-it would have been if you didn’t hear Raven’s voice in your head, communicating telepathically in a way only the two of you could.

You didn’t tell anyone else where we said to meet, did you?” he frantically asked in a shaky breath that came just before a sharp cry.

His pain echoed in your head as you plummeted back to earth.

 

 

 

 

Notes:

So many fun things happening here. From this point onwards Axe/Horrortale!Sans will be called Dusk in my work. That's his name now. The children decree it so. Paps/Horrotale!Papyrus gets his name makeover later on. :)
And while on the Pokemon theme, I'll just throw it out there that it's my private headcannon if reader had to be a pokemon it'd be Moltres.

I'm happy this could come out on time and hope those of you who can't celebrate the way you want to this year can still enjoy a little vicarious Halloween living. Stay safe!

Also if you were keeping track of it, here are their costumes:

Sans = Astro-nut
Papyrus = RoboCop

Stretch = Alice in Chains
Blue = Shazam

Edge = Ghost Rider
Red = ‘chick’ magnet

Black = Privateer
Rus = Pirate

Chapter 64: Young & Menace 9

Notes:

Warnings for this chapter contain spoilers: Violence, bodily harm, magical body transformation, minor character death. It's all action this chapter. Buckle up or just skip to the end notes for a summary.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

You fell of course and stumbled onto solid earth, feeling your flames burn away and leave you as human looking as ever. You were apart from the group, but there were still people outside and someone had to have a cell phone.

Your gut was telling you to race off on your own and get to Raven as soon as possible, but you fought against that reflex. You needed help, you wouldn’t be able to do this alone. Your map showed you that Raven was only with one of his friends (Winn or Dee?) and the pair were traveling. You couldn’t see what was actually chasing them or causing them to run.

Why didn’t they just shortcut out of there?

“Hey, sorry to bother you, but does someone have a phone I can borrow to make a call?” you asked, approaching a group of  strangers on the street, sharing drinks and food.

One of them offered up their flip phone without a second thought and someone else offered you chili, which you politely refused.

Sans answered on the third ring, likely confused by the new number. “Hello?”

“Sans, it’s me. I need to go. Raven tried reaching out to me and now I can’t get in contact with him but I can see where he and one of his friends is. They’re getting chased by something.”

“Wh-whoa, slow down. Your brother is in trouble. You think this is a trap?”

“Not by Raven and not now of all times. We were supposed to meet tomorrow, why would he spring this on me now?”

“You believe him?”

You remembered the way Raven’s voice trembled and the sound of his breathing. “Yeah. He’s a shit but he’s still my brother and I gotta go after him Sans.”

“Where?”

“They were heading towards the canyon last I checked, the one way back behind the forests behind the Bi-Lo.”

“The one where you got abducted?”

You winced. “Yeah, the canyon behind all that. Is anyone free that can-?”

But before you could ask there was a new voice on the other side of the phone, butting in.

“You got it, honey,”Stretch interjected. “Blue and me can grab Edge and be there in a blink. Where are you?”

“I’m about five minutes out.”

“Then you better catch up.”

You felt warm deep in your soul as the call disconnected with Stretch hanging up. It took so little and they were willing to be there for you. You felt trusted and valued so easily.

“Thanks for the phone, you were a huge help,” you said to the group of monsters and humans before jogging out into the road.

The one with the flip phone watched you while the others seemed to disengage and ignore you while you prepared yourself in the center of the road.

You had told Stretch five minutes but that was really only because you needed the time to power up and summon your magic for another transformation. It took you a while to be ready, but once you were, getting somewhere would be a piece of cake.

You burst into flames, drawing the whole group’s attention and then the flames began to flicker from red to gold to yellow to blue to white as you pushed the magic out as fast it would go. You only bothered with a single pair of wings, longer and larger than the ones used for your act, before launching yourself up and taking off like a bullet out of a gun, fired forward with all the built up propulsion pressure you could manage in sixty seconds.

Behind you the crowd of buzzed monsters and humans cheered as you launched into the sky and shot up, transitioning from white to blackish blue fire in order to better blend in with the night sky.  But it was halloween and plenty of fireworks were still going off in the sky, so if anyone saw your tail or streak of fire, it could be easily explained away.

You didn’t have to hold back.

More bullet than bird you rocketed through the sky, passing the roads into town, over the grocery store, the lot behind it, and the forest that filtered into the canyon. You blinked and that was enough to see with your mental map where your brother and his friend were. In addition to Raven and the Winn dot you saw Blue and Stretch already on location with Edge nearby. There were faded dots around them, but you didn’t know what those dots meant until you met them. There was one other you recognized, but only one.

Esperanza - TwoK, the one with a shit ton of androids to do her dirty work.

It made sense. Raven had been the person they had been searching for all this time. Finding and kidnapping you was only a means to an end. Your brother was the one with unprecedented powers over time and space.

You were there a couple weeks? He had me for years,” Raven said. “Look at what’s left of me now. Look what you never turned around to see.”

You snarled and tore through the rest of the sky, cresting over the valley and arching up to see on your own what you were fighting against, before twisting into a dive that helped your tear through the metal body of an android like it was hot tin. You touched the earth and spun, flaring a rain of fire out and blasting it through multiple units. Half of them got up again but you made quick work of them with the extension of your fire in a barbed whip, a spear, or a javelin that exploded upon impact.

Across the way you saw Blue wielded a massive war hammer over his head and swing it like it was made out of something uniquely light. When it made contact with the metal bodies you heard the dull crunch of dense power.

Stretch was nearby, but he was kneeling down next to the boy called Winn who he had to half dig up out of the ground where he had been pile-drived from the looks of it. Winn was barely conscious, and looked rough.  You wondered how much HP he had left before dusting, doubting it was much more than two.

Beyond him, you saw your brother and Edge engaging the same hoard of metal wolves. Edge was a dedicated fighter and while his attacks didn’t deal the big damage numbers like Blue’s attacks did, he was fast and precise. He was hitting his enemies where it counted and had the energy to spare. Behind him your brother staggered. Raven looked exhausted but mostly unhurt.

But where was Esperanza? 

You kept up a ring of fire around you and checked your mental map, zooming out to see where Esperanza’s dot was hiding. As expected, she was more removed from the fighting and hiding down at the base of the valley, controlling her army from a distance.

“Coward,” you hissed out loud. “I’l-ahh!”

Blue called out your name and you staggered from the impact of some form of energy cutting up your arm. You snarled and incinerated the detached arm of a downed android, cursing your shortcomings. You should have been more careful and double checked.

The other androids fell and then Blue was in front of you, dropping his war hammer with a heavy thud to grab at your arm and fuss. Over his shoulder you glared at the rubble, sensitive to anything that showed signs of movement.

“They’re not tough but there are a lot of them,” Blue said, pouring healing energy into your arm. “Careful.”

“It’s almost impressive. I didn’t know she had access to so many units. Is this Hightower’s way of overcompensating her?” you laughed back.

Blue looked up from your arm and the expression on his face almost made you falter. You leaned in to kiss his cheek and he turned his face to catch your lips. “Don’t let your guard down,” he chastised on a short gasp before growling against your cheek. “You’re not as invulnerable as you think.”

“I know where she’s hiding,” you explained, bracing against his arms as you almost got caught up in the taste of his magic on your tongue. You were high on adrenaline and felt on top of the world. When you had been shot you hadn’t even felt the pain from it, only the impact. Blue’s kiss was just one more variety of sweet drug that lifted you higher. It was dangerous, but you felt like there wasn’t anything you couldn’t do.

“What are you planning on doing?” Blue asked.

“Cut off the head of the snake and the whole body falls apart. Let me take her down and the rest of this won’t matter. Esperanza isn’t a strong fighter, that’s why she’s backup most of the time. She always hides herself away and attacks from a distance.”

“Where?”

“Down in the valley,” you pointed to the edge of the short cliffs that fell away to a gap where water rushed further below.

You were distracted from saying more when you heard a rattle and turned to see some of the androids beginning to reassemble themselves, pulling themselves together out of the leftover parts of a dozen different bodies. Something launched at your face but Blue was faster and blocked it with his war hammer.

“Go,” he urged. “We’ll keep them off you while you take out their head but be careful. I am not losing you again. Not for a second, not for a minute, you hear me?”

“Yes sir,” you teased with a mock salute before kicking off and launching up into the air to arch and dive into the canyon. On your way down you heard his familiar laugh and it made your heart flutter before adrenaline surged you downwards.

You swooped low and scanned the banks, paying extra close attention to the shadows in the dark where a person could hide. You were a torch in the night so you had enough light to see with, but on your second pass over you still couldn’t find Esperanza even when you knew you were literally right on top of her according to the map. Was she in the rock or under-

Your thoughts cut off when a hand around your ankle dragged you down into the water. Your fire went out and the world went dark around you, but you pushed against it and clawed at the metal body with your nails, hearing the scratch of something you couldn’t dent.

Underwater you swore but forced yourself to flare out what fire you could. It didn’t last long, but it was bright enough for a half a second and that was all you needed to see what it was you were dealing with. Esperanza was inside of a larger suit, one that looked more like it was meant for some transformer or power ranger television show. Her head was protected by a helmet so there was no use attacking that, but you saw the joints where her elbows bent. You punched there and it was enough to get free with and you kicked away, swimming to the surface and pulling yourself up onto the bank, soaked through and missing your wig. 

You rolled over and saw Esperanza pulling herself up and shrugging on an additional layer of armor to reinforce her primary shell. You couldn’t see her face through the one way visor, but you knew she was glaring at you and likely cursing you out. The last things you had said wen’t forgotten as you pulled yourself up.

“You weren’t worth it back then but I guess everybody is wrong once in their life,” you yelled, spitting out river water before rolling your shoulders.

“What are you going to do now that the tables have turned?” she mocked. “You’re a wet match in a sandbox.”

“As if I’d ever be anything so mediocre,” you sneered, stoking the anger deep inside. As she had been pulling herself up and pulling on new layers of armor you had been pulling your magic back up too. Every second she wasted on sneering down at you was a second she would regret.

She should have known better.

Esperanza swung and her metal fist impacted on the shore, creaking a creator and rattling the surrounding rock-face with the resounding vibrations. You had ducked out of the way just in time and dove back into the water, letting the current rip you away, taking you away.

Esperanza climbed back into the water and started to wade from the shallows to where she last saw you dive before she must have realized you weren’t there anymore. She engaged the jetpacks on her back and lifted up, scanning the waters with thermal or some other form of vision until her helmet fixated on your submerged position. She couldn’t see if you had a layer of wings out and manifested into a shell around your body but she knew where to aim her rockets.

You shuddered under the impact but your shell held, protecting you while the waters outside turned white and foamy. One of her attacks dislodged the bank around you and catapulted you out of the river and into the side of the bank, half burying you in sand from the bank.

“You can’t hold that up forever,” Esperanza screamed before her attacks doubled and you felt the strain. Protecting yourself with your shell wouldn’t last forever so you layered another two, three, four, six, eight wings over your first two and braced for as long as you could.

You heard the sound of water hiss as she landed down in front of you and then there were metallic hands prying your wings apart, shredding them like burnt paper until she was face to face with your four horns and a bead of magic that had been layered with coat after coat of new magic.

You screamed and the attack flared wide, striking Esperanza head on and sending her sailing.

The cracked parts of her helmet fell into the water as she rightened in mid air and stopped against the far stone cliffs, bleeding from a small wound on her face as you emerged from your protective shell. Esperanza’s eyes were wide as her snow white hair fell loose around her shoulders. It was the same sick color as Raven’s and you knew that meant she had overtaxed herself in her use of magic. She was at her limit.

A new helmet started to assemble, built up with debris as she used her powers to manipulate the available technology around her. She began to bulk up too as you flared to life, stoking your own fiery exterior after being doused.

“Don’t do this,” you growled over petite fangs as your whole form became more and more lethal. “You know you don’t have a chance anymore. Let Raven go and turn Hightower to the wolves if you want to walk out of here on your own two feet.”

“Where the hell do you think I’d go?” she sneered. “There’s no point in walking anywhere if you have nowhere to walk to. I don’t have anything but this vengeance. I’ll take the traitor back if its the last thing I do, bitch.”

“Funny, I’m not used to hearing that label anymore. You’ll need some new material. Me and Raven aren’t what you remember us as,” you laughed. You held your arms over your head, careful to avoid the points of your four curling horns as your hair flared like the ends of the candle’s flame. There were wings on your back, branching off your arms and legs, and wrapping around your torso to hide what the ruins of your costume no longer could.

“Birds of a feather,” Esperanza sneered.

The term made you giggle and remember what they had called you and your brother so long ago. The Raven and the Phoenix, of course you would be birds of a feather.

“You’re not getting him unless you go through me.”

“I intend to!” Esperanza roared.

“Take me if you think you can.”

Esperanza launched herself and rotated in air to shoot at you with a dozen different beams but you were already in the air, launching yourself up into the sky like a bullet. You rocketed past the cliffs and Esperanza was hot on your tail with wild attacks, dodging the feathers you shed like bombs that would explode upon contact.

The two of your weaved through the sky, trailing light across the dark. As soon as she was close enough you’d turn and the pair of you would exchange fists in midair before breaking away and circling each other like birds of prey before striking each other. You shot and she shot but both of you wore armor like pros and nothing except up close and personal attacks seemed to get through.

At one point you manifested an array of daggers to circle your head like a halo before launching each of them at Esperanza. She took damage and started to fall before righting herself and recovering with a new shield or cover-summoned up from the rubble below you both. At the beginning she had been only a little bigger than you, but now she was twice your size with dark and light armor from a dozen different salvaged bodies. All the damage you did seemed recovered but at the same time she didn’t seem to be progressing any with hurting you either.

Down below you noticed the fighting had all but ceased as the androids she controlled lay in piles of rubble. Stretch was watching over you brother and the other monster, Dee, but his eye lights were on you. Beside him Edge and Blue were also watching with just as much attention.

Esperanza must have noticed as well.

“You’re done here, there is no victory left for you here,” you called out to her, summoning another halo of short blades to circle your skull. “You know you can’t win. Don’t go back to Hightower, you weren’t meant for him.”

Esperanza’s helmet was cracked and you could see her eye widen with fear. There were tears making her lashes wet. She looked so tired and old through the cracks in her armor. She was only a handful of years older than you, so why did she look…so worn out…?

“There is no going back,” she snarled with no real venom. She was too tired for honest hatred.

When you launched your blades you weren’t surprised when only two hit. She surged through them and collided with you, pinning your arms and wings down to your sides. You thought she would tip and dive with the both of you back towards the earth, but instead she angled up and surged with the last bounties of her magic. You saw your friends down below grow small, then smaller, until they were specks in the distance and the river in the valley was no thicker than a strand of hair. You passed the clouds and surged ever upwards.

You felt it when you left the troposphere and puncture the stratosphere, more than ten miles up in such a short amount of time. You were surging through the ozone feeling the prickle of leftover heat as the air turned dry and about a thousand times thinner. It made your throat burn as you tried to swallow it down.

You looked at Esperanza and saw her eyes fixated on the stars, looked tired, old, steadfast, and resigned even as the air thinned dangerously around both of you. Your flames were flickering out with no more oxygen to burn and her legs had to be hurting, but she didn’t slow. Even as the ice crystals began to form on your faces at the end of the stratosphere she never slowed or showed signs of flinching. Her technology was set and locked in.

She was going to try and kill both of you.

Poor Esperanza.

The clouds were all below you and the stars were closer than they had any right to be, but you struggled around to break one arm free and wrap it around her neck and pull yourself closer.

“He never deserved you,” you whispered before the last of your flames went dead and the core of your magic reached a breaking point. You let it happen and ignored the way Esperanza’s tears froze on her lashes.

You let go of your control and let your magic revert back to it’s original, most natural state, the one you never could control.

Who needs control when you have so much power?’ your brother had once told you after another failed experiment. It had been before you took up Hightower’s advice to stifle the nature of your magic and in exchange adopt 'fire' as your main output.

With no need for oxygen you let the hydrogen and helium be beasts inside your body. The first spark of nuclear fusion rocked you both apart and for a moment the entire sky, for as far as you could see, was white even through your squeezed shut eyelids.

Where meteors burn up, you and Esperanza began to fall, crashing back to earth like shooting stars, burning up upon re-entry. If you hadn’t pulled Esperanza to you and wrapped her up in your freshly summoned wings she never would have survived, as all her armor had been blasted away. She was far too thin in your arms, wrinkled around her eyes and barely breathing.

You didn’t have a lot of your own energy left. It was a Herculean task in and of itself to revert the nature of your magic back and forth from a chemical reaction to fusion and then back to a chemical reaction, but you had enough to do what you needed to do and you were determined enough to see it through.

You wrapped the both of you up, feeling how the atmosphere changed around you upon descent and then once you were out of the stratosphere you opened up half your wings and glided down, curving just enough to avoid crashing horribly.

The world was a mess and you weren’t sure where you were but you saw water and aimed for it, trusting it more than solid ground as you came down hot. You and Esperanza cut into the water and it hissed around you, steaming up instantly and burning away as vapor. You sank enough until your descent was no longer a critical prospect and you let your wings melt away once you felt the bank under your feet. It was soft but you trudged through it until the ground grew more solid.

You pulled Esperanza up onto the bank and collapsed, naked and wet. As you struggled out you noticed how much longer your hair was, as it nearly reached your hips. You glanced over at Esperanza and panicked at how pale she looked. Her eyes were barely open and her breathing was shallow, but she was watching you with a look of disgust.

“What am I doing here?” she croaked.

“You thought I was going to let you die?”

“It’s what I would have done.”

“But I’m not you, Esperanza,” you whispered. “And I don’t follow his orders anymore.”

“You think I’ll help you or something,” she choked, sounding like her voice was caught between a sob and a laugh.

It was uncomfortable, but you spoke the truth. “You’re dying, aren’t you?”

Why else would Hightower send her out on her own? Even if he was on the run he still had enough resources that he shouldn’t have to resort to making his kids into suicide bombers. Half a decade ago you remembered believing in the mission enough to willingly commit yourself to such a potential fate. If humanity needed you to you’d make yourself into the last bomb your enemies ever saw…but now you wanted something else, you wanted to live.

“Esperanza, what does Hightower want from you and me? What does he want with my brother? What is he even after? The resets aren’t possible anymore.”

She coughed and spit out sand but her lungs sounded shredded. When she coughed again the sand around her splattered with blood. You reached for her and pulled her head up onto your lap, never caring about how the both of your were in scraps and shreds.

“Esper?” you called weakly.

“We…were never friends,” she choked out. Her eyes were wet with new tears instead of river water. Did she know she was dying? Could she feel it?

“Shut up if you’re just gonna talk shit,” you whispered over her head. Esperanza’s eyes were shut and her breathing was labored.

“You were all…always…like this…bitch ass weak…waste of potential…” Esperanza whispered, no longer able to open her eyes. “I could have…with what you had…I could have done so much…more.”

You waited while she struggled to get her words out. It was almost painful waiting for her to say what she said. Every breath sounded wet and you could smell something rotting as parts of her skin started to develop splotches, like bruises, only instead of bad blood welling up under the skin it was where her magic had broken down her body to burn beyond her limits. She had been eaten alive by her own magic. 

“You were always ambitious and a piece of shit,” you admitted.

Esperanza struggled, but she managed to tilt her head up and open her eyes. “I’m glad you… were the one…with …the sun… in you…” she choked and it almost sounded like she was laughing as more blood bubbled out of her mouth along with spit and sand. “Don’t let…him get away…with it.”

“He never deserved any of us and you never deserved this,” you said, touching her head.

Under your fingers her skin peeled away and you were almost sick at how fragile her body had become. It didn’t matter that she had been your enemy minutes ago, trying to end your life. You saw her as the girl she had been back when you both trained at the Embassy, the girl who believed in a man who said she owed it to ‘humanity’ to give up everything and want nothing; A girl without a childhood. 

Esperanza struggled with her hand and you reached down to grab it. She squeezed you back and smirked as her eyes stayed shut. “Fuck him up.”

“Yeah,” you promised.

 

 

 

You held her until she passed.

She didn’t go quickly and by the time Stretch found you the sky had started to lighten with the promise of a not too distant sunrise. You had been with Esperanza so far down river the night had all passed you by.

“Honey,” he called, touching your back.

You didn’t have any more tears left but the tracks on your cheeks were enough for Stretch to see and know how you were feeling.

“Don’t look anymore,” he whispered, pulling you away from the body on your lap, trying to be respectful enough to avoid looking at you in your nudity. He had a oversized orange hoodie in one hand as he helped tug you up into your feet.

You shivered but accepted the offering, slipping into it while he looked away. You were still so numb to everything you didn’t even mind that your body wasn’t covered. Stretch probably saw the mess of your chest with all its hideous scars and marks, but you were…fine with that.

“Your EX and LV are still the same,” he said. His eye lights were on Esperanza.

“She died in my arms, but it wasn’t me who killed her,” you admitted, not able to look back at the body. It felt so weird how someone that had been alive with a name was now nothing more than a corpse.

“She was sick?” he guessed.

“It’s what happens when humans run out of magic and still try to do stuff. The physical body breaks down and is converted into magic. I-” you almost choked on your words. “I was never able to do that since I had so much more magic and…and when I got close to being empty I would just pass out. It…you have to be…really determined or strong to force yourself to… cannibalize your body for magic.”

“Hon, hey, honey, c’mere, look at me. Hey,” Stretch called, gathering you in his arms as you swayed in place. You pawed at his shoulders and fell against his chest, burying your face there. He rubbed up and down your back and rocked quietly with you as you sobbed without tears. He whispered into your hair how this wasn’t your fault and it was all going to be okay.

“We were fighting. I don’t know why I’m…like this… she wanted to kill me so why am I so broken up right now? Why the hell am I like this? Why the hell do I care?”

“Because you’re a better persona than the rest of us and you have a soft soul that still knows how to love. I love that so much about you, you know, right? I’ve seen it before how much it hurts you to be cruel and I admire you endlessly for your determination to stay kind in such a dark world. That’s not as easy thing.”

“I don’t feel very kind right now.”

“It’s a cruel world. You’re doing the best you can and you never give up no matter how hard it gets. I’m always going to be in love with you, down to your soul. I love you. Don’t ever think less of yourself. Honey, shhh, hey, hun, you’re gonna’ be okay.” Stretch nuzzled the side of your face and kissed at your eyes where tears would have been if you could still cry. “You’re safe and that’s all that matters.”

“It’s not fair. How dar-dare he fucking use-” you choked on your words and cursed, holding onto Stretch.

He let you curse and cradled your head while rocking you gently on your feet. Behind you the sun started to rise, up over the crest of the low points, painting the clouds red and gold with the blush of a new dawn.

“This isn’t over and we’re going to do this together,” Stretch said.

“Thank you for coming to find me,” you said, distracted by the thought that there was no one who would care enough to come for Esperanza. Did she ever have the opportunity to find someone who cared for her? Had that ever been an option for her? 

“Of course I would come find you. It took a while, hon, sorry for the delay.”

“What about…Raven and the others? Did he…?”

“We stabilized your brother and that other guy but they were shook up enough for the night. Eventually your brother took off with that guy after saying he’d be waiting for you at the meeting location tomorrow…or I guess it’s today. Are you okay enough to meet? You look exhausted.”

“I’m fine, I’m just disgusted with how this night turned out. Shit, it was-we were supposed to have a nice night. It was Halloween and Grillby’s new place opened up. The kids went trick or treating for the first time. How did it turn out like this?”

“The important thing is that you’re safe,” Stretch said. “We can figure out how they tracked your brother down later. And who knows, maybe Rus already has an answer.”

  You inhaled deeply, comforted by the scent of your date-mate. His arms around you made you feel safe and when you looked up you knew you were loved.

“Stretch, this has to end. I can’t wait any longer.”

“Let’s take you home to clean up first. You need to eat something too.”

“I’m fine, I-I need to see Raven and talk to him about this. We need to figure out how and do-we need to plan and-and…what?” You stopped rambling when Stretch took your face in his hands and held it still.

“We need to get you home to clean up, rest, and eat, but also because everyone is worried as fuck right now,” Stretch calmly explained. “It’s not your fault and you couldn’t help how that fight went, but we couldn’t follow you up into the sky and when you didn’t come down in the same place we all thought the worst. You remember the last time you were in a fight with these people and how it went?”

You had been locked up in a cell and tortured the last time you fought Esperanza. The guilt bit you as you realized the fear of that repeating itself was what your boys were all grappling with right now. They didn’t know if you were alive or dead even!

“Stretch, I don’t have my phone. I can’t-”

Stretch interrupted you with your cell between his fingers. The screen was cracked in a few new places but it turned on and worked. “We recovered it from the stage storage booth and before you check your messages, just know I texted the group chat to let them know I found you. They know you’re okay and they know you’re with me, but I think they all want to see you with their own eye lights. Can we do that for them? Please?”

“Yeah, of course…shit, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I-I got caught up in it and forgot about everything else.” You sagged forward and Stretch wrapped his arms around you in response. “Forgive me?” you asked.

“Of course, honey. Don’t look like that, it’s not your fault. Your brain is going a million miles a minute and I get it. Just remember that we all are worried for you. You’re not a part of some asshole’s army and you have a family who wants to see you come home.”

He kissed you again and you reached up to wrap your arms around his neck to let him comfort you. When he sipped a hand under your legs and picked you up you didn’t protest.

“Take me home please,” you whispered into his neck.

“Gladly.”

 

Notes:

Summary of chapter: Reader goes to save her brother and Winn, they're find. Esperanza who can control androids attacked on orders of Hightower and reader engaged. They two fought and Esperanza, sensing her loss, grappled reader and took them both up into the sky Ironman 1 style where there was no longer enough oxygen for reader's flames to be effective. (Magic fire burns magic instead of oxygen but it's harmless, which is what Grillby is made up.)
At that point reader's magic nature revers to 'fusion' which was her original nature. It remains wildly uncontrollable and the two plummet back to earth but reader catches them before impact and they land in the water. On the bank Esperanza slowly dies because she overtaxed her magic and it began to cannibalize her body for fuel. She had been sickly for a while and this was her last 'mission' from Hightower.
Reader holds Esperanza as she dies and states 'you never deserved this and he never deserved you.' In the end Esperanza asks reader to 'fuck him up' and then Stretch shows up to retrieve reader, this leads to comforting and then a return home.

 

That was a ride. We got some revelations about reader's magical nature, a hint as to some of the shit that went down between the kids so many years ago, and maybe some feels. Esper wasn't a huge character in the whole of the plot, but her passing made me emotional. I think reader is now due some R&R with the boys.

Thank you so much for sticking with me all this time. I'll be taking a week or two off for rest reasons. I have more written but the next part isn't solid so I want the time to rework it until it feels cohesive and right now I need to get my brain back to a stable state in order to ensure some measure of quality for this dumpster fire of a fic.

Rest well, dear readers! Stay safe.

Chapter 65: Young & Menace 10

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

<Halloween Night>

 

Sans saw the light off in the distance and knew it wasn’t another stray firework as it passed up through the clouds without wavering. There was a crunch in the gravel as his brother joined him outside. Inside, Paps and Dusk were already tucked in, either asleep or drifting close to it.

“What is it?” Papyrus asked, recognizing the stillness of his brother.

“The light in the sky, did you see it?” Sans asked, feeling like breathing was something he should be doing even though he was a monster and had no lungs.

“The fireworks?”

“It’s too late for fireworks.”

Papyrus sniffed. “It should be too late for fireworks but you know there are fools who set off whatever they want without consideration for their neighbors.”

“No,” Sans whispered, watching the sky with unwavering eye lights. “That ain’t it. I think princess was-”

There was no boom to rattle the night, but the flash from somewhere high up colored the land and turned the sky to day for a bright second before it was followed by a greedy darkness rushing back in. Papyrus staggered, rubbing at his eye sockets while Sans stepped forward, watching the sky for anything. There was nothing, not even clouds, but after a moment he could see it in the far off distance, a speck of something crashing back to earth.

“What the-what was that, Sans? Sans, what is it? Sans?”

Sans reached for his brother and steadied himself on Papyrus’ leg as he started to slide down. He had seen it with his own two eye lights but he almost didn’t believe it. When Papyrus turned around to grab at Sans’ shoulders and shake him it was enough to rouse Sans.

“Wha-what?”    

“Brother, you were not responding so I had to shake you. What made you space out like that?” Papyrus asked, unaware of the pun he had inadvertently made.

“A…falling star.”

“Oh, is that what that huge flash was? You said she was out that way, do you think she’s okay? Is that why you’re worried?”

It took an extra long second but Sans responded. “Naaah,” Sans forced out. “Nah, not worried about princess none, just a little…starstruck. It isn’t anything to get worked up over, sorry for falling apart on you, bro.”

“Well, I’ll forgive your awful punning just this once. Do you think we need to rejoin the others?”

“I can’t. I... gotta get to Rus and talk to him about this,” Sans said while pointing up at the sky. “There’s gonna be some unwanted attention on us otherwise. We got enough problems on our plate as is, we don’t need no more.”

Papyrus frowned and took a step back looking over his brother. “Sans,” he calmly called. “What are you worried about?”

“Just-”

“No, what is it that you’re not telling me?” Papyrus pressed, hardening his tone and shoring up his stance. “No more running off.”

Sans struggled for a hot second before he recognized the strength in Papyrus’ tone. He was a baby bones no more, and Papyrus had practiced standing up for himself enough that he could do so even with his own brother, even when it was easier to just let things go.

No more secrets. 

“I think that was her that just lit up the whole sky. I want to make sure Rus can scramble some satellite feed before someone figures out what she is.”

“A…mage?” Papyrus blinked hard. “I thought that was already known to members of government.”

“Yeah, a fire mage, not a…” Sans rubbed at his eye sockets and when there was nothing to look at he saw the explosion again, blinding, dazzling, beautiful and perfect. It made him want to cry. Years of dreaming underground about one day seeing the real stars developed his love for astro studies, but all that paled in comparison to when he had just seen.

“Sans?”

“That was…I dunno what it was but it looked like fusion, the process of creating energy that suns and stars go through. It’s…a hella a lot more dangerous than fire magic and nowhere mentioned in any of the reports.” Sans glanced up to gauge his brother’s expression before adding, “It ain’t anything so little.”

“And you think Rus would be able to help?” Papyrus queried. When Sans nodded Papyrus straightened and nodded. “Then there should also be something for me to do. I’ll be helpful as well.”

“What are you gonna do?” Sans asked. He watched as his brother produced from his costume a smartphone that he proceeded to type furiously on.

“I’m creating a smoke screen. I’ve retreated from the public eye and my media presence isn’t what it used to be, thank the stars for that, but I do still have some influence, or were all those years of being the monster mascot guest on late night shows lost on you, brother?”

“Nah, I remember all those. What are ya saying?”

“I’m congratulating all the humans and monsters on their exemplarily fireworks. ‘I’ve never seen such bright and beautiful monster made lights in the sky.’” Papyrus cheered in his television voice before submitting something on a photo sharing app. “It might not do much, but it will do something.”

“Then I gotta get down to Rus and see what he has to say,” Sans said, pointing to the road that would lead them down to the farmhouse. 

“I’ll be online for a little longer. The Great Papyrus has his work cut out for the next few hours!” Papyrus playfully cheered, sounding younger for a moment before his voice leveled out again.

It made Sans a little melancholy to realize just how much his baby bones brother had grown up. It also made him frustrated that he had missed such a huge chunk of his brother’s life after they surface because of his damn paranoia and depression. Now a days they were closer than ever, but Sans still carried his regrets in his back pocket.

“When they get back let me know. I won’t be able to sleep until I know everyone is safe!” Papyrus called to Sans while walking backwards towards the car they had used to get Paps and Dusk home with.

Sans yelled back his promise to do just that before a shortcut landed him in the hallway outside Rus’ basement door. He had gotten chewed out once before about the places he couldn’t shortcut into and one of those places was Rus’ lair. So, even in an emergency, Sans knocked and tried the door handle. It opened easily so he allowed himself in. If Rus was busy or didn’t want to be disturbed he could have locked the door.

“Rus, where the hell ya at?” Sans called out before shortcutting to the base of the stairs. He was almost startled to see Rus exactly where he expect to find him; stiff in front of a computer monitor. “Hey buddy, didn’t ya hear me calling or are you not processing anything in your ear holes right now?”

“Sans?” Rus hissed, jumping in his seat, reacting like he hadn’t noticed the intrusion until Sans called out. “Wha-what are you doing in my room?”

Sans ambled behind the computers and snorted at the images frozen on the the display. “I came here to ask about that,” Sans said.

Rus looked where Sans pointed and groaned, rubbing at his face. “I’m already scrambling satellite footage and readings, but it’s a mess.”

Sans leaned forward, getting a better look at a still of what looks like you, surrounded by wings on fire in mid air. There was a halo of beams of light around your head and you looked like something else all lit up and decorated in horns and flames. Someone should have painted your likeness for those old church wall paintings. 

“Damn,” Sans breathed in awed appreciation.

“I can’t let my brother see these. He was already shook up after the performance tonight,” Rus grumbled. He reached out to click something on the screen and the images began to decompile from the database he had hacked.   

“What’s wrong with Black seeing our angel?” Sans teased.

“That damn nickname,” Rus grumbled, glaring back at Sans. “He’s obsessed with that stupid story we have in the underground about the angel.”

“We have stories like that too,” Sans murmured, remembering Aserial at the end of Frisk’s last run. The flower had transformed himself into something horrifying and angel-like at the end of it, when he was at the height of his power.

“Not like our stories,” Rus said.

“Hows they different?”

“You have stories, we have prophecies. The added fact that we’re looking at fusion instead of a chemical reaction…” Rus pointed to a photo before it went black to the flash that lit up the sky and colored the world below. “…only makes those warnings sound more validated.”

Sans glared at the photo before it was gone. “What you mean by that?”

“Like I said, our stories are different.”

“How?” Sans pressed, sounding closer to frustration than before. 

Rus clicked through the images from a secondary starlight and Sans saw one of you with your arms spread wide, a bead of magic between your horns. Anyone would admit the image was terrifying without context.

“They’re just silly stories that silly monsters believe in, but there’s an angel that is supposed to bring light into the ‘last darkness’ and end a great evil. Then monsters can build their great tomorrow with its scattered bones and dust. There is no barrier in this world so it probably doesn’t apply, but my bro is still plenty obsessed with the story so don’t mention it to him.”

“Humans don’t dust.”

“…Still, it ain’t a good idea to bring it up, so don’t.”A box popped up in the center of the screen and beeped, causing Rus to curse. “Hey, if you have juice you can help theses guys out.”

Sans leaned over and saw video footage of Stretch helping up Raven and one of his pals, that Winn guy from the looks of it.

“Good thing I’ve been there before,” Sans sighed.

“Lemme guess, you know a shortcut?” Rus teased.

Sans made a clicking sound with his teeth to go with his finger-guns before he was gone and showing up at the canyon only a few paces from where Stretch, Blue, and Edge stood with the others.  The monitor showed their exchange as well as the moment Stretch broke away from the rest of the group to go look for you.

Stretch turned away from that monitor and rededicated himself to scrubbing the data of your fight off starlight footage and feeds. He just hoped one night was enough to keep you safe.

 

——

One shortcut later and the world was different. Esperanza's dusted body was buried in the rocks and the floor under your naked toes was polished wood.You recognized your room before you could even see anything.

When you opened your eyes again you were in your bedroom and Blue was already there, pacing back and forth with his cell phone out. As soon as he saw you his eye sockets went wide and he vaulted over the bed to reach the pair of you with his arms out. He called your names and you pulled away from Stretch to greet him with a side hug, but Blue wasn’t satisfied with something so simple. He pulled you out of his brother’s arms and twirled in the room with you before collapsing backwards onto the daybed, nuzzling his skull close to your face. 

“I’m home,” you said, feeling warm in your soul when Blue looked at you.

“You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?” He started to paw at your arms and legs but flinched when he realized you weren’t wearing anything but his brother’s hoodie.

“The rest burned up in reentry,” you chuckled, pulling the front down.

“So that really was you up there,” Sans interrupted, coming up the stairs to your loft bedroom.

You turned around and listened, hearing the sound of the kitchen. Someone was down there cooking something with cheese and bell peppers. Something told you it was Edge.

“You’re awake? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you up so close to dawn,” you said.

“Heh, I can take a power nap later, but the night has been pretty busy,” Sans explained while rubbing his skull. “I just came from your brother’s place and he’s alright but in need of a nice nap. You look no better so it all works out. We rescheduled for tomorrow morning after everybody had a chance to heal and sleep it up.”

“That sounds like what’s best for everybody,” you sighed.

Sans rounded the bed and took a seat on the trunk at the foot of your bed. He eyed your exposed legs pointedly. “So, what was that you said about reentry?”

“Don’t be a pervert,” Stretch chastised with a chuckle. He reached over to smack Sans upside the head and Sans allowed it, knowing there was no real force or intent behind the gesture.

You leaned back into Blue’s hold and recounted the details of the fight, leading up to the point where Esperanza took you up the stratosphere and forced you to revert the nature of your magic from chemical to fusion.

“Didn’t know you could do that,” Sans said.

“It wasn’t in any of the files?”

“Not any that we found. It’s a pretty big detail to pass on though. It makes me think we didn’t get everything we could have when we raided Embassy data files. Are there any others who are secretly nuclear weapons?”

“Just me,” you shyly answered with a smile to match you blush. “And it’s not something I can control. I didn’t aim or manipulate that power, I just…let it loose for a second and that’s what you saw in the sky.”

“The news has been fascinated with the ‘Halloween’ display and are still talking about it on local channels,” Blue interjected. “It was pretty…massive.”

“And yet your LoVe and EXP are still static as ever,” Sans hummed. “So does that mean there is still a robot lady problem?”

Your easygoing expression fell away and Stretch cursed at Sans from behind. Blue couldn’t see your expression shift but he felt you stiffen in his lap and wrapped his arms tighter around your waist. He called your name once and you shook your head to force out the memory.

“No, she…she died in my arms,” you explained. “When she ran out of magic she continued to fight and her magic cannibalized her body for new energy. She…she knew she was on her way out and that’s why Hightower sent her out without backup.”

You forced yourself to swallow and Blue called your name. When you looked his way he kissed your cheek and then nuzzled there. You felt one of his arms move to rub up and down your back as he tried his best to comfort you.

“I stayed with her until she went, so that’s…that is the reason why I didn’t come back right away. I guess I lost track of some things,” you said.

“No worries,” Sans answered, looking a little sick. “I’m sorry you had to go through that. She… enemy or not you still grew up together, didn’t you?”

You glanced up and saw his eye lights on you, fixed and steady. He wasn’t looking away. “Yeah, it was like that.”

You turned when you heard someone on the stairs and saw Edge coming up with a tray stacked high with freshly cooked food. There was a plate of cinnamon french toast with butter dripping down the sides, stuffed beef, pepper and cheese omelets, a side of bacon and sausage links, a bowl of blueberries and two fruit filled scones. Red came up a second later with drinks.

“You all distracted her when she should have been cleaning up. Now she has to eat breakfast in bed all dirty,” Edge snapped, glaring extra hard at Sans. “Selfish clod.”

“It’s fine,” Red interrupted, rounding the other side of the bed to set down a glass of orange juice and one of water on the nightstand. “Sheets can be changed and she don’t even look that out of sorts. Blueberry, get our girl tucked in. We can change sheets after food.”

“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” Stretch guessed, interjecting with a grin.

“Starving,” you whined, almost drooling at the array of food. Your priorities were food first, clean second, even if you knew it would upset both Edge and Blue.

“You don’t wanna change at least?” Sans asked, eyeing the orange hoodie that came down to your knees. His eye lights might have linger longer than usual or maybe you were just being sensitive.

“Let her keep it on,” Stretch interjected before you could say anything. He turned his eye lights on you and smiled. “You look good in it, feel free to keep that one.”

“You look cozy but lets make it cozier,” Red said, moving in to help guide you under the covers. He almost joined you before Blue tugged him back. “Da hell, Blue?”

“Not your turn.”

“It was supposed to be last night,” Red whined.

“Respect the wheel,” Blue warned, looking menacing. “That was yesterday and this is today.”

Edge sighed and set up the bed tray in front of you before reaching over and flicking his brother between the eye sockets. “Red, get out of the way and do as Blue suggested. You and I have plenty to keep us busy today.”

“Speaking of today,” Sans interjected, “Before we take off can we decide what it’ll look like when you meet up with your brother.  Do you still wanna take the same team or have your thoughts changed?”

“I don’t see why it should have to change, but do you have some alternative insight into this matter?” You asked, still nearly drooling at the food in front of you. You grabbed for the muffin first and fit half of it into your mouth while Sans watched on, amused.

“I’ll take my nap today and be ready as rain for tomorrow morning when we rescheduled, but Stretch and Edge were both on location when shit went down so I was wondering if that mattered any?” Sans asked, eyeing both Stretch and Edge wearily.

Stretch responded first. “Why would it have changed anything for me or Edge?”

“I dunno, did it?” Sans asked.

“I’m fine,” Edge growled out, glaring openly at Sans even as he kept his voice to a simmer. “You do not have to hold back on account of me, Vanilla.”

“And I can hold my own well enough,” Stretch interjected. “I just need the same time as you.”

Sans played at rubbing the side of his skull and you paused in finishing off the second half of your second muffin, recognizing that gesture. Sans was getting ready to say something he knew wouldn’t go over well.

“But didn’t Blue say ya got hit in the arm?” Sans asked, looking over at you. "...and need healing?"

Edge’s expression turned darker, surprising you. Edge was proficient in glare, but he had warmed up considerably since meeting you and now. The way he looked at Sans was the way he looked at enemies he wanted to pull apart.

“I’ll be fine,” you said, speaking around the muffin in your mouth. “It’s not going to be an issue. At this point, I don’t even feel like I have to take anyone beside Stretch since we saved their asses last night and Raven isn’t the type of guy to forget it. I don’t anticipate there being a fight I have to prepare for.”

Over your shoulder Red and Blue exchanged a tense look as they watched on.

Sans frowned but ducked his head and nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense. It’s no biggie, no need to change anything. Just trying to bacon-structive with ya. I’ll-we’ll be ready in the morning tomorrow whenever you wanna take off.”

Sans grabbed for a piece of bacon but you leaned over and bit it out of his hands, grabbing and pulling it free with your teeth, before he could steal it for himself. “My food!” you complained around the breakfast already in your mouth.

It made both Sans and Stretch laugh out loud while Red took the distracted opportunity for what it was to sneak in behind Blue and kiss the side of your face before shortcutting out. Edge was quiet but took away the empty plates on your tray with a softer look that let you know he was okay.

With your free hand you grabbed at his wrist and held it until he looked at you. When he met your gaze the soft look melted enough to let through a smile. “I’m going to help Red clean up the kitchen but I’ll be back to take your dishes when you’re done with them,” he said.

“I can manage that much,” Blue said.

“I know you can, but wouldn’t you rather stay in bed and snuggle with you date-mate?” Edge teased with a knowing grin.

“Of course, but I’m responsible enough to understand priorities. Don’t think so little of me and go clock in to work so you can take tomorrow off,” Blue grumbled while taking off his shoes at the edge of the bed. Stretch already had his off and was peeling back the opposite side of the comforter to slide in.

“Thank you for breakfast Edge and Red!” you yelled out, hoping Red would hear you from down in the kitchen.

“We’ll take off then,” Edge said, leaving first with the dishes.

Sans leaned across the bed to kiss your cheek before following Edge down. You thought it was odd he didn’t take a shortcut instead, but then you heard the softest whispers between them and figured they were going to have a conversation between themselves. When the back door opened and closed you figured they had opted to take it outside.

“They’ll be fine,” Stretch whispered against the side of your skull. “Sans has gotten a lot better.”

“Yeah, but he still has a ways to go,” Blue huffed, leaning back on the pillows and watching. “He didn’t need to mention anything about needing a healer in front of Edge.”

“Is…there a reason Edge would be sensitive about that?” you asked out loud, trying to remember all the times you had spoken to or heard about Edge from his brother. You knew he couldn’t heal anymore, not like Papyrus and Blue could. Rus was able to heal but he wasn’t proficient in it since it was an ability he traded his shortcutting for.

You glanced from Blue and then looked to Stretch who was more sensitive and likely to notice things.

“He might have his reasons, but I don’t know them,” Stretch answered. He then pushed at your tray. “Are you almost done with this?”

“If there is food on it then the answer is no, hands off,” you playfully growled before attacking the stack of french toast.

 

The plan had been to shower after eating but with warm food filling your belly and an all nighter behind you, it became impossible to leave the bed and you ended falling asleep between Stretch and Blue even though neither of them slept when you did.

“How was she really?” Blue asked, propping himself up on an elbow.

“Shook up,” Stretch answered easily. “But I’m not surprised. The other one looked like she had been on death’s door for a while, though I’m not an expert on how humans die so all I have to go off of are movies and hospital dramas. Still, it was weird how she…the body almost looked like it was dusting in parts and she broke up when we buried her.”

Blue glanced down at where you slept between them and brushed at a strand of long hair that had slipped out of the hoodie. “And these changes?” he asked, curling the strand around his finger.

“Dunno about that, but she didn’t seem freaked.”

“She was in shock, Pappy.”

“She was…but here at home she pulled herself together enough to manage,” Stretch said, glancing away. He didn’t say anything more about how sometimes the best you could hope for was a day where you pulled yourself together and managed. “She didn’t bring it up so it’s probably nothing serious.”

“Is that what you think?” Blue asked.

Stretch paused before answering. “I think she’s prioritizing things right now, and she’s working on what she can. I don’t want to push her or distract her with minor worries.”

Blue frowned but twirled the strand of hair. “It’s not minor if its her health…I only have one human mate and I’m not prepared to face a tomorrow without her.” He brought the strand closer and kissed it. “Not when we’re in the middle of building our greatest happiness. I’ve waited all my life for my soul mate.”

Stretch snickered. “Soul mate? You still believe in things like that? If that was true, how ya explain Black and Edge and Rus and all the others? Soul mates are just a myth.”

Blue rolled his eye lights before glaring over at his brother. “Not like in the children stories, not a half of my soul type soulmate, but… I think soulmates are made little by little, not found. I’ve…since the beginning I’ve adored our human but not like how I do now. Back then it was a shallow, superficial adoration I felt. It was easy to chase her and easy to grow the modest attraction.”

“And now?”

Blue shut his sockets. “I could drown in my feelings for her,” he quietly admitted. When he opened his sockets again his eye lights were narrowed and small but fixated on his brother’s skull. “She’s my soul’s mate, the one I want to love and that isn’t diminished because someone else has the same good taste. I’m not so single minded as that. So when she’s hurt or threatened it…fucking pisses me off when I can’t do anything about it.”

Stretch blinked and pulled back a little, surprised with the vocabulary his brother adopted. When they had been younger-much, much younger- Blue had been quite the potty mouth. It was only when Stretch started mimicking and copying what his older brother said that Blue made the effort to change and become a brighter, more positive beacon. Hearing Blue curse let Stretch know his brother was close to his breaking point.  Was it because Blue had already experienced a harsh separation when you were kidnapped last month?

“She’s gonna be okay, our mate is stronger than either of us.”

Blue huffed. “You can say that because you have confidence in your abilities, but I’m not content to go lax.”

“Wha-are you…are you upset she didn’t pick you to go with her?” Stretch guessed.

No,” Blue clearly lied. “I…it makes sense and I know without the ability to shortcut I only have my offensive capabilities. In that department Edge is still the superior fighter.”

“He can’t heal like you can thought, and you do more damage with each hit. Papyrus is the only other one who can even come close to you in terms of healing,” Stretch said.

“But he’s still the superior healer.” Blue narrowed his sockets. He paused a moment to consider his words before voicing them with a little less emotion and tone of control. “But… that is only for now. I am not content to remain mediocre when I know my potential has yet to be tapped.”

“You’re not mediocre.”

“Donn’t patronize me, brother. Remember who changed your diapers.”   

“Wasn’t trying to bro.”

Blue hummed and refocused on your sleepy breathing. He played with the loose strand of hair, curling it between his fingers before pressing it to his teeth in a kiss.  “Just want a little longer for me, I’ll show you what I can achieve yet.”

 

-

Notes:

I'm back, and after a well needed rest here is the follow up chapter. Hopefully it helps recap some things and keep the events in order.
There is a bit more fluff and family/brother bonding before the next big story arc with Raven and all the shit he stirs up, but I'm glad I had the time to figure some things out with how to get the story there and balance everything out. Suspense and action are fun, but it's also fun to explore the romance that's out in the open now! We haven't even been on dates! There needs to be dates. (That's what I'm trying to plan out in my outline right now.)
Hope you all are resting and relaxing too. Stay safe!

Chapter 66: Young & Menace 11

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Red turned the music on and crouched down to hover next to a box of tools he had assembled for the job at hand. Edge’s project was nearly finished, but with any project that required pulling apart and starting from scratch, Red was being extra critical with the details. He wasn’t about to pass this project over until all his i’s were dotted and t’s crossed. A positive side effect of his mostly subdued paranoia was his excellent attention to detail

One of his tools came out a little grimy and he pulled it back to wipe it down, absently tapping away to the nostalgic rock and roll music he had never heard before. Like a lot of human music, it was new but not unwelcome. Something about the way it made his heel absently tap in rhythm with the baseline felt like something he had experienced before, even if he was in the wrong universe and above ground.

Before turning back to his project Red checked his phone and scrolled through his messages, eager to hear anything in the way of updates. He had been checking every six or seven minutes, waiting to hear the specifics of whatever the hell just happened. He had seen the light show and heard the secondhand panic but been mostly on lockdown, defending the home he had been attacked in last time. No one knew if it was a diversion tactic so he had been on watch circling the three main residences that were known to their enemies. it had ultimately been a fruitless effort but he was glad of that. Last he heard most of the life-or-death matters were all tied up.

His attention fixated on the messaging app's little red 1 note. There was a message from Blue he had been looking for that wasn’t too old. Blue said you were 'doing better but out like a light.' If Blue was absently punning the guy must have been distracted.

‘Heh, that musta pissed the lil blueberry off to not have any awake time with our doll,’ Red absently thought, grinning as he imagined the hyperactive skeleton snuggled up next to you in bed with extra pillows and a weighted blanket and-

‘Actually, no, the kid was probably blissed out of his god damned skull. Lucky bastard,’ Red amended in his mind where no one else could hear or judge him.

He didn’t blame Blue for enjoying himself even if he was a little envious. Knowing you weren’t feeling well made him anxious and-as much as he hated to admit it-his nesting instincts kicked into high gear, leftover from all those years ago when he raised a bitty bones Papyrus from scratch all on his own.

Were you sleeping properly, did you have enough blankets and pillows, was the room warm enough for you, and the mattress soft enough? What about the noise and sounds that could wake you up? Did Blue know to look out for those since Stretch wouldn’t bother to put the effort into something so ‘trivial.’

Working on his project seemed like such a poor decision when his mind was wandering to other thing, but he knew he needed something for his hands when he got like this. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything else with so much nervous energy urging him to get up and move. He needed to do something but he didn’t want to go anywhere far in case you needed him again. He could take his food cart into the city but that was too outta range and he was afraid to go anywhere that would be loud enough to drown out the ringtone on his phone.

The time you had tried calling him only to go straight to voicemail, before the abduction, still lingered in the back of his monster brain...

Nope, no food cart today. He could do something else within shortcutting distance.

Ah, but he kinda wanted to make some dirty water dogs…

Red stood up and cleaned up his area before returning to the house to clean up. When he finished with that he started to prep his materials. Half an hour later he had enough food for a small crowd and a plan for what to do with them. Packing them up for transport wasn’t that hard and in another ten minutes he stepped out of a shortcut just ‘short’ of his desired final destination.

“Damn,” he cursed out loud with the insulated container on one shoulder.  But when he turned around he saw what he wanted to see and tried once more to shortcut onto their doorstep.

“EEK!” Paps exclaimed when Red crackled into being right outside the boundaries of the garden.

“Hey,” Red casually greeted, dodging the bone attack with little effort. “I’ll make it a point not to scare you next time big guy,” he chuckled.

Paps might have missed the pun or not have cared once he realized who he was talking to. “OH! YOU WERE ONE OF THE ONES WHO WAS THERE WHEN MY BROTHER CAME BACK. RED, IF I’M NOT MISTAKEN?”

“The one and only,” he joked. It was funny because there were like four different versions of him so he wasn’t really the one and only, but if he tried to explain that to Paps the humor would be lost. Also, he kind felt a little bad for startling the guy. “Sorry to drop in on you like this with no notice but I didn’t have your number to call ahead.”

“I-I APOLOGIZE FOR THAT. WE SHOUDL HAVE EXCHANGED CONTACTS DURING THE HALLOWEEN FESTIVITIES BUT I DIDN’T EVEN THINK TO BRING IT UP.” Paps nervously wrung his gloved hands and then glanced behind him to the far side of the garden that reached almost up to the tree line. "I-I AM PAPS AS I AM SURE YOU KNOW. SORRY AGAIN."

“It’s on me, you’re still adjusting and I’m still sometimes a jerk. I brought you boys something since you seemed to enjoy them so much the other night.” Red slapped the side of the container and grinned. “Your brother around these parts? Don’t wanna offend the big guy by not offering any.”

“SOMETHING?” Paps echoed, dropping one hand to push up his glasses with before going back to holding both in front of his body like an unconscious defense.

“Food my good sir, I’m talking about those tasty dirty water dogs I was selling on halloween night. You thought they were pretty good, didn’t ya? Don’t insult the cook, I even brought condiments but I’m betting your brother just wants ta drown his in ketchup like the vanilla wafer, amiright?”    

“OH, YOU BROUGHT US MORE OF THOSE HOTDOGS YOU WERE SELLING? THAT’S INCREDIBLY GENEROUS. I DIDN’T KNOW YOU WERE A COOK.” Pap’s hand went to his face and his posture shifted into something more relaxed almost as unconsciously as the defensive posture from before.

If Red looked there were minuscule stars in Paps’ eyes that twinkled and spun with excitement. It reminded him so much of Edge back when the two of them had been too young to stop wearing stripes. Just for a couple of hotdogs? Damn

“OH, BUT THE HOUSE ISN’T SUITABLE FOR ENTERTAINING JUST YET AND I’M STILL IN MY GARDENING DRESSAGE. I-NO, YOU CAN WAIT HERE WHILE I PREPARE-OH NO, NOT WAIT OUT HERE, HOW COULD I EVEN SUGGEST SOMETHING SO IMPROPER.”

“No worries, Jack Skelton, you think I’d mind a little mess? I’m still a Sans, aren’t I?”

“BUT I’M A PAPYRUS!”

“Oh, fair point. How about I walk in after ya real slow and you can super rush to get things ready. I’ll take my time and neither of us have to betray our better natures. And ya know how heavy things make me wanna take my time, don’tcha?”

“EXCELLENT!” Paps cheered before racing off to head into the house before Red could.

When he listened Red could hear a whirlwind of cleaning as the lankier skeleton probably went overboard the same way Edge would whenever he knew company was coming over. Some things never changed. Red couldn't help but grin.

Red took his time and dragged his feet up to the left-open front door but hesitated when he saw through the house to the back. At the end of the house was a screened in patio where the horror universe's Sans sat unmoving. There was something in his hand but he didn’t seem to be awake for how still he seemed.

What was the nickname Black’s kid saddled him with? Dusksull or Dusky-no, Dusk.

“Hey, knock, knock,” Red lamely called out before stepping into the refurbished hunter’s cabin that looked far more lived in than when Edge and he had toured it months ago. It wasn’t fancy but it was a nice, functional rustic that suited its occupants. 

“who’s there?”

Red looked to the back of the house where he noticed Dusk dozing. Seemed like the big guy was talking in his sleep.

“Hey, Paps, ya mind setting these up the way you like. I’m gonna go greet the big guy out back,” Red said while moving the chest from his shoulder to the floor. By the sound of it Paps could likely tell how full it was but Red pulled out another bag from inside his parka filled with different condiments and dressings the brothers could use to dress up their dogs.

“HE’S NOT THE MOST ALERT WHEN HE FIRST WAKES UP,” Paps warned, sounding nervous. “BUT WHENEVER THE OTHER SANS WAS HERE S-DUSK DID BETTER, SO MAYBE IT’LL BE FINE WITH YOU TOO. UM, BUT PLEASE BE CAREFUL.”

“No worries, I’m quick,” Red said even though he knew the real meaning behind Paps’ request.

Please be careful not to hurt my brother even if he does something to warrant it.

He didn’t have anything to worry about, Red was enough of a big brother to know how to avoid antagonizing people with sensitive triggers. What was all that therapy for if it didn’t produce a little empathy in him?

Red let his footsteps be a little louder as he took his time approaching the back patio. He fiddled with the screen door out and let himself out with a louder than usual sigh. He didn’t touch his magic, but approached his other self with the metaphorical finger on the trigger if he needed to shortcut out of a panic strike.

“who’s there?”

“Just me, big fella, ain’t here to do no damage. Brought food for you and your brother.”

Dusk lifted his head and the bloated red eye spun a little before narrowing. “who’s there?”

Red realized his mistake a second later but grinned wider for it. “Hatch.”

“…hatch who?”

“Bless ya,” Red cackled.

The corner of Dusk’s mouth twitched. “heh…knock knock.”

“Who’s there?” Red asked.

“…snow.”

“Snow who?”

“…snow use I forgot the punchline.” The Dusk tilted his head and wrapped his knuckles on his skull around the hole.

Red sputtered, laughing before he could think better. The joke was a little joke, but damn if it wasn’t funny.

“KNOCK KNOCK.”

Dusk grinned wide and looked up over Red’s shoulder to see his brother in the doorway with a sour expression on his face. “who’s there?”

“POLICE.”

“…police who?”

“PO-LICE STOP TELLING THESE AWEFUL KNOCK KNOCK JOKES AND COME IN FOR LUNCH!” Paps exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air in mock frustration, but even to Red the frustration seemed fake.

“I didn’t know this was a family of comedians. Hey Paps, knock knock!” Red called out.

“NO!” Paps cried before running back to the kitchen while Red and Dusk both laughed with deep and similar voices.

When Red looked back at Dusk he saw what the big guy had been holding. On his one knee was an open leather journal with floppy cover and a charcoal pencil stuck between the pages. In his other hand was a pair of binoculars with one of the sides blacked out. The page to his journal had the day’s date and a timestamp above a scratchy sketch of a bird. When Dusk moved he flipped the book closed before pulling the pencil free. Before the pages could all shut Red saw a glimpse of several other sketches with dates and timestamps. Some were of animals, some of trees and flowers, and maybe a few of people. It had been too quick to tell.

“Doing a bit of bird watching on your own?” Red said while nodding at the journal.

Dusk slowly wrapped the leather around the cover and tied it off with sluggish movements while his eye bloated and shrink in time with his thinking. “…yeah… it helps …with remembering things when i make ‘em.”

“Sounds like a good gig. Hope you’re hungry. I made enough illegal hotdogs to feed a monster bunny family but it’s just the three of us.”

“…you came alone?”

“Yeah, my bro is at work doing a shift to cover time he plans on taking off tomorrow so it’s just me.”

“…why?”

It was a good question.

“Why am I alone or why’d I come in da first place?” Red asked for clarity’s sake.

Dusk didn’t answer but he looked back at Red with a gaze that was meaningful enough to speak on its own without words.

Red grinned tightly, showing off his gold canine. He hoped the sweat wasn’t visible as he struggled to make sense of his feelings with words. It was a hard thing to confess when he didn’t really understand it himself. Yeah he felt kinda bad for the alternates and didn’t wanna see em suffer any more or nothing, but it really wasn’t like him to go out of his way for anyone but you and his brother. It didn’t make sense why he had decided to pack up and visit, but no one had ever accused him of thinking too deeply about the things he did. His brother was the planner, Red just liked listening to his gut. (When Red planned it only fed his paranoia-so no more of that.)

“Ah, eh…well, you know how sometimes it gets a little lonely being on your own with your anxieties so why not get up and do something about it? I don’t know what to say to make it make sense, I just wanted to make some damn dogs and know someone was gonna eat em but not go so far. Don’t think too deeply on it and just chalk it up to a spur of the moment feeling, kay?”   

“…huh….”

Dusk didn’t say anything more but lumbered into the kitchen ahead of Red without looking back. For someone as scarred and paranoid as he was, it was a sign of trust for Dusk to show off his back to Red without issue.

When they got to the kitchen table it had already been set and dressed with a pretty table cloth and three plate settings. Paps had poured for them each a glass of what looked like some sorta lemonade that had fruit still floating around in it. Edge would have appreciated that.

“Looks great, guys.”

Red pulled out his seat and sat down once he saw where the other two were sitting themselves. He glanced sideways at the empty seat and wished his brother was there or maybe you. Not seeing where they were-knowing if they were safe-still gave Red small shivers of anxiety that made his magic bubble inside his soul. For supposedly having a ‘courage’ soul he wasn’t sure how that worked on account of how anxious he tended to get.

“IT SMELLS FANTASTIC. OUR COMPLEMENTS TO THE CHEIF, I’M NOT USED TO BEING TREATED SO WELL ON SUCH SHORT NOTICE. NOW THAT YOU HAVE OUR NUMBERS YOU SHOULD CALL US AHEAD OF TIME OR SEND US A TEXT MESSAGE IF YOU WANT TO DROP BY.” Papyrus clasped his hands together and gasped in delight. The sparkles came back into his tiny eye lights and he looked sorta adorable in his glasses and gardening apron. “I CAN MAKE MY FAMOUS FRIENDSHIP SPAGHETTI NEXT TIME! WE HAVE VENISON I CAN USE FOR THE MEATBALLS TOO!”

“Sounds sweet. We gotta get my brother over here sometime too and we can do a potluck, his lasagna with your spaghetti. Sweetheart can bring a salad.” Red grinned to himself at the thought of your love infused homecoming. Nothing could beat your burgers and grilled foods, but anything you prepared for them came soaked in the sweetest intent that only got more addictive as time went on.

“…peaches already been by…to…for waffles?”  Dusk frowned to himself as his eye began to go fuzzy around the edges. It almost sounded like he was struggling to remember, but to Red it sounded more like an embarrassed boyfriend talking about their lover.

“YES, WAFFLES WITH A PEAR AND HONEY DRIZZLE I BELIEVE. IT WAS LOVELY AND FULL OF SWEET INTENT. FOR A RED SOUL I WAS SO SURPRISED WITH ITS SWEETNESS,” Paps gasped. He looked to Dusk and the smile turned almost sad. “IT WAS QUITE THE TREAT.”

“How’d you know darling was a determined soul?” Red asked.

“felt her magic enough to know the difference even before we saw her soul,” Dusk answered.

Red nodded along and then it clicked. “Ah, the night we were attacked and her soul needed patching. I guess you would have all gotten an eyeful of it like that. I’m almost sorry I missed it but I’m mostly glad I didn’t have ta see sweetheart in such a sad state.”

“IT WAS UNIQUELY HORRIBLE, SUCH A DRAWN OUT TORTURE, BUT LAST NIGHT’S PERFORMANCE WAS UTTERLY STUNNING. I’D MUCH RATHER DWELL ON THAT HAPPY MEMORY.”

“You’ll hear no complaints from over here,” Red chuckled. “I’m glad the two of you were able to get out and enjoy the best night of the year for monsters.”

“…weird holiday…celebrating scary things…”

Red shrugged while Paps served each of them a full plate. “I don’t know, it’s less a celebration of scary things and maybe a strong acceptance? The kids were able to make it out and enjoy themselves and I’ve heard enough to know at least one of them gets more scared than a whimsun but still managed to enjoy the night.”

“WHICH ONE?!” Paps exclaimed while even Dusk leaned forward a little in his seat.

“Uhh…you want me to out a kid as a scardy cat? Why?” The hotdog hovered halfway to his mouth as Red asked his question but once he was done speaking he took a bite.

“N-NO GREAT REASON, BUT IT IS THE TOPIC OF CONVERSATION SO IT IS WORTH BRINGING UP. TH-THEIR NAMES ARE ALSO SOMEWHAT HARD TO REMEMBER SO IF YOU COULD HELP US WITH A REFRESHER THAT-THAT WOULD BE APPRECIATED!” Paps ended with a nervous chuckle and plenty of hand wringing under the table.

“Ya wanna know more about Black’s kids?” Red clarified.

“…they all seemed close…with peaches too…”

“I mean yeah, they call her ‘mom’ when talking about her and I bet it is only a matter of time before she warms up to the title herself. They’re sorta too attached to ‘er at this point to turn back now. Uh, but you wanted to know their names, right?”

Both brothers nodded, though Paps’ head nodding speed seemed a hundred times faster than Dusk’s.  Red could tell both brothers were more than just curious, they were invested.

Red took a drink and then sat back in his seat while the pair ate and listened. He started with the oldest, Tron, and then mentioned how both Peter and Wendy were biologically related siblings-which meant they had the same parents while Tron was from a different family. Then there was Phil who was the youngest of the lot from another, different family that Tron knew before he met up with Wendy and Peter. Together the four of them had been runaways from their various homes when Black bought the property they had been squatting in. The rest was a funny story that Paps and Dusk seemed utterly engrossed with.

Occasionally Paps would interject a quick question that was easy enough to answer before moving on with the various stories Red knew about the kids in Black’s family. Eventually he mentioned you moving in and boding with the tykes enough to agree to staying with Black’s family instead of going back to that apartment in the city.

“And if she was gonna move in and set down roots it wasn’t like we were gonna do otherwise, ya know what I mean?”

Paps nodded along, looking thoughtful as he kept up. “AH, YES, YES, I CAN SEE THAT NOW. YOU WERE ALREADY ENAMORED WITH HER.”

Red barked a laugh that was high pitched and sweetish in comparison to his usual tone. “I-I mean, su-sure? Yeah, no point in denying it but why ya gotta bring attention to it?”

“…just…something we heard is all,” Dusk chuckled.

Paps grinned too, glancing to his brother before staring down at the table with a brightly colored blush that wrapped around his skull and steamed his glasses.

“WE-WELL SH-SHE SAID SHE HAD SOMETHING SHE WANTED TO DISCUSS WITH US AFTER LAST NIGHT BUT THEN WE HEARD WHAT KEPT HER BUSY AND REALIZED WE WOULD HAVE TO WAIT, BUT…BUT UM…MY OTHER HALF HAS ALREADY SPILLED SOME OF THE METAPHORICAL BEANS IN REGARDS TO SOME OF THE CONVERSATIONS THAT HAVE BEEN HAPPENING.”

By the time he finished with his last sentence his glasses were completely steamed over and seeing out of them was impossible, which Red had to admit was sorta adorable for one of the younger brothers. If you had been there you would have laughed along and called him cute.

“Yeah, darlin said she wanted to have a word with you all next, but I guess you already have an idea what she was going to say, huh?” said Red.

hopefully,” Dusk muttered. He readjusted himself in his seat before looking directly over at Red with the full focus his single eye light afforded him. “…what da you think?”

“I think you’d better wait for her to say her peace and not take second hand sources into account,” Red chuckled with complete understanding of where Dusk’s eagerness came from. “This is all still mostly new to her…the poly pride and the relationship parts both. I don’t think she’s had a significant other in ‘er life until now so give sweetheart the time she needs to sort this out on her terms.”

“…is that why you showed up the night after other Sans got his confession?” Dusk asked in a dry tone that had Paps sputtering in panic.

“SANS! THE OTHERS TOLD US THAT IN CONFIDENCE, WE’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT!”

“bro, you know i don’t know why i’m not supposed to know,” Dusk scoffed with self depreciating humor, “there ain’t no more secrets i can keep, but that’s fine cause i don’t wanna.” He then looked up at Red again. “if she asks we’re gonna say yes. that bother you?”

“Didn’t bother me when she asked anyone else. I’m not threatened.” Red leaned purposefully back in his chair and crossed his arms behind his head. “I’m pretty confident I can still stand out enough and I don’t doubt her intent with me or my bro or anyone else she chooses to be honest with.”

Paps was still darkly colored and his glasses were too steamed to see out of. Red knew Paps heard what was said by how he clutched his face and shook his skull while making small embarrassed sounds at the table. Dusk, on the other hand, looked more awake than before and Red didn’t doubt the big guy was tracking. 

“‘dat so? well you’re not the only one with a right to confidence,” Dusk said.

“No need to get so competitive sounding,” Red chuckled. “There’s enough love to go around. It ain’t gonna run out anytime soon.Take care of her when you’re able to and that’s enough for me.”

“thought a ‘fell might be a bit more… territorial,” said Dusk.

“About other things, sure, but not this. The bigger and stronger the pride the safer the mate.” Red lowered his tone and added, “Love ain’t a finite resource so you don’t gotta treat ‘er like food in a famine.”

Paps and Dusk shared a look as Paps’ glasses lost their fog and Dusk’s bloated red eye light thrummed in his socket. Their look lasted only a moment but it meant more between the two brothers. When Dusk looked back at Red there was a new awareness in his gaze but he didn’t say anything more or comment on Red’s choice of words. There didn’t seem to be a need to.

Instead Paps got up to serve desert. They all ate flavored ice slush treats on the back porch with the screens up to better listen to the birds. Not a lot more was said but that was okay with Red. He was content.

 

  

Notes:

This almost feels like a side chapter but I felt it was important enough to stand on its own, and I'll be honest, I really like the idea of Red bonding with the Horror brothers. He'd be the guy that looks like a bully but walks in and aggressively takes care of people who needs it.
Thank you for the feedback way back when, as this combo was one that was mentioned and really helped spark this whole chapter.
I'm also thrilled to hear people are still enjoying the ride. Hopefully you're all staying safe and keeping healthy as best you can. My best wishes to you all.

Chapter 67: Young & Menace 12

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

A day later you were still asleep and someone had to rouse you out of bed to get you out before noon. Sans had scheduled your meeting with Raven for the evening, but you still needed to get ready and show your face. It didn’t sit well with you whenever you went too long without seeing the kids or your boys. The way Wendy reacted continued to haunt you and you were determined not to scare her anymore.

You showered longer than normal, more fatigued feeling on account of the huge ass workout you put your body through the other day. When you emerged you were surprised to hear Papyrus downstairs in the kitchen, yelling at his brother.

Like your thoughts were a drunk stumbling through memories, you realized it had been Sans who rolled you out of bed. What irony. Was there a lazier skeleton out there? You didn’t think even Red was so bad.

But if Sans and Papyrus were with you… had you really slept that long? Blue and Stretch had just been with you.

“Morning, sleeping beauty, did you finish chasing your dreams?” Sans teased, sounding as tired as you felt once you emerged. 

Papyrus glared back over his shoulder at Sans in warning, smelling the oncoming pun Sans was setting up.

“Were you the one that rolled me out of bed? Sorry I was so out of it.”

“For you it’s perfectly excusable!” Papyrus interjected before Sans could say anything punny. “You exhausted yourself past your limits.”   

You remembered vividly the battle from the day previous…or was that two...three days ago now? You remembered after Halloween the encounter with Esperanza and having to chase her into the sky, of climbing higher than you ever had before, of reverting back to what you had been when you first reversed your soul and connected with your magic. The fire magic that wasn’t fire magic…you remembered blinding white light and flashes of energy screaming to escape your body…you remembered Esperanza’s death and the bruises on her body.

You reached for a chair and sank down into it, holding your head with one hand as you tried to swim through the memories to something more stable.

“Princess?”

You looked up when you heard Sans call out to you and force a smile for his sake. “It’s just a headache, you tried to explain.”

“Sure,” he said, nodding along like he believed you when you knew he didn’t.  He was curious enough to let you save face in front of his brother. 

“It’s…I’m thinking about a lot of things but I’ll be fine, promise.” You shot him a weak smile that hopefully conveyed everything you meant. “Sometimes it just gets loud.”

He nodded slowly in understanding. “Got it. Sometimes I get lost too so no worries.”

“You need to eat,” Papyrus interjected. He set down a plate in front of you with an omelet folded up in a crescent smile around two sausages slices shaped like eyes over the smile. For eyebrows he had layered bacon on the edges of the plate, cooked just the way you liked them.

“Eggs-xactly what my brother said,” Sans chuckled. “You don’t wanna go baco-ming worn out from a lack of meal.”

You snickered while Papyrus grunted in exasperation.

“I’m trying to be romantic here and you’re ruining the environment for appropriate swooning,” Papyrus stage whispered, sounding almost angry at his brother.

“No need to fear any of that, Papyrus. You can make me swoon anytime,” you giggled with a wink. “I’m a sucker for your love infused dishes.”

Papyrus blustered and laughed, coloring from your come-ons while Sans laughed in appreciation. “Never took you to be such a deadly flirt, princess,” Sans said. “Didn’t you say humans couldn’t taste intent in their food the way monsters can?”

“I’m weak to anyone making ne good food so jot that down in your dating manual; Me Edition. And in response to your question Sans, humans can’t taste the magical intent when someone makes them food but it’s still a feeling we can sometimes feel. Like when a loved one goes out of their way to make your food cute. I don’t sense things magically the way you do, but it…I guess you can say it warms my heart in its own way.”

“Interesting,” Sans hummed.

You caught out of the coroner of your eye how Papyrus had produced a small notebook and was scribbling someone on one of the pages before flipping it back closed to hide under his shirt.

You had been joking about the dating manual thing, but now that you thought about it, Papyrus was totally the type to take actual notes and study them for his own manual. The fact that he used a dating manual in his early years had been a hot topic of internet speculation and meme material that papyrus had later confessed to being all true soon after meeting. 

“You’re real smart Papyrus, you notice things too and have a good mind for learning,” you said out loud before you could think about what you were saying. “Have you ever thought of attending college or monster uni?”

Papyrus laughed nervously but instead of shrugging off your suggestion he actually addressed it. “Actually, I have. It was one of the things I wanted to try if ever the monster mascot job fell through or ended on its own.” He coughed nervously and then smiled wide, looking up. “I’m starting winter classes next week to get my feet wet before spring orientation.”

“What?” you exclaimed, standing up in excitement. “No way, for real? Oh, Papyrus I’m so happy for you! You’re going to blow them all away.”

Your food was already eaten and your plate left empty when you ran around the table to jump up and wrap your arms around his neck. He caught you like it was instinct and swayed with his arms around your back, keeping you pressed against him and your feet off the ground.

“It’s just for four weeks and it’s only a general elective class for now, but I think I want to give it a shot and do something for myself.” He bent his head down and nuzzled the top of your forehead with his teeth in a skeleton kiss. “I won’t be around as much as I’d like if this works out, but I think I can do something good.”

“It would be impossible for you not to. You’re pure goodness through and through, the bluest soul I ever did see,” you hummed into his chest.

“What are you thinking about studying, bro?” Sans asked, sounding like he had already heard the news and was asking his question more to humor you than to actually hear the answer for himself.

“I was thinking something in the realms of law. I enjoyed being able to negotiate financial aid for monsters and secure grants for those who would need it. It’s not glitzy like media work is, but I’d be helping monsters who need it.”

“That sounds so much like you, Papyrus.” You pulled away enough to stare up at his face and see him smiling down at you. It was true, for as long as you had known him and even longer, Papyrus had always been the shining example of a superhero in your mind. He was all sunshine and goodness, believing in you and his brother even when it was near impossible. What could shake his faith? You didn’t know of anything that could. 

“Oh you’re going to be dangerous,” you chuckled.

“That is the exact opposite of what I hope to be!”

“Nah, you’re gonna be the most dangerous. Bad guys better watch out cause I’ve never seen such a strong integrity soul before. You’ll knock em all down. I think it’s perfect for you and just what the world needs.”

He colored a little with magic from your praise and shook his head, dark brown eye lights wobbling in his sockets as he looked away. You could see them start to glimmer with emotion. “Oh no, I’m not so sure of that.”

“If you can negotiate so well for additional funding to monster grants in rural areas you can do anything.”

“Well, if you believe in me that I’m sure I might do half as well as I hope.”

“Nah bro, it’s gonna be double or triple. You’ll blow them all away,” Sans said.  “You batter believe it.”

“Thank you, brother, that’s actually very sweet-wait, was that a pancake pun?”

Sans made a happy face with his eye lights blown huge as he smiled wide with an open mouth, looking almost innocent in his mischief. Almost. Before Papyrus could say anything else you reached up and kissed the side of his skull.

“I’m so proud of you, Papyrus,” you whispered against his skull in a low tone that only he would hear. “Thank you for being such a superhero to me.”

Papyrus’ exasperation from earlier melted and his posture quivered as more and more of his skull flushed with color to match how unsettled your kiss made him feel. You nuzzled against his jaw for good measure and he reacted by burying his face in your hair, shoulders shivering.

And maybe he was a little moved by your words, but you doubted he understood how much you meant them.

Before you had ever met him, before you had ever seen his heart, or heard him call your name, before that meeting so many months and months ago in the Embassy, Papyrus had been the shining monster mascot that saved so many of his monster friends from a harsher fate with his kindness. The public fell in love with him and you had shattered because of him.

You remembered seeing the media reels and the videos of his speeches and interviews back before leaving the embassy program. Back then they told you to watch as much as you could about the monsters to learn their weaknesses, but all you could see when you listened to Papyrus on stage was how honest and good of a character he was. He was the first voice and the first face that started the destruction of your old self and you would never stop being grateful to him for that.

Papyrus stiffened in your arms and pulled away, setting you down so that he could move his hands from your waist to your face and touch the trails of tears that had begin to form. “What’s wrong?” he asked, sounding almost scared.

You had been raised to be a hero and kill monsters when they came up out of the ground, but when monsters emerged the story you had been fed turned out to be all bullshit. Other kids shattered and lost faith in everything like you had, but most hardened their hearts and shut their eyes and stopped up their ears to the truth. They weren’t willing to sacrifice their identity for a new race of sentient lifeforms coming up from under the mountain.

It had been hard to rebuild yourself up after that, but in the aftermath of your new identity, you couldn’t be more grateful to the monster who had saved you first. You were happy and selfish and in love and too satisfied to ever regret a single hurt along the way.

“I love you a lot,” you whispered with all your soul.   

You didn’t think it a grand confession but you felt it under your hands when his whole skeleton shivered. Bright upside down heart lit up inside Papyrus’ sockets and before you knew it he had you dipping back in his arms, held secure while he moved in to kiss you with a hungry wanting to match your own. One of his hands was under your skull, tangled in your hair and cradling you while the other held you around your waist. Your own hands were looped around his neck, scratching at the bones you could reach to draw out new shivers.

When you broke it was because you needed air and you came up gasping. Over Papyrus’ shoulder you saw Sans watching from the table with a wide grin and a ready thumbs up, approving of the show.

“I love you too,” Papyrus whispered sounding out of breath in his own way.

You felt giddy and light. The horrors from the day previous were nowhere near. You were safe and in love and loved by such a fantastic bone-friend. You felt like as bad as things were likely to get, you were going to be okay. Papyrus made you feel more than just safe.

You were distracted when the flash from San’s smartphone went off. Papyrus squeaked and pulled you up, flushing in embarrassment when he realized his brother was taking photos of the two of you.

“Gotta commemorate this here,” Sans laughed from behind his phone. “You both looked too cute not to. Check it out.”

You rushed over to turn his phone around and see the photo, laughing at how the pair of you looked to a third party. You were a bit embarrassed but not nearly as much as Papyrus was- which was ironic considering one of you two was a former media star and the other was a ghost who hadn’t even had access to social media for the first half of their life.

“We look good together,” you softly encouraged, reaching your hand back to take Papyrus’ in yours. “Don’t you think so?”

“You’re always radiant my dear,” he sighed blissfully before kissing the back of your hand then turning to his brother. “You’re remarkably encouraging.”

“I might not be Red but I am still stoked as smoke to see my baby brother happy,” Sans laughed, turning his phone back off. “Don’t look at me and get worried.”

You glanced between the pair of brothers. “Are you going to be alright about sharing?”

“Oh I’ll be plenty embarrassed at times I’m sure,” Papyrus sighed, rubbing at his face, “but I don’t think I’ll get jealous at any time. If I would I think that would have happened earlier when we were all sharing cuddle days.”

You glanced away from Papyrus and looked to Sans who was already sweating a bead of blue magic from the scrutiny.

“I might,” Sans admitted truthfully, “but that’s an insecurity thing and not a you thing. I’ll be working on it with help and all that shit so don’t…don’t hold back or hesitate.”

“I want you to tell me when you feel like that and let me know whenever it starts up for you. Even if you say it’s something you have to work through this isn’t a one way street and if I’m going to be your partner I want to be in the loop to support and help you.”

“I don’t want you holding back on my account,” Sans laughed. “I’m sure a few of the others would have my head if they knew what you were thinking.”

“I’m not thinking about holding back but I do know how to use a little tact and read the room. I’m not going to show Edge or Blue any less love if you’re struggling, but I’ll try my best to give you the time and space to deal with it and all the reassurance you need.”

“Don’t push yourself,” Papyrus interjected. “You have a lot of mates, even more than is typical for a ‘Fell universe pride. If we weren’t alternates of each other things might have turned out differently but we acknowledge you’re someone we all love and want to spend time with.”

“Oh, are you worried about my stamina?” you teased coyly while glancing back over your shoulder with half lidded eyes.  “Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll be able to keep up.”

Sans nearly choked on a snicker but hid it behind his fist along with his shit eating grin. When you glanced back his way half his skull was a light blue color and his grin seemed manic.

“I really can’t wait until all this end of the world super villain nonsense is over with,” Sans said with a simmering stare. 

“You and me both, buddy,” you laughed.

 

It wasn’t long before Red and Edge both showed up. You had showered and changed when Papyrus insisted on drying your hair then braiding it for you in an elaborated viking styled reverse braid that was tight on the sides and teased on top for extra height. It was fun to watch him work in the mirror and you weren’t going to lie about how his fingers had a way of blissing you out with their kneading.    

“Please promise me you will be safe out there,” Papyrus whispered above your braid. In the mirror you could see his eye lights were on his work but that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of you watching him. “I know my brother may look like a log of pure lazy, but he will be able to get you out in a pinch if things turn bad. Don't’ stray too far away from him, please.”

“I’ll take care of him too, Papyrus,” you promised. You reached up to pat his arm and he glanced at your reflection in the mirror, seeing the look you had for him. “We’re partners in this, remember? We keep each other safe out there.”

“Thank you,” he quietly admitted.

You might have said something else but voices from down below interrupted your train of thought.

“Hey sweetheart, you ready to lock and load or do I need to come up ‘der and show you how to roll out?” Red yelled up, sounding like his usual flirty self.

Papyrus stepped back and nodded at his handiwork, seemingly satisfied with the end result. He was meticulous and liked to see that his work was up to par whenever he spent time on your hair. You got up from your seat in front of the mirror and followed Papyrus downstairs, blushing when Red whistled at you the first chance he got.

“Hot damn, what a sight for sore eye lights,” Red playfully leered. “Are you a bank loan? Because you got my interest-ow!”

“That’s subpar language not at all befitting our date mate,” Edge sighed in exasperation.

Red didn’t seem deterred by the smacking and only leaned in closer, eye lights gleaming bright with scarlet tones. “Well then are we in a museum or something? ‘Cause all I’m seeing is a piece of damn fine art.” 

“Red!” both Edge and Papyrus exclaimed at the same time, sounding far too similar to not be something you laughed at.

Red stepped out of his brother’s reach and came up behind you, slipping an arm around your waist and chuckling darkly. “Did your license get suspended for driving all these guys crazy or what, babe?”

“You’re extra terrible this morning, what got into you?” you laughed.

“More like what didn’t get into me. Hows about after this-”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Edge roared, face redder than his brother’s eye lights as he stormed over and pushed Red backwards, breaking his hold around your waist. “That’s my limit for your lewdness. We are here for a reason you useless louse!”

“Sorry Edge, I was only encouraging him,” you playfully apologized, trying hard not to smile or laugh in any way that would give away how much you actually weren’t sorry.

Red’s pick up jokes were terrible, but they were his. It meant something different to you when you heard them. It was all just fun and games because you knew under all his scummy sounding puns and pick up lines he really did care for you.

“We have business to see to in case you forgot why we’re here,” Edge huffed while crossing his arms over his chest and glaring down at Red who was still looking like the cat who wanted to the cream. “We can flirt later, after work is finished.”

“Imma hold you to that, boss,” Red laughed, rubbing the side of his skull where he had been smacked. “As much as I want once we get back.”

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the only one who wants to abandon all other responsibilities and woo our date mate,” Edge grumbled, flushing magic high on his sharp cheekbones.

“I’ll look forward to it,” you called up to Edge when he pointedly turned away from you in an effort to hide his blush.

“Check out our little bearcat,” Red laughed. “Somebody’s gotten bold.”

“Don’t complain, you like it,” you teased back.

“Never think I’m complaining when you talk like that to me, babe,” he said, pitching his voice low enough to make it resonate in your bones.

From behind you could hear Papyrus leaning down to talk to his brother. “You know where you are going, don’t you?”

“I’ve been close enough that I can get us all there with a shortcut and a short walk. It’s not as far from here as Ebott but it’s a stretch. We’ll have to drive part way to avoid exhausting me before anything even really starts.”

“Which is why we took my car,” Papyrus cut in, turning around to face both Papyrus and Sans. The blush from earlier had faded and now he just looked smug, or maybe just excited. Behind him Red chuckled but started to push you outside while Edge ran ahead.

“Did Edge get a new car?” you asked.

If you thought back you could have sworn that Red and Edge had never owned a car for themselves, even though Red dabbled a bit in motor mechanics. While Stretch found his nich in chemistry and Sans is physics, Red was an engineer the same way Rus was a computer guy. Last you had heard Red was talking about working on some ‘dump’ cars he thought he could refurbish. But wasn’t that something that would take months? Last time you heard about that had been… weeks ago? He couldn’t have turned something around that fast, could he?

“Ain’t much that’s new about it sweetheart but check it for yourself,” Red rumbled. You recognized the smug undertone to his voice and followed him out and across the way to Black’s house where there was an actual car park for your beat up hunk of junk and anything that wasn’t his favorite SUV.

“Behold, a vehicle to match my-our greatness!” Edge proudly declared with a flourish as you rounded the side of the farmhouse.

Sans whistled low and Papyrus made a shout of happy surprise but you heard yourself gasp. No way Red had been able to fix something so nice up in only a couple of weeks.

“Imma take it you like the new set of wheels, doll face,” Red said.

“Edge, it’s fantastic,” you breathed out. “How-where did you find something like this?”

The lankier skeleton all but pranced around the vehicle and posed behind it with one hand on the hood. “It’s a 1967 Pontiac Firebird 4-Speed,” Edge explained. “Helen from the antique store had a girlfriend who’s brother collected old cars from this other guy who owned a junkyard who needed to liquidate some assists to fund someone’s daughter college expenses so-” He looked pointedly to his brother.

“Yeah, so there were all these hunks o’ junks sitting out there in the sun collecting dust and this one plus a couple others were just ripe for the picking. They came real cheap and the rehab was, not gonna lie, a lot more fun than I thought it would be.”

“I’ll be dammed if you’re actually doing something with that degree of yours,” Sans teased. Before Red could take offense he approached the side of the car and started to ask about the rehab details. “So what did you put her through?”

“More like what didn’t I put her through,” Red barked before signaling to Edge to pop the hood. It came up with a click as Red began to tour Sans around the vehicle. “She’s been refurbished with replacement sheet metal, new black paint, interior reupholstery, you name it. Power is from a replacement 400ci V8 paired with a four-speed manual transmission. Take a gander at it. We got power-assisted steering and front disc brakes, aftermarket wheels, a Hurst shifter, a period AM/FM radio, an Edelbrock carburetor, and Flowmaster mufflers. But the crown jewel is right here.”

You watched as Red showed off the V8 engine and began to talk shop with Sans about things that went right over your head. When Edge came back to grab your hand you looked up and grinned.

“You like it?” he asked.

“It’s freaking fantastic. Did you know it was a firebird when you picked it out?” you asked, not missing the implications his answer might have.

“I thought it was as good a sign as anything to go with it. According to Red it’s a strong and reliable car, which I don’t doubt after the weekend he spent taking it down to the studs. He’s put nothing but the best of all his efforts into it  and I’m…I’m really happy with the end product. I guess it was as good a sign, huh?”

You felt light all through your body and opened your moth to speak before you could stop or think better for yourself. “I really wanna kiss you right now.”

The others were looking through the interior and checking out the seats and lights, too involved in whatever Red was showing off to notice you and Edge lost for a moment in your own little world. Your words made Edge blush, but instead of pulling away he leaned in and you took the chance for what it was.

You were still too new and star stuck to notice too many details about your kiss, but just like with Papyrus you felt alive through it. Maybe next time you’d notice more details and pick up on the differences, but Edge tasted like love and want and you were happy to meet his quiet hunger with your own.

He cradled the side of your face and you felt the soft skin of his leather gloves, familiar and welcome. When he pulled away his forehead touched yours and for a moment you were both staring at each other with nothing but a shred of air between you.

“I’m glad you listened to your impulses,” he chuckled before leaning down to kiss the side of your face before finally pulling away.

The others were still talking about the car and going through it but you caught sight of Papyrus’ eye lights and when he smiled knowingly at you it made you flush. He seemed to have caught you and Edge in the act but thankfully wasn’t mad about it. If anything he seemed pleased to see you getting kissed.

“Come on, if we don’t interrupt them I fear they’ll be like this all day,” Edge said while taking your hand. He led you back over to the car and reached in to smack his brother upside the head. “Brother! We have a time table we must see to.”

“Ow, bro, you wanna make sure I don’t have my skull intact or something. I got it, I got it. Here, I’m getting out,” Red grumbled.

“No, you’ll be using the backseat, don’t bother getting out like that,” said Edge.

“Does that mean sweetheart is gonna join me back here,” Red asked.

“Absolutely not,” Edge barked.

“It…actually might be safer that way If I’m going to be using my map magic. I’m not readily aware of my surroundings when I use my magic to look at my mental map, so if someone was beside me for when I’m out of it I’d feel safer. Plus with Sans being the only one who knows the exact directions I think it’s better to have him take shotgun.”

“Plus sweetheart here is as tiny as a purse, you’ll fit perfect back here with me,” Red interjected.

“I’m not small, you’re all just abnormally large. For a human this is average,” you grumbled back.You refused to pout for his amusement. “Move over I’m crawling in.”

Sans and Edge slid in last while Papyrus watched from the driveway. You waved to him as Edge pulled away and watched him fade in the back window to a tiny spec in the distance.

The drive lasted a good hour before Sans said he was in range for the jump without issue. Then it took another five minutes for Edge to find somewhere inconspicuous to park and leave the car where it wouldn’t be touched or towed or taken. It took another five minutes to reassure him the parking lot of the super mart was as safe a place as you could get if you left it right underneath the cameras.

“I’m not planing on staying for more than a few hours anyway,” you added when it looked like Edge might protest again. “And if you need to, Red can jump here ahead of us and drive it the rest of the way.”

“What about me?” Sans asked.

“Do you even have a license?” Red scoffed.

“Of course I do, I’ve been on the surface for years.”

“….Sans, do you know how to drive with your license?” you added.

Sans looked at you but didn’t say anything for a while. Then, “How hard can it be?”

You really hoped he was better than Rus behind a wheel. Out of all the monsters who could shortcut, Red seemed the only one competent in driving, and that was because of how much he loved cars.

“Red will shortcut back here if anything happens,” you said to Edge, not even dignifying Sans’ earlier question with an answer.

Sans waved and you touched his arm before he shook you off and grabbed for your hand. You were already connected to Edge so all Red had to do to complete the circle was grab onto Sans’ shoulder. In one moment you were beside the firebird in the parking lot, in the next you were falling and stumbling forward, thrown off by the shift of uneven terrain under your boots. Edge and Sans both pulled you up and kept you from staggering too much.

“That’s a trip,” Red whistled, looking at his new surroundings. You looked with him.

You were in a field outside of a barn that had been painted gray and left to bleach in the sun. The style was different from the one you lived in, attributing that to the distance and the local migrant population. There was a farmhouse too, much further back, but the barn was what you caught yourself staring at. There was something inside it that made you feel pulled. Something inside you knew or recognized the magic hidden behind those big wooden doors.

Your phone pinged with a new message and you reached down to read it. It was a photo of you standing out in the field next to the boys. From it’s angle the photo had been snapped from somewhere high, maybe the second floor,  and somewhere close.

A text popped up next: Come on in.

“I think we just got our formal invitation,” you said before showing off your phone to the boys.

Edge took point, being the monster with the most HP it was common knowledge he could take a hit better than Sans or Red even if he couldn’t dodge as well as either of them. Edge reached the doors first and pulled one back, picking it up from where it sagged into the dirt to open enough for you to walk through.

It was still daytime so daylight filtered into the barn with ease and you could see for yourself how massive it was, stretching back and connecting to what looked like a riding rink for trick riders. The stables along the way were all left empty and smelled more like dust that what you suspected farms were supposed to smell like.

“It’s an old space, but the ground shows disturbance at least,” Sans muttered, sounding deceptively lazy.

He was right, you could see the signs for yourself but you were more concerned with what you couldn’t see. You stared up at the high rafters and all the hidden pockets where hay was stored. You couldn’t see through the ceiling to the next level but you sensed a presence there. It would be the perfect place for someone to hide in wait or snap a creepy photo.

You closed your eyes and let your brain flush with magic that painted for you a picture of your immediate surroundings. You were surrounded by your boys but right on top of you hovered three other dots for people-their names all spelled out in hands.

You felt the roll of magic next and opened your eyes in time to see a figure step out of the darkness, shortcutting right in front of you.

 

Notes:

The flirting has increased just in time for the plot to take off. The next chapter is the last for the Young & Menace arc so take your guess at what comes next if you want, along with how you think this meeting is going to go.

Chapter 68: Young & Menace 13

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

You felt the roll of magic next and opened your eyes in time to see a figure step out of the darkness, shortcutting right in front of you.

“Raven.” You said his name like a warning and the meaning wasn’t lost on your brother. He flinched and waved his hands to appear smaller.

“Hey, hey, it’s not like that, it’s all good. Hey!” He turned around and shouted up at the rafters. “Hey, get down here. This isn’t what we talked about. Quit being creepy assholes.”

“A little hard to pull that off,” Red muttered under his breath. It almost made you snicker but you held your mirth behind a bit lip and scrunched your nose.

But there was static that made the hair on the back of your neck fray before a pair walked out through void portals. A third figure calmly entered into the barn from the back door, having fallowed Raven in from the outside.

“Glad you could come,” said Raven. “You look better at least.”

“Kinda hard to top that hot mess,” you scoffed before frowning at your brother. “I told you over the phone I’ve been looking but Hightower is out of range or too far underground. I can’t see him anywhere when I look on my maps, so what’s all this about?”

“You don’t think it’s about time we got on the same page? I wanted to try again…with the two of us, but…” Raven glanced sideways at his companions and then looked at yours.

“Well, we’re here, aren’t we?” you said. “What’s so important that you had to go through all this trouble just to talk with me?”

“It’s a-more of a show you than tell you sort of thing,” Raven admitted, looking back over his shoulder to the skeleton called Gaster. “And it’s… about time I catch you up and be honest about all this.”

Since entering the barn Gaster hadn’t stopped looking at you and while your boys were keeping an eye on all of Raven’s friends, their gaze was extra focused on Gaster’s visage. Sans and Red more so than Edge, seemed to strain at the edges of their smiles when the looked at Gaster.

Earlier, you had heard from Sans about the skeleton royal scientist from his world, a monster who used his own bone marrow to grow offspring. In Red’s world the story hadn’t been much different, only that his Royal Scientist had been hellbent and bloodthirsty in comparison to the one from Sans’ universe.

You hadn’t heard from Black or Blue about any royal scientist in their world, other than he was a figure who had been experimenting on determination and fallen into the core to be scattered across time and space. The topic had never come up with Dusk and Paps, and you weren’t about to bring it up anytime soon if you could help it. Those two deserved some respite.

W. D. Gaster, the royal scientist, was oddly a strong consistent in all the alternate worlds. Blue and Stretch called their royal scientist the Riverman, but in all their realities the royal scientist had created the core and fallen into it, only to perish. Out of all the things they could have in common, it was an odd detail.

Looking at the taller skeleton behind Raven you could see the resemblance he bore to what should have been a combination of Sans and Papyrus. He was tall, but not as tall as Papyrus, with almost artistic scars stretching from his sockets one upwards the other down. He was well dressed in a three piece suit under his large amorphous cloak, and unlike last time he carried himself upright without a hint of slouch or hunch. He seemed better rested at least.

More apt to put up a fight if things went sour.

Raven waved you on and turned to head deeper into the barn, towards the back rink that was wide and empty. You followed parallel with Edge while Red and Sans trailed behind all of you. Dee and Winn walked off ahead but Gaster lingered just a few paces ahead of Raven, head bent so he could better listen to you following him.

“It’s been over half a year since you set out to chase me, but I’ve been on the run far longer, and planning for this even longer,” Raven admitted as he walked. “Still feels like it was just a few days ago we were both back there. Time is funny like that.”

You couldn’t agree with him. Your days at the Embassy felt like a lifetime away and only came close when you were low or hurt. There were whole days where you didn’t remember the hell that was your history, and you were looking forward to more days where you could jut be happy and move past the horrors with your loved ones.

It sounded like Raven couldn’t do that yet.

“What made you jump ship?” Red asked from behind you, calling up ahead.

Raven glanced up at Gaster’s back and then past him to the rink where Dee and Winn were already waiting. “It’s…a long story.”

“I didn’t come all this way for a short one,” you scoffed.”You know where the beginning is?”

You approached the edge of the rink and had to step over the divider into the old dirt and dust that had once been combed for show horses to race through and practice in. The roof was patchy with gaps and damage. Huge chunks of metal had fallen in and there were a chunk larger than the all in the center of the rink that Dee and Winn were waiting by. Gaster approached them and stood between them with his hands crossed neatly in front of his suit, looking passive even if his hooded eye lights were still fixed in your direction.

You took another step closer to the metal and hesitated. Edge took a step further than you and stopped to see why you had paused. Sans and Red also froze alongside you, feeling the same thing.

“Raven, what is that?” you asked slowly, pointing to the metal on the ground.

Gaster only used one hand, but the metal was encased in a glow of purple before flipping away and revealing the couch sized tear into the void that was leaking.

“One of Hightower’s experiments for me,” Raven admitted quietly. “He wanted me to, at least at one point the plan was for me to open these in other locations and…he told me it would weaken the power of the void at that time.”

“And you believed him?” Sans asked, sounding oddly non-condescending. What Raven was admitting to believing in was bullshit, but maybe Sans understood that brainwashed children rarely could tell the lie from a liars mouth.

“It was…yeah I know it wasn’t a great idea. It…the year after the barrier fell we found Winn and then ten months later Dee got pulled out. Gaster was the most recent arrival last year, after my accident and recovery stage.” Raven reached up to touch his hair and almost flinched. “By then I had plenty of strong suspicions but no means to act on them.”

“Until we took pity,” Winn scoffed with a haughty tone that Raven only grinned at while Dee shook his skull disapprovingly.

“Who’s idea was it to run away like you did?” Edge asked, eyeing the other skeletons critically while still standing close to your side.

M I N E.” Gaster’s voice had too much magic and reverb in it. Your head throbbed a little bit from just the one word and you hissed when you realized Raven hadn’t even flinched.

“How does that not bother you?” you hissed, referring to the pain Gaster’s voice put your brain through.

“I got used to it, you can too with time. You have enough magic to channel into your ears so it doesn’t hurt now.”

“So, lemme get this straight so far, birdie boy,” Red spoke up, waving his hands at Raven. “Crap-for-looks comes to you and spits some shit about the void needing to be diluted or whatever?”

Raven nodded, unbothered by the mocking nickname. “Like a volcano building up pressure, a geyser or vent of some sort would help alleviate the pressure and keep the void from being so potent in creating monsters.”

Edge rolled his eye lights. “That’s not where monsters come from.”

“Humans don’t know that,” Sans interjected before Raven or Red could, sounding like he was trying to apologize for the racist family member at dinner. You appreciated that but couldn’t help but feel the secondhand shame. There were still a lot of misinformed and crazy humans.

“Whatever,” Red huffed. “So the ass crack boss man asks you to what, just hop around the globe with him and open up holes to the void like it’s some kinda party trick? Just like that, huh? Void openings don’t like to stay open. It couldn’t have been easy to manage.”

Raven looked up at you. “Did you see the big one? The one the keep at the secondary location with all the nice holding cells?”

Yeah, you had seen it and you remembered it well.

 

“Don’t,” you whispered, already knowing what was behind the metal.

The beep grew louder and the metal groaned as it began to roll back like the fractions of a circle. In the innermost center you could start to see what it was beneath the floor.

“Stop,” you choked.

The metal continued to roll back and even so far away, protected by the glass of the observation deck, there was no way you wouldn’t know what it was you were looking at when you felt all the fear your body had learned over the years wake up. You brain screamed at you to run and your soul all but fell out of you as the darkness of the void began to fill the field below you. Your blood was ice and every hair on your body stood on end.

“No,” you managed to say as you watched another pit into the void where you had been killed and reborn opened up.

“The pit under the Embassy is only a fifth the size of this one, and so much younger. Did you think that was the only one?” Julia turned back and waved to the androids. “

 

“Julia said you helped-that you were someone who could manipulate that void. Was that what she meant? That you helped open a tear in the first place?”

Raven shook his head and stared back down at the smaller tear in the earth that leaked drifting darkness from the void within. It wasn’t thick enough to leak like the one you had been lowered into, but it was still haunting to stare into. “This is the only tear I’ve made on my own. The one underground had been started by others before me and it was only my job to finish what they started,” Raven explained.

“Which was…” Sans looked up to Gaster and then the other two.

“It wasn’t to pull any more Gasters out,” Raven rushed to explain, that was just ah-a side effect. Hightower wanted the void open for his own reasons I guess. He never shared the truth with me but I had my theories.”

“Such as?” Red encouraged, nodding along expectantly.

Raven glanced to Gaster and then to the void in the dirt below. “I think he was searching for something in the void, or maybe someone, but there was…it was like an ocean he was scouring for treasure I thought, digging through all the different zones. First the daylight, then the twilight, and then finally he dared penetrate the midnight zone where we thought that things might live.” Raven’s attention quickly flickered to you before averting.  “There was something he wanted that was in the void and he kept looking for it.”

“Things don’t exactly survive or do too well in the void,” Red chuckled nervously.

W e  must  n o t  have gotten the  m e m o,” Win scoffed while Dee chuckled.

Don’t tease him,” Dee playfully chastised his friend.

You didn’t appreciate his tone but only reached out to grab onto Red’s arm so he could feel you were there. Dee noticed and rolled his eye lights while Winn glared. You glared back and that made the bone round his teeth wrinkle in what you assumed was a grimace. You didn’t care if he thought you were gross.

“Typically things don’t do well in the void, but there are some freak exceptions,” Sans clarified, sounding too pleasant to be anything but sarcastic and biting until his gaze turned to you and Edge-the only two who didn’t regularly utilize the void for yourselves. “When we shortcut in and out we only graze the thinnest layer of the void most of the time. The further physical distance we shortcut the deeper we have to go.”

“Which as most of you know-” Red interjected with a sharp smile that showed off his gold fang, “the deeper you dive or the longer you stay, the harder it is ta get out.”

“Which exception was your Hightower looking for?” Edge cut in.

Your empty eye socket throbbed with phantom pain and you winced but didn’t reach up to touch the scar or ruined lid. Instead you grit you teeth and shook your head.

Not a good kind,” Dee said before looking to Raven. There seemed to be something unsaid that passed between the two of them before Raven spoke again.

“I think he saw something in the void years ago and he’s been trying to find it all this time. It would make sense why he was so dedicated to the program and why he had an interest in creating strife so the Embassy could fund future efforts,” Raven said. “The ongoing conflict was only a means to his ultimate end. He…nearly admitted it to me once when I got him talking. You know he used to be a kid in the program, right?”

“It’s where he and Julia knew each other from,” you said.

You thought back to how rarely Hightower would talk about himself and his history. He never used his magic in front of you either, to the point where some of your peers didn’t believe he even had it anymore. But back when you first tried escaping with Paps and Dust he had appeared-stepping out of the void with darkness rolling off his shoulders. Hightower likely had magic with a nature similar to Raven’s. It would make sense why Hightower wanted to keep Raven next to him, but you couldn’t be sure.

“Does it matter what the crazy bastard was after if there is no sign of it in the void?” Edge interjected. “This Hightower prick is in the wind and has zero access to the different known void sights, so less energy should be spent on wondering what he was so fascinated with and more energy on dealing with what’s right in front of us.”

“I’m guessing you mean da big ass hole into the void, huh?” Red laughed.

“What else are we able to do?”

Y o u  can’t  d o  anything,” Winn snapped, sounding almost vindictive towards Edge.

Only those who can manipulate the void are any good here,” Dee added.

“Which means everyone but me and Edge,” you sighed, looking to your taller date mate with an expression of understanding.

You were worse than useless when it came to void magic. If you spent too long around it you ran to risk of a dissociative episode. Shortcuts and little bits of magic were fine, but if you had to stare into the void for any long measure of time, or stars forbid enter into the void, you might scream bloody murder and pass out.

“We didn’t invite you because we wanted your help closing the void,” Raven hurried to explain.

“But you wouldn’t mind if you had the help, would ya?” Red guessed. When you looked his way you guessed that the sight of the void scar was unsettling to more than just you. “Might as well if we’re here, huh classic?”

“That won’t be dangerous to either of you two?” you asked. What you meant was; ‘will you still have the juice to bamf us out of here if things go south?’

“We’d say something if it was too much. These are peace talks, aren’t they?” Sans answered for him and Red both.

“Before any of that is offered or happens, I still wanna know from you, Raven, how or what it was like when you decided to leave.” You looked to your brother and he straightened up with the new, directed attention. “I get that you had a ‘see the light’ moment or something and you had help with that, but I’m still not clear on some of the details.”

Raven looked to Gaster who nodded back. “Yeah, you deserve that much. The third body we found drifting in the void and pulled out was Gaster, and he was put into cryosleep almost immediately. Before that could happen he helped show off what Hightower was doing for what it really was.  He also created the accident that made my-our escape possible.”

“You couldn’t just shortcut out of there on your own?” Sans asked.

“Not without Hightower knowing where I went. I couldn’t shortcut until I was far enough away to avoid detection from one of the others who still worked for Hightower, a kid named Everest. He could ‘hear’ magic and follow it like a scent so the escape had to be organic. We called him a highjacker cause his magic depended on what other people could do.”

“So aside from a number of sentient monster skeletons drifting about in the void, did you find anything else?” you asked, looking pointedly away from Gaster to Dee and Winn who stood next to each other. You didn’t miss it when they reacted to the question. Dee barely flinched but Winn’s smile strained.

“Some… abnormalities…yeah,” Raven admitted. “Just random chunks of what we thought was gunk. Sludge, weird debris, junk…there was stuff in the void but nine times out of ten the only thing we saw or came into contact with was endless nothingness.”

You knew when your brother lied and you knew when he was nervous. When he admitted seeing other things come through he hadn’t lied, but it made him nervous and you didn’t doubt he could have been more specific but kept his explanations vague on purpose.

“What are you thinking, doll?” Red asked, keeping his voice low as he looked over at you. He wanted to know what you wanted their next move to be. There was a void hole that needed closing.

“I still have one more question before we offer to help you with anything,” you said, speaking up so Raven could hear you. You didn’t say anything more until he gave you his full attention. “You’ve been on the run from Hightower for a while, but did you ever come looking for me? Did you ever-did I ever miss you when you were running?”

The question caught Raven off guard, but he didn’t look away when he answered. “No, I didn’t.”

You almost snapped at his confession, feeling pent up frustrations you couldn’t name bubble to the surface and color your cheeks. “Why not?”

He rubbed at his face while beside you Sans sighed heavily. “It’s the burden of brothers, ain’t it?” Sans said. “You didn’t want anyone to see you at your worst but especially not your sister, am I right?”

Sans’ comment reminded you of the separation he and Papyrus had been experiencing before the Embassy crossed all your paths. Even after being topside for years, depression and stardom had created a wedge between the brothers and guilt and self loathing had kept Sans specifically from bridging the growing gap. When he spoke about the burden of brothers he wasn’t just talking about Raven.

You rubbed at your face, scratching your skin and feeling the subtle sting as a way to ground you in the moment. You didn’t want to drift off into dark thoughts about your friends or family. “I wouldn’t have judged you for it or held it against you. Yeah I’d have given you shit for it at first but…you’re my brother. I wouldn’t have left you out in the cold if you needed help.”

“Yeah…I get that now. Sorry I was sort of a jerk.”

“You were an ass but so was I so I forgive you, but please do the same for me.”

Raven chuckled and rolled his shoulders in what should have been a shrug. “Sure, sure, whatever you say. Bygones are all gone or whatever the hell the stupid expression is. I don’t even know what a bygone is.”

“I don’t think it’s a real thing,” you admitted in a moment of distraction before Red laughed deeply along with Sans.

Red reached over and slapped your shoulder before sagging against your side. “Glad to see you jiving with your runaway bro over here, but what about that shit stain in the floor? We wanna touch it today?”

“Depends.” You looked up to where Raven stood. “You got snacks for after this?”

“Enough to replenish lost magic,” he answered.

Ah shit, does that mean  I  have to  h e l p  as well?” Winn whined.

Dee’s chuckle was almost sarcastic. “You’ll survive.”

Survival is  n e v e r  guaranteed, stupid,” Winn grumbled before frowning at Raven. “Are you sure you want to close this one? We don’t have access to the others.

“Its time we closed this patch up,” Raven said. There was resolution in every word he spoke. “It’s time we started finishing this. What better time than with the help of friends?” 

Red nodded to Sans. “Looks like you and me, friend.”

“Sure, pal.”

“You’re really doing this then?” Edge scoffed. “We’re in a better position with two combat operatives who won’t be taxed from the effort but it doesn’t sit well with me to not have either of our transporters out.”

“If it comes down to it, boss, I’m sure you and sweetheart can take care of us.” Red winked at you and you tried to smile back, but you related too much to Edge to look convincing.

You didn’t like not being useful. Watching your boys exhaust themselves in front of you while there was nothing else for you to do was going to be hard. You’d rather hurt than see others hurt, as morbid as that sounded; it bothered you less to be the one bleeding out.

“Be safe. If you feel like it’s too much pull back and we bounce,” you said. You looked to Red first and then to Sans, making sure he understood you before letting them go. When you glanced up the skeleton named Gaster was still watching your group.

“Promise, princess.”

“Sure thing sweetheart.”

You let them go and watched from beside Edge as your brother, his friends, and your boys all approached the sheet metal before Dee’s magic pulled it free and exposed the scar of void beneath. The edges were jagged and modest trails of darkness began to leak out over the edges, but it never went far. Like mist in the morning it evaporated and lost its shape before it could get close to Raven or any of the others.

“He can be a numbskull but he knows his limits,” Edge whispered to you, grabbing for your hand.

“If you’re willing to make jokes for me then I don’t think I have any right to be worried.”

“That was not a joke. I was insulting my brother lovingly.”

“Sure thing bone-boy, I know it’s only out of love you say the things you do.”

“Take it as a testament to my love for you how I’m willing to let slid not one, but two horrible puns that were utterly unnecessary,” he sighed.

You squeezed his hand and he squeezed back, watching the same thing you were. Neither of you looked away as the figures around the tear began to guide their magic like needles, sewing up the tapestry of black. Sans’ magic tried to pull one corner to the far side while Raven’s eyes leaked black as his magic did nearly the same thing. Dee and Winn stood across from Red, trying to pull their side across to meet his side, while at the end Gaster manifest a second and third set of hands, completely detached from his body with the same perfect hole in each center. He glowed with purple perseverance-feeling magic and worked to the point of straining to seal up his section of the tear.

The dust started to roll backwards, away from the static of magics mingling and reacting. The tear into the void gave a little bit, but as it drew more and more shut, the leaking of excess void only increased. A few items of debris rolled away, chased off by the force of what was spilling out and what was working to seal it up.

From beside Edge you readjusted and braced with a wider stance and felt the first real wave of backlash ruffle the collar of your jacket and toss your hair away from your face. Your empty eye socket throbbed with the memories of an older injury and phantom pains.

Edge squeezed your hand again and it helped to ground you.

“They’re doing well. Soon it will be closed,” he promised.

But the closer they got to sealing the tear the harder it seemed to become. Red swore and Raven gasped before redoubling his efforts. Winn bent into the effort and Dee had to readjust his stance to keep from being pushed back. You could see sweat beading on the back of Sans’ skull and knew his endurance wouldn’t last forever, no matter how strong he was.

“Careful,” Edge said, tugging you back to avoid an extra long tendril of void energy, lashing out from the tear like a drunk arm or tentacle. You shot fire at it and to your surprise, watched it burn away.

Edge noticed another errant tendril and shot a bone attack at it and delighted with the obvious reaction. The tendril broke up and the ruined stub slithered back almost like some living thing.

“Look like we can help after all,” you mused, already lighting up your free hand.

Edge grinned down at you and summoned a number of bones to levitate above his free hand. Neither of you leg go of the other.

The damage you did as a pair to the whips of void weakened it and helped the others gain some footing in their efforts to seal the tear by bringing both sides together. Edge had better long range attacks since he could redirect his bones mid flight, but your fire seemed more effective at burning the arms of darkness down to dead stubs.

Something about the fight felt familiar.

“Almost there,” Red laughed, sounding manic as he strained against the effort. Raven grunted and even Winn made a sound of straining.

You watched at the two halves came nearly together and held you breath. With a heave the group forced their ends at each other and the tear was finally sealed.

Success?

There was a moment of stillness until the leftover scar popped like a bubble and spilled an ocean of darkness out into the field around you. Edge shouted as you were ripped apart and you cursed, recognizing the feedback. Like a wave being pulled back, closing the tear meant all that excess void magic that had been leaking out for who knows how long, had to come crashing down. Everything close to the tear was making one last fruitless surge to be free. When they opened the doors to the pit in the basement of the Embassy it had been like this, but never so violent or thick!

Edge called your name but it was swallowed up along with everything else as the black rolled over you.

Shiiink-

You found yourself drifting in the black sea, too far and too lost to see anyone else until the spill dissipated. Drifting in the dark that only grew darker and yet darker still. A darkness that kept growing… a darkness that was cutting into you with hungry teeth, starved for whatever you were made out of.

Dark

Darker

And not alone.

You had been in this darkness before. And like how no two rivers were made of the same waters, no corner of the void was ever made of the same darkness, but you couldn’t shake the familiarity. You had been here before, drifting…untethered… free and…in danger…

Where was your harness? You needed to get out, you needed to go back! This wasn’t where you were meant to be! You weren’t made to exist in such a space, you needed to get back before something found you!

Your body cracked with veins of power and you started to light up with harmless flames, fueled by your magic instead of oxygen. You tried to twist and turn, but there was no gravity and all you managed with some helpless flailing. Your hair whipped around and drifted in front of your face before you forced it back, out of your eye, but there was still nothing to see-or nothing you could see. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing….

You needed to get out before something saw you, there were eyes watching! There were eyes you needed to run from. You couldn’t hide, you couldn’t get away. It as going to see you! No, it was going toseeyouitwasgoingtoseeyouitwasgoingtoseeyou-

 

A memory broke free.

 

Years ago you had put on the harness by choice and stepped into the pit by choice, dropped down to look for the boy who didn’t come back. You remembered diving in on your own, looking with a tiny, flickering hope that you could find your best friend. Someone had to go after him. There were three boys and one girl lost-never to be seen again. That was a huge blow-one they couldn’t ignore. You didn’t want to think about living without your best friend so you volunteered.

 

Ţ̸͕̣͔̦̞̰̞̻͉̱͔͈̃͋̌͌̄̾̄͊̚̕̚͠͝͝e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚r̸̬͔͇̆͂̈́͂e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚  w̵̧̛͆͆a̴͈͋̈́̓̕̚s̶̜͎̘̼͕̈́̈́͌̐͆͑̉͌ a̴͈͋̈́̓̕̚ d̶̨͇̹̥̦̥̖̠̙̍̋̽͌̾ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘r̸̬͔͇̆͂̈́͂

 

But something went wrong and the memory goes garbled and then it all turned painful. Some thing had been in the void, something you saw-something that tried to reach inside you and make your body its home. Something tried to enter you and you-you-youyouyou-

 

Ţ̸͕̣͔̦̞̰̞̻͉̱͔͈̃͋̌͌̄̾̄͊̚̕̚͠͝͝r̶̀͗̒̏̐̈́͘͝ͅo̴̷̧͚̟͍̯̮͉̭͚̣̊̈́̌́̽͌̿̉̓̈̂̾̾͝͝ ̷̹͕̏̅͂͂́́͌̇̕̚ţ̴͍̞͉̎̉̂̒͑͂͐͐ḫ̷̰͙̈e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚ ̵̡̮̳̺̰̣̫̘̫̃̀̐͜g̵̜͑́̂ȟ̴̢͍̹̤̥͎̈́̾͠ǒ̷̳̼̬̞͍̙̹̜̈͑̀͒̓̉̉͠ư̷̻̰̪̖̼̠͔̟͈̹͂̀͌̉́̓͐̇͝l̵͎̗̹̱͇̈̀̑͛͂͛̄͗͂͊-̵̠̝̯̻̣̠̇ͅg̶̝̲͎̩̗̉͆̂͛͗̚͘͜͝u̵͍͇̟̿̈́͒̄̔͗̚͠a̴̡̘̲̟̠͛͜͜r̵̲̐̈ḑ̸̯̲̤͇̤͇͉͙̬̙̟̈́̑̐͌͒͂̕͜͜͝͝ḑ̵̢̦͍̹͍̹̱͑͑ ̸͇̠͉̭̲̺̥͔̖̰̐͂̂͛͂̊̕g̸̨̡͈̣̝͖̳̥̓͌̄̉̑̅̌̃̑ǎ̴̭̹̈̽̌͘͠ṫ̶̢̨̨̳̗̤̜͍̞̈́̈̄́ĕ̷̛̖̝̠̹͂͐̆̋̉̐͠w̷̱̣̣̙͇͊̏̆͜ả̶̢̖̰͖͇y̵̧̡̛͓͉͖͎̺̺͊͊̊̊̽̿̈́ͅs̴̡̪͓̪͚̰̝̖̈́͊̔͜ ̵̢̛̹͍̹̲̝̠̙̒͆̍͠o̶̫̳̜̔̎͘f̷̗͊͗̆̈͝ ̴̢͉̺̘̟̬̍̈́̇̇ş̵̛̙͊̃̏͌͋͆̊͠l̷̨̯̩̹̺̈́͛͒͛̊̈́́͠͝ͅͅȕ̴̧̜̪͋̊̒̋͝m̶͎̫͗̇́b̶̮̝̰̟͔̃̇͜͠ḙ̴͍͎̣̣͕̥̣̋̇̓͒͌̾͛,̷̭͙̯̰̘̫̳̋̇̽̃̽͑͝

 

-Cut it out before it could grab a foothold!

 

You screamed and your empty eye socket flared with white fire and the darkness around you slackened. The memory burned away and you burned only hotter. There was no harness this time but you began to grow feathers and manifest a pair of wings to stretch out away from your back. Your arms and legs grew bracers of flaming feathers as well.

You were the lit candle in the darkness.

And in the distant darkness behind you…something stirred. 

You felt someone or something touch your arm-what was left of it- and yank you hard so that you started to fall in a new direction.  Red?

The panic washed over you and the feathers around your body began to harden and double, multiplying like scales to shield you from danger. You choked on your fear and began to cry silently as all the hair on your body stood on end.

Something had seen you.

Something had stirred.

The darkness grew hungry and you were ripe.

But then the space around you shifted and a pair of skeleton hands reached out to grab you, catching you by the elbows in a familiar embrace. You let him tug you forward into his arms before the sea of darkness shifted again and you were out of the void, dropped down onto someone’s bed in an unfamiliar house.

The wings scattered into ash feathers. The tears blurred your vision but gentle hands soothed your hair and wiped free your tears. In your panic you called his name and he stilled before combing back your hair.

It’s been a while since I heard anyone call me that.”

You looked and tried to see past the blur, managing to make out his face and a single hand stretched over your head. His response was so odd but it was a moment later when it all made sense. You hadn’t called him Gaster, but had addressed him by his human name-the one he shared with you even though the program instead on numbers and letters. You had screamed that name into the void years ago, searching for him after his harness came back empty.  They had told you he died, along with Dennis and Whitney, the other two boys who never came up with their empty harnesses.

“Gabe… Gaberiel?”

Gaster smiled sadly down at you. “No, not exactly.”

 

  

 

 

”.ʏɒw |uɿɘm ɒ i ʏɿomɘm ɘʏ|ɒɿɒq ᴎɘƚo ɿoɿɿoʜ ɘƚɒmiƚ|U“

Notes:

I was planning on leaving this arc there-but there's more to it than that.

Sorry if some of the font doesn't cut-n-paste as well as it should but...ta da! More questions than answers-I mean more answers than questions. Raven isn't as bad of a guy as we thought him to be and this Gaster fellow seems to know us? Fun.

So I have to clarify something real quick-this was supposed to be the last chapter but in edits I (accidentally) expanded some things and this chapter turned into 3.... so my timing is all off and the Gyftmas chapter won't be until January but I think the story feels stronger after edits so this is what I'm going with.

Chapter 69: Young & Menace 14

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“So what’s it like?”

You glanced up from the dirty bandages and threw one into the trash by your bed without looking. In your doorway, hanging out on the threshold where he was allowed to, your best friend lingered half half out. His arms were crossed and his posture lax, but the tightness of his grin betrayed his nervousness.

You knew him too well not to notice.

“It sucked but it was everything you’d expect it to be. It’s a little overwhelming at first, but you get used to it,” you said while peeling off another unnecessary bandaid. “Just make sure the harness fits. You don’t want to get stuck with one that chafes.”

“Like you did?”

“Hey, that wasn’t my fault. They sized me wrong. Don’t let them do the same to you, asshole.”

Gabe laughed, throwing his head back and shaking his shoulders. The sight put you at ease. It had been only a couple of days since he lost his ability to see soul colors and Hightower believed it was finally time to send Gabe into the pit for the mage transformation ritual.

Compared to the other kids, Gabe was a late bloomer. He was older than you but was a whole year behind you in terms of magical development. You didn’t mind the difference, somehow it brought the two of you closer. You had what he didn’t and he had what you didn’t.

“What do I need to watch out for?” he asked with the echo of his laugh behind his words.

“The usual,” you answered. “Its dark and you’ll feel sick from the hugeness of it. It’s not the zero gravity feeling they said it would be, the void is heavier than that, like wading through pudding or something.”

“Are you sure you’re not hungry?” Gabe teased.

“I’m always hungry, don’t judge me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he chuckled. Gabe waved his hands in a defensive posture. “But what else can you tell me about the pit. The others don’t like to talk about it.” 

“They’re still sore about when Dennis didn’t come back. You don’t have to worry about that, they said it was statistically improbable. Your odds are good.”

“I wish I had your odds.”

You peeled off the last of your bandages and tossed it into the can. Your hands were mostly healed, the scabs and scars faint enough to be missed. “If it goes south, I’d just go in after you, stupid.”

“Yeah right, you hated your trip.”

“Hell right I did, I still get sick just thinking about it, but that never stopped me from doing important stuff before, has it? What’s the worth of a hero who can’t even save their friend?” you asked.

Beyond Gabe, somewhere down the hall, someone laughed loudly and there was the echo of another kid screaming. You recognized Raven’s voice and didn’t doubt he was flirting with Thrive again. The two of them were so obvious about it you were surprised the handlers hadn’t noticed the un permitted attraction.

“When are the throwing you in?”

Gabe made a face and then laughed nervously. “In half an hour?”

His answer made your brain trip over itself. “Half hour…like now-now as in half an hour from right now-as in today?!”

“Wanna watch?”

“You sick fuck, what the hell? Why would you tell me like this so last minute? What if I couldn’t make it?Give me more warning next time.” You scrambled up off the bench and pushed past him, into the hall.

“So you’re coming?”

“Of course I’m coming. You think I would miss this? What if something happened to you? I’d need to be there to save the day.”

“Nothing is gonna happen,” Gabe laughed.

“Damn right nothing is gonna happen, because I’ll be there to stop shit when it wants to hit the fan, SixG.”

Your voice joined his as the echoing laughter traveled down the halls.

 

 

But that was all…years and years ago…seven, ten, no…thirteen years ago by now. Maybe more. It was hard to think straight when your head throbbed from memories you had tried to bury out of reach.  It had been so many years since the last time you saw your best friend alive.

“What the hell are you?”

Your voice came out steadier than you felt as you yanked your hand back and crawled away, across the bed to the far side. It wasn’t much and you didn’t get far, but looking at Gaster with new knowledge was making you dizzy. How could he be both the monster’s deceased royal scientist and your dead friend from childhood?

Gaster didn’t chase after you or reach out his hand again, even though it would have been easy enough to do. He let you run but watched you the whole while.

You’re still shaken from the ordeal.

“I’ve been shaken a lot less from a lot worse, sure, but that doesn’t mean I’m not in the right state of mind to ask the important questions or to notice you haven’t answered mine. Who are you?”

As I said earlier, you may call me Gaster.”

Somehow his voice was easier to handle. It didn’t shake you like it had before. What had changed you? What had changed him?

“A name is only a name. I can call a rose a race car but it doesn’t change the thorns or the smell, does it?” you countered.

You have a right to be weary, but if you are willing to hear me I can explain.”

You inclined your chin to stare down you nose at him, showing defiance. “I’m not going anywhere soon.”

Gaster nodded, seeing something in your expression that prompted him to speak. “I am as you suspected and not. Over a decade ago a boy was left in the void and folded back his soul. In that moment a fragment of the royal scientist slipped in and thus I came to be. I am neither wholly your childhood friend nor am I wholly the monster’s royal scientist, but a combination of both. I am something new if you can believe it.

A memory slipped in before you could help it. Three harnesses came back empty and a fourth came up shredded and bloody. It had always been odd that the three boys never returned but their harnesses showed no signs of damage or tampering. The buckles had all still be fastened tight, as if their bodies had simply slipped out like water or blinked out of existence altogether.

“Then…Winn…Dee… Dennis and Whitney…the two other boys who didn’t come back… they’re…” Without warning you felt dizzy and started to slide down the wall, unable to remain upright.

Gaster called your name and reached for you, grabbing the sides of your shoulders to keep you from slipping down any further.

Dennis and Whitney … One of them had been older and the other a year younger, though he acted half his age. You remembered both of their faces and the days they disappeared into the void, never to return. You hadn’t been especially close to either of them, but everyone in that program knew one another.

“Are they all fragments of the same royal scientist?”

You weren’t sure but you almost thought you saw him grin. “No, and you’re astute to have noticed. They each came from a different universe. There were others too who continued to drift without access to a new vessel. Winn is from the Fell universe and Dee is from the fell swap dominion.”

“Are you what Hightower wanted in the pit, the thing he was searching the void for?”

Not nearly,” Gaster scoffed. He gently backed away from you, keeping his arms up to see if you would fall once he pulled away. When you remained upright he let his own hands drop down to his lap to rest there. “Quite the opposite, actually. Once he realized I was only going to hinder his efforts he was quick to  tuck me away, as I’m sure you heard about.”

“I saw.”

He didn’t blink and there was nothing about his expression you could point to that betrayed what he was feeling, but you felt something in the air between you shift as his mood changed for your words.

Oh.”

“When they took me to the secondary location, Dusk and I got out and were trying to escape when we saw Raven and the others rescuing you.”

I recall hearing about this secondhand. I was not in a state to be aware of anything.

It was a hard temptation to resist, but you wanted to sound nasty and snippy with your words because of how the memory made you feel. But-you resisted because you knew better. This guy didn’t have anything to do with Raven’ decision to pass you over for a gaster copycat.

“How much of you is human and how much of you is monster royal scientist?” you asked instead.

“By human definitions your friend is dead and I have simply harvested what he once was to become what I am, neither fully monster nor fully human.”

You looked him over again and grimaced when you saw how inhuman he really looked when you paid attention to the details. Sure he was tall and thin and skeletal, but there was more to his ‘otherness’ than just his body. The energy in the air around him was charged with ready magic and his posture was that of a person who was used to either being the smartest or strongest in the room.  That had nothing to do with the boy you once knew. Even if his magic felt human you knew better.

“You don’t feel like Gabe.”

Closure felt like a seat at the bottom of the sea. Your friend was really dead and his remains had been robbed for the sake of a new life form. There was no reason to keep alive the hope buried deep in the back of your mind that maybe he was still out there somewhere, on the other side of the void living a good life with new friends and a family.

No, one more of you was gone-just like Esperanza and all the other kids who took their own lives. One more of the real ones was gone and you were beginning to feel more and more like the last of your kind. The world didn’t fit anymore.

You turned away and began to climb down off the bed when one of the detached hands floated out to tug on your elbow and urge you back. When you looked Gaster was watching you with a conflicted expression-one you couldn’t decipher before it was replaced with a mask of artificial calm.

“You shouldn’t move so soon. You ingested much of the void.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I choked on darkness. I need to find my friends,” you said, pulling out of his hold and standing up alongside the bed. The memory of where you last saw them made you frown. “Where are they?”

I only bothered to pull you free, the others know how to navigate the void.”

“Edge doesn’t.”

“Which is surprising since he’s proficient in all other skills,” Gaster explained. “He made it out of the rink before any notable density washed over. You got the worst of it.

“Where is he? How do you know he’s safe? How do you know if any of them are safe if you only bothered to pull me free?”

When Gaster tugged on your elbow again you were ready to snap angry expletives at him but stopped that thought when you saw where he was posting with his actual hand (the one connected to his wrist, arm, and body.) At the end of the room there was a farmhouse window with old and tattered eggshell yellow curtains that had faded and turned in parts. They were half pulled back and you could see past them the field leading up to the barn with the rink. Edge was in the grass, searching through it while further back you saw either Sans or Red looking around the other side, looking frantic if his body posture was anything to go by. Were they searching for you?

“I need to get down to them,” you explained while turning back to run the way you first intended when you saw the wide open door.

There was a skinny hallway outside that lead to some dilapidated stairs you took two at a time.  By the time your feet his the first floor Gaster was already there, waiting on the tail end of a shortcut.

“You’re not satisfied to wait here for them?” Gaster asked just outside the kitchen’s threshold. Inside there was the aroma of warm bread and pie still fresh from the smell of it. “The others will instruct them to come here next, or at least Raven would.”

His words gave you a thought. “Was this where we were supposed to go first when we arrived?”

“Oh, you’re here already,” Dee interrupted with a voice that didn’t ring with magic the way it had before your trip into the void.

You spun on your heel and saw him too close for comfort, lingering int the hallway just out of punching range. You hadn’t heard him or felt his magic at all-could he have been there the entire time?

Dee, you should have called for the others before coming here yourself,” Gaster calmly chastised, even as Dee ignored his elder to slip past him into the kitchen just out of sight. You heard ceramic plates being jostled.

You didn’t stop to listen to any more of their conversation but turned to head out towards the front door. No one moved to stop you until your hand was on the brass knob. It started to turn from someone on the other side and you stepped back in time to miss the door opening up in front of you. The frame was fill with Winn who looked surprised to spot you standing in his way. But the surprise didn’t last long and his features shifted into ones more recognizable.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped.

“Move, I’m leaving.”

You tried to pass him but he didn’t give you the space, blocking the way purposefully when you tried again on the other side. He didn’t touch you but one of his hands was raised as if he meant to if you got any closer.

“Hold your horses, the rest are coming this way,” he complained, sounding annoyed with your repeated efforts to get around him. Like Dee, his voice didn’t echo or hurt in your head as bad as they once had. “Raven was yelling at them to meet in the house, why you wanna go back now? There’s still dredges of void overflow.”

You wished you could shortcut past him but your magic was only ever violent so you had the choice of complying or getting rough. You didn’t want to be the first one to throw a punch though. You were the one who ended fights-not somebody who started them.

“Whitney I swear I’ll turn you upside down on your ass if you don’t get out of my way,” you snapped before you could think.

The reaction was instant. As soon as he heard that name his body went slack and you were able to push him aside with ease. When you passed him he didn’t try to trip or stop you, but by the time you made it out onto the porch you could see Sans walking up with Raven at his side. You shielded your eyes against the sun and raised a hand, ready to call out to them but there were fingers around your wrist, yanking you back.

The curse was on your lips, ready to fly but his expression stopped you.

He whispered your name and there was recognition in his eye lights. For a split second you saw past the bone exterior and glimpsed underneath all that to the freckled face boy who followed you like an annoying shadow up until the day he went down into the dark to never come up again. You hadn’t been close, he was several years younger and from a junior batch of recruits who passed the preliminaries, but due to his age bracket you were sort of a ‘senpai’ they wanted you to notice them. Whitney was no exception…even if he was more of a brat about it.

But just as quickly as the revelation came it passed and you were back to looking at a peculiar skeleton with scars and a history longer than your lifetime by more than twice. Whitney had died along with Gab and the others in the same dark place. When he looked at you like that it wasn’t like he really remembered you. Whitney was dead. They all were. They were dead and you didn’t owe them anything.

“See, I told you she’d be here.”

You turned back around in time to see Raven approaching the porch with Sans looking exhausted. They actually both looked tired, but Raven seemed worse off. You scanned what you could see of his body for bruises and prayed you didn’t see any.

“Hey there princess, you look no worse off for all of that. How you doing?” Sans chuckled.

“Alive. You?” If Sans noticed the clipped change in your tone he didn’t remark on it. He probably understood why.

“Bone tired, but aside from put out and unable to pun, it coulda been worse. Never seen the void react like that before.”

“You ever try to close it up before or manipulate it outside of its own environment?” Raven asked.

“Can’t say I have.”

“Sometimes there would be overflow when the pit in the basement of the embassy was opened up, but not always,” you began to explain. “I always thought it was weird and never understood why it was so fickle to do it sometimes and not other times, but I’ve never seen it pop like that before either.”

Sans hummed and climbed up the first step before stopping to reach for your hand and stare up at you from the lower step. “You’re safe that’s what matters. Sorry, that couldn’t have been easy for you.”

Raven coughed loudly and you glanced back to see him standing next to Winn, looking pointedly away from you and Sans. You recognized that look.

“We should…head on inside to talk the rest of this over. You told the spiky one where we were heading so…I’m…I’ll get that pie plated…I guess,” Raven said.

You recognized Raven’s discomfort but didn’t care about it one way or the other. If he wanted to be weird about seeing you share a completely normal amount of modest PD that was his prerogative. Compared to how he and Thrive used to carry on back in the day, you were far more tame with Sans in front of him. It’s not like you had ever had someone to mess around with in front of hi-wait!

“Is it a monster thing or is it because its me,” you sapped, taking the stairs two at a time to stand next to your twin and grab at his elbow before he could slip away.

His ears were already tinged and hot with embarrassment. “What are you talking about?”

“You look like you saw me having sex on the beach or something.”

He gasped your name and looked aghast but you didn’t let him go. “Wh-wha-wat-what are you talking about?” he stuttered in a voice pitched too high to be his. “I-I-you’re being stu-” his voice cracked again and he ducked his face before sneaking a look out through his lashes at Sans. “I need to go,” he finally made out before pulling away from you and following Winn inside.

“Uhhh?” Sans glanced awkwardly from the spot Raven had once stood to the door and then to you. “Was that all super obvious to only you, or am I really that dense? What’d I do?”

“You reminded him I was a grown ass person with a lover.” You chuckled before rubbing at your face. “The little shit just isn’t used to seeing me like that I guess.”

“Like what?”

“…Affectionate?” Saying it out loud only made it sound worse in your opinion. It wasn’t like you were kids anymore and he shouldn’t have had a problem with Sans being a monster since he lived with three of them full time.

Sans snickered and you shot him a funny look. “That wasn’t even overtly ’affectionate’, but if he thinks so he’s in for a rude awakening,” he explained.

“He doesn’t need to be, that’s my business not his. But speaking of business, where is Edge? Isn’t he coming?”

Sans looked back at the field and saw no sign of either of your two companions. Further in the house the others were making enough noise to clue you into where they were-all still in the kitchen-so you doubted Red or Edge had arrived there.

“Did you see Red at all once you got out?” you asked, realizing the one you had spotted from your window had been Sans, not Red. You had never seen Red to confirm he made it out.

“He wouldn’t get lost there. Out of the two of us, don’t tell him I said this, he’s the one more proficient in void usage. He doesn’t have my levels of magic but that guys has been pushing his limits when it comes to the void. I don’t think he wouldn’t have been able to make it out on his own.”

“Then where is he?” you said the same moment you closed your eyes to pull up your virtual map.

It flickered and adjusted per your command. Where the void hole had been there was still a fog preventing you from seeing anyone in that area, but it was small and growing smaller. You saw you, Sans, Papyrus, and several other characters with names written in Hands. Edge didn’t register as Edge, on your map he was Papyrus but you still know who it was. So, where was the other Sans?

Sans…

Sans…

Red?

“I can’t see him on my map,” you panicked, searching again. You pulled out, zooming far out and then focused on a grid square to better see. Still, nothing showed you what you wanted most to see. When you pushed your map to its limits and saw nearly all the entire county at once it made your head throb, but there was no sign of another Sans on your map.

“Red didn’t make it out.”

Sans’ hand on your back only made you shiver with more worry. “What makes you think that?”

“I can’t see him anywhere, he’s not here, not for miles at least. I can’t see him Sans-I can’t see him!” you gasped in new fear. Sure, being in danger was terrifying but worse than that was knowing one of your boys was in danger. If he had been stuck in the void all this time- “We have to go back for him.”

“How do you, hey wait princess, I got us,” Sans called out, jumping down to catch up with you.

Before you could stop him you were on the other side of a shortcut, stepping onto the dirt rink and seeing Edge stalking the perimeter. He saw you and sighed before looking to Sans.

“I still can’t find him. Was he not there already?”

“He wasn’t in the house, least not that I saw. Princess here was trying to look for him on her map but-”

“-Edge, he’s not showing up as being anywhere near here. I can’t see him at all and my range goes for miles, further than his teleportation distance,” you cut in before Sans could say anything else. “He has to still be stuck in the void.”

“He’s stepped into the void more than most of the others with that skill, it doesn’t make sense for him to get caught now. How could he be so stupid?” Edge grumbled.

“We can call the guy a numbskull later. For now we gotta focus on how to gab him and pull him back. Edge, is that scar still here?”

Edge looked meaner than usual as he sneered down at Sans for only a split second before his expression smoothed out. “The wound to the void is mostly sealed but you can feel the residual magic if you stand in the middle of it if that is what you mean.”

“That’ll work for me,” Sans said, turning to head there.

“You’re going in after him alone?” you asked, jogging to keep up.

“You should stay here on this side. It’s a mess in the void and I don’t want you any more traumatized than you’ve already been with your history and these things.” Sans reached out and touched your face, brushing his thumb over your lips with affection. “Stay safe here.”

“At least take me,” Edge cut in.

“Wouldn’t be a safe bet. You don’t have the background in this sorta thing and you can’t shortcut yourself out if it came down to it,” Sans said. “I’m not taking dead weight.”

“You need to take one of us. You can’t go in there on your own without help. I can do this for Red, Sans. So let me help, please.”’

Sans looked ready to shoot you down again but Edge stepped in. “You can choose, but one of us is going with you. I’m not going to leave my brother behind and your date mate has also bonded to him so hurry up and pick your patsy.”

“Edge, I just said you were a liability.”

“Then take her with you,” Edge said while pushing you forward. “You said I lacked experience but you can’t say that if she’s the one going.”

“Still can’t shortcut.”

“But I can burn and fly. I’ll be faster and I’ll know how to move. Let me go with you or I will find my own way elsewhere.” You grabbed for Sans’ jacket and pulled him closer. “I’m not going to leave him behind.”

“Then I’l stay behind here to wait for your safe return while also keeping an eye light on our hosts,” Edge explained, sounding more in charge than before. He sounded like a captain of the guards.

Sans looked hopelessly over at you and sighed deeply enough to drop his shoulders. “Fine, princess, you ride with me, but if you get in trouble for any reason I’l kicking you back, deal?” 

He didn't say he would jump back as well, betraying how much he cared for his double in a slip of the tongue you noticed. 

You looked back at Edge and then nodded to Sans. “I got it.”

Sans took a deep breath and then took your hands, guiding you to where the leftover scar still lingered. The residual magic left behind to ‘scab’ over the tear was easy enough to find and exploit. The darkness came up to greet you once more before everything changed-not for the first time and not for the last time. 

 

Notes:

It's a little delayed in its release because I legit forgot what day it was after Christmas/birthday craziness. (I also got Animal Crossing so I'm grinding for bells and disassociating from the rest of the world.)

Next chapter is the last in the arch (for real this time) and it's a very transparent power fantasy of mine playing out in a shambling disguise as plot.

Chapter 70: Young & Menace 15

Notes:

It's not a body horror warning but you're fighting a monster in this chapter and some of those details might be discomforting. If you're sensitive to fantasy gore you might want to skip to the *** part of the story.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

The void wasn’t like space exactly, there was still a limited supply of oxygen and a substance as solid as warm molasses that became fog like when you burned it away. It was manageable this time around, but you knew it was more vast than any earthly ocean and ten times as scary, so you didn’t take any premature relief in the fact that you were able to push your way through the mess.

“Can you see him now?” Sans asked from your side. He held onto your elbow and seemed reluctant to let you go, least you drift out of reach or be snatched away completely.

“Hang on, lemme check. I’ve never tried to use my map inside the void before.”

You took a deep breath and braced for the mental load while holding Sans’ hand, shifting his grip from elbow to palm. He squeezed back just as the mental data began to flood your brain. Everything in the void was vivid in a way it never had been elsewhere. You could see colors you couldn’t name and didn’t understand even as you watched them bleed into new shades while paining a grid like pattern to map out the nearest surrounding area of the void. You pushed it and zoomed out, nearly dropping when the mental strain made everything go hazy before the picture shifted into focus. You could see the void and you could see…

“We’re not as alone as we thought,” you gasped, still blind to everything going on around you. Sans tugged you closer and you pushed your map to expand. “There are fragments and debris all over the landscape and it’s a mess of 3D graphics but I can…I’m… I’ll find him.”

“I know you will, princess.”

There was a glare of something new and your entire map went fuzzy and screamed inside your brain the way bright lights would sometimes make your ears ring, only way worse. You felt something wet drop through your nose and tasted blood on your lip but pushed on and saw something familiar on the edge of your map.

Actually, a couple familiar things, but the one you were focused on was a crimson colored ‘Sans’ dot not too far below and to the left of you.

“I found him, down and that direction, hurry!” you yelled while reaching to throw your arms around San’s neck so you could drift along with him while watching the map, still blind to the rest of the void.

There were so many broken fragments of people or things that had names written in hands and you wondered if these were fragments of other Gasters or if they were natives to the void that had been broken up by something larger. If you looked at one too long the name began to shift and you knew, without knowing how, that if you stared too long you’d be able to read their names and that was a bad thing. You didn’t know why it was a bad thing, but it was something the most primal and ancient part of you knew on an instinctual level.

Don’t mess with the void least it mess with you.

“Where now?”

“Keep descending, we’re almost on top of him.”

You felt yourself drop and almost slip off of Sans’ shoulders but his other arm reached out to wrap around your waist and pin you close to his side, keeping you from falling away. You felt his breath or the static of his magic when he whispered into your hair that he wasn’t going to let you go.

“I got’cha,”

Something close to Red on the map made things go fuzzy again so you tried to zoom in and reduce the data load on your brain-you were already faint from the effort-but the distortions only continued and even increased in severity.

S H N I K

Like an ocular migraine a part of your mental vision shattered and a kaleidoscopic scar marred your mental map. -HURT!- You couldn’t see around it and then the ringing in your ears only throbbed louder and harder.

Your other trips into the void had never been this bad and you were starting to feel sick to your stomach as you shook with convulsions- trying to fight through the pain and be useful again. You refused to fall apart so close to the finish line, not when Red was right there!

Sans could only stay inside the void for so long before he would have to eject if he wanted to end up the same place he entered into. You could feel his magic like a rubber band, stretching from your entry point to where you were now. More than distance time wound it tighter and drew it taunt. You didn’t have a lot of time but you were beginning to doubt you’d last longer than Sans’ endurance.

“Hurry please, I’m losing sight of him,” you whispered into his neck before burying you face to hide the blood or how sick you probably looked. You needed to hold on a little longer more, just a little longer. Red was so close, you couldn’t give up now.

“I see him!” Sans shouted.

You tried to look at your map but it was still a broken mess so you turned it off and opened your one good eye.

 

T̸̃ ͕̣͔͋̌̚͠ ̧̦̞̰̞̻͉̱͔͈͌̄̾̄͊̕̚͝͝ r ̶̀͗ ̒̏̐̈́͘͝ͅ o ̴̊̈́̌́̽͌͝ ͚̟͍̯ ̷̧̮͉̭̿̉̓̈̂̾̾͝ ͚̣ ̷̹͕̏̅͂͂́́͌̇̕̚ t ̴̧͍̞͉̎̉̂̒͑͂͐͐ h ̷̮̰̈ ͙ e ̷͗̃̈ ͇̫͈͛̑̿̕̚ ̵̡̃̀̐ ̮̳̺̰̣̫̘̫͜ g ̵̜͑́̂ h ̴̢͍̹̤̥͎̌̈́̾͠ o ̷̳̼̬̞͍̙̹̜̌̈͑̀͒̓̉̉͠ u ̷̛̻̰̪̖̼̠͔̟͈̹͂̀͌̉́̓͐̇͝ l ̵̈̀̑ ͎̗̹̱͇͛͂͛̄͗͂͊ - ̵̠̝̯̻̣̠̇ͅ g ̶̉͆̚͝ ̝̲͎̩̗̂͛͗͘͜ u ̵͍͇̟̿̈́͒̄̔͗̚͠ a ̴ ̡̘̲̟̠͛͜͜ r ̵̲̐̈ d̸̈́̑ ̐ ̧̯̲̤͇̤͇͉͜ ͌͒͂̕͝͝ ͙̬̙̟͜ d ̵̧̢̦͍̹͍̹̱͑͑ ̸ ̐͂̂̕ ͇̠͉̭̲̺̥͔̖̰͛͂̊ g̸̓ ̨̡͈̣̝͖̳̥͌̄̉̑̅̌̃̑ a ̴̌̈̽͠ ̭̹̌͘ t ̶̢̨̨̳̗̤̜͍̞̇̈́̈̄́ e ̷̛̖̝̠̹̆͂͐̆̋̉̐͠ w ̷̱̣̣͊̏̆ ̙͇͜ a ̶̢̖̰͖͇̉ y ̵̧̡̛͓͉͖͎͊͊̊̊̽̿̈́ͅ ̺̺ s ̴̡̪͓̪̈́͊̔ ͚̰̝̖͜ ̵̢̛̹͍̹̲̝̠̙̒͆̍͠ o ̶̔ ̫̳̜̎͘ f ̷̗͊͗̆̈͝ ̴͉̍̈́̇̇ ̺̘ ̢̟̬ s ̵̧̛̙͊̃̏͌͋͆̊͠ l ̷̈́ ̨̯̩̹̺͛͒͛̊̈́́͠͝ͅͅ u ̴̧̜̪̏͋̊̒̋͝ m ̶͎̫͗̇́ b ̶̮̝̰̟͔̃̇͠ ͜ e ̴̭͍͎̣̣͕̥̋̇̓͒ ͌̾ ̣͛ , ̷̭̋̇̽̃̽͑͝ ͙̯̰̘̫̳

 

“Don’t look at it!” you screamed before your one good eye could catch the corruption.

Like a familiar nightmare you could feel it, knocking on the door to your soul, ready to break it down and make your body a house of bones.

 

̷̰̺̗̭̹̯̲̆̊̑̒̉͐̿̐ ̴̡̖̺̗̲͓̲̎̃ ̶̯̱̯̹̖̼͚̳͎̅̋̚͘ ̵͕̉̔͋̈́͛̽͝ ̵̫͛̆̎͂̉ ̴͔̣̫͔̣̲̑̔̈́͊ ̵̛͓̹͚̾̃̋̎̊̿͛̚͠ ̶̧̤̤̜̠̅ ̵̬̼̼̼̄͐̓̒̽̚͜ ̶̻̤̯̝͗͐̈̊͐̈́ ̵̼̮̳̹̪̭̲̖̮̿͆͛̕̚P̶̢͓̳̟̥͋̌̒̏͝ą̷̖̳͖̘͍̼̤͐̽̉s̸͍̖̞̖͗̐̇̎̾͛̑̽̎t̶̜̖̘̳̹͚̤͐̇̍͛͝͝ ̸̧͓͖̝̫͎̱̱̑ṯ̶̢͉̭̲͈̼̣̜̘̼̠͇͈̺̝̹̹̑̏͗̅͌̽̅͊͆͂̿͆̽e̷̞̺̤̱̾̔̉̊̿̈́̕͝͝ ̶͎͇̠͎̓͂̔̊͌́̇͌́͐̾̈́̍ạ̴̰͂̈͝ǹ̷̜̑̈́̃-̶̯̪̻̯͎͑͒̂̓̔m̴̛͍̥̙̮̯̯͍̠̆̓̇̆̉͆̍͜͝ǫ̵̛̖͒̎̀̊́̈͠ǫ̶̥̟̮̱͓̰̘͝ņ̷̷̥̭̟̟͕̹͕͈̲̬̰̱̜̔̃̓̾̓̒̌͒͒͝d̵̨̨̰̠̫̙̪̯̠͊ ̶̛̜̗̿̇͑͛̔̔͝ͅä̶͈̙̙̻͕́̃̐͛͠b̷̦̩͓̮̲̺͔̘͍͆̿͆̉̉̆̔̃̎͜ŷ̵̡̢̏̉̓̎̈̽̒̕s̷͇̥̱̞͎̑̎͛̑͂̒͛̀͒͠s̶̨̡̮͔̗̙̹͕͓̑̅͝͠ë̵̪̞̣́̈̅ş̸̼̮͇̫̣̈́̓̃͂͆̈̈́̓ ̷̛͕̰͌̆͌̚̚ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘f̶̧̡̡̥͑̊ ̷̛̯̪͉͑n̵̡̘̥̟̥̹̥͍̓̈́͊̽̇͑͝͝͠i̷͔̻͒̊̔͒̄̕ģ̷͇̭̻̙̹̈́̌ẖ̶̱͚̎̒̋̈́̔̆̓̏͝͝,̵̱̺̥̥͙͉̖͚̇

̸̢͉̠̦́͜

You shoved off Sans and pushed away enough to draw up your magic; enough of it to manifest at least two horns, but you fused them together instead to make a bone visor over both your eyes-even if the one was already useless.

“What the hell is that thing?” Sans panicked, closing his eyes (you hoped). “It’s huge!”

You had only caught a glimpse of it, but you realized now why your mental map had broken and shattered in your mind the way it had. You didn’t have the cognitive capabilities to comprehend something so massive and ancient. Your brain couldn't make something like that fit; A native to the void to start with, it was more than just a nightmare-

 

Some thing had been in the void, something you saw-something that tried to reach inside you and make your body its home. Something tried to enter you and you-you-youyouyou-

Ţ̸͕̣͔̦̞̰̞̻͉̱͔͈̃͋̌͌̄̾̄͊̚̕̚͠͝͝r̶̀͗̒̏̐̈́͘͝ͅo̴̷̧͚̟͍̯̮͉̭͚̣̊̈́̌́̽͌̿̉̓̈̂̾̾͝͝ ̷̹͕̏̅͂͂́́͌̇̕̚ţ̴͍̞͉̎̉̂̒͑͂͐͐ḫ̷̰͙̈e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚ ̵̡̮̳̺̰̣̫̘̫̃̀̐͜g̵̜͑́̂ȟ̴̢͍̹̤̥͎̈́̾͠ǒ̷̳̼̬̞͍̙̹̜̈͑̀͒̓̉̉͠ư̷̻̰̪̖̼̠͔̟͈̹͂̀͌̉́̓͐̇͝l̵͎̗̹̱͇̈̀̑͛͂͛̄͗͂͊-̵̠̝̯̻̣̠̇ͅg̶̝̲͎̩̗̉͆̂͛͗̚͘͜͝u̵͍͇̟̿̈́͒̄̔͗̚͠a̴̡̘̲̟̠͛͜͜r̵̲̐̈ḑ̸̯̲̤͇̤͇͉͙̬̙̟̈́̑̐͌͒͂̕͜͜͝͝ḑ̵̢̦͍̹͍̹̱͑͑ ̸͇̠͉̭̲̺̥͔̖̰̐͂̂͛͂̊̕g̸̨̡͈̣̝͖̳̥̓͌̄̉̑̅̌̃̑ǎ̴̭̹̈̽̌͘͠ṫ̶̢̨̨̳̗̤̜͍̞̈́̈̄́ĕ̷̛̖̝̠̹͂͐̆̋̉̐͠w̷̱̣̣̙͇͊̏̆͜ả̶̢̖̰͖͇y̵̧̡̛͓͉͖͎̺̺͊͊̊̊̽̿̈́ͅs̴̡̪͓̪͚̰̝̖̈́͊̔͜ ̵̢̛̹͍̹̲̝̠̙̒͆̍͠o̶̫̳̜̔̎͘f̷̗͊͗̆̈͝ ̴̢͉̺̘̟̬̍̈́̇̇ş̵̛̙͊̃̏͌͋͆̊͠l̷̨̯̩̹̺̈́͛͒͛̊̈́́͠͝ͅͅȕ̴̧̜̪͋̊̒̋͝m̶͎̫͗̇́b̶̮̝̰̟͔̃̇͜͠ḙ̴͍͎̣̣͕̥̣̋̇̓͒͌̾͛,̷̭͙̯̰̘̫̳̋̇̽̃̽͑͝

-Cut it out before it could grab a foothold!

 

-It was a true Horror.

Sans called your name but you were already covering yourself with feathers and armoring yourself with harden flames like some dark, igneous monolith with edges sharper than glass. The transformation came in an instant but felt too long.

A double pair of wings from your back pushed you forward and a ring of flames spread out from the halo around your skull, burning up the darkness around you and making movement even more manageable.

You were literally blind but somehow you could hear what was in front of you and the memories painted a safe enough mental picture. A long time ago, when you had both your eyes, you had done this before…

“Don’t look at it, Sans, whatever you do don’t look at it and don't let it fucking see you. We gotta get Red out.”

“He was wrapped all up. I saw it grab him outta the air,” he said.

Perfect. “I know, get ready to catch.”

“Without looking?”

You reached out just enough to feel his arm and knew it was there reaching back for you. When you spoke a little more of the manic fear left your body for his sake. “I trust you.”

Sans just laughed and you took off, heart hammering in your chest a million miles a minute. You were terrified and there was ice in your veins. Every movement felt like you were breaking yourself to achieve, but you pushed yourself through with a strength that wasn’t enterally your own. Edge was waiting for his brother. The Horror boys were looking forward to more of those ‘world famous sad water dogs’ of Red’s, and the rest of the family would be incomplete without him. You could be brave for one of the bravest monsters you knew.

For Red.

You flew close enough to feel the chill off it and flared hotter, if only to keep yourself from freezing. Your magic manifested into a whip in one hand and a spear in the other.  When something loomed close you banked sharply and threw your spear into the mass, hearing a satisfying ‘thunk’ and subsequent hiss as something on fire touched something colder than space. In your mind you imagined it was one of those slithering arm-tentacles you remember the creature being covered in.

‘1 down 1000 more to go,’ you sarcastically quipped before diving straight down and spinning through the grasp of several others, feeling where they were instead of seeing them. All the magic you layered yourself with helped you feel and see the dangers around you. There were a couple more ‘thunk-thunk’ sounds and you laughed when you recognized the sound and feel of Sans’ bone magic.

“I got ‘cha back here princess, keep it up!” Sans yelled back.

From your first encounter to this, you would have never imagined that the Sans who gave you bruises would follow you into the void months later and face down your worst fear with you.

You touched down and pushed off another arm, thick as a bus and leathery like something that lived in the water. You ran along it before pushing off again and felt the texture under your heel change from tough and leathery to wet and squishy. There was a shiver and you realized you had stepped in one of its eyes.You struck it with your whip and it recoiled in time to give you the opening you needed.

It was screaming at you but the noise didn’t ring true in your brain so long as you were blind to it. You cut through another layer of it with your newest spear and threw your whip down when you heard Red finally in reach. Your magic reached for his all on its own and you were more than happy to let it. He was the metal to your magnet after all. You pulled at the coils around him and burned them away, flaring brighter and hotter when you felt how painfully cold he was.

“Red! Red, wake up. You gotta move for me, buddy. Come on,” you desperately cried while tearing through what you could with your bare hands. Everything stung and the mass seemed to regrow almost as soon as you burned it away, frustrating you. It seemed fire didn’t do as much good as you first assumed.

“I’m not letting you go,” you snarled in new anger as a second pair of horns manifest, completing a crown with four points and an eye shield. Another pair of wings emerged and the rest of your body flared with new vents for magic that spewed feathers and fire.

When the fifth horn started to emerge you let your fire go out and the core of magic at your center tuned in on itself. You felt it pop.

Like a spark on oil you flared up with new, brighter, hotter magic that came from something else; the process of fusion. It had you screaming and the world of arms around you pulled away, recoiling from your own personal starlight. Unlike before when you had tried to use fusion magic the efforts had always only hurt you and been beyond your control, but now that you were older, stronger, more broken,  more loved for it, and surrounded by darkness; the control was yours for the taking.

A small voice in the back of your mind thought back to when your soul had been pierced and healed by all your boys and realized their efforts and that trauma had only made your soul stronger for the long run. Not the breaking but the mending, not the hurt but the love made you stronger.

Slithering arms reached for you but there were eight wings on your back stretching far and burning through their meat before they could curl around your mass. It hissed horribly and you pushed through it to reach for Red. You had to make yourself safe for contact first; Your hands cooled to harmless palms and fingers for him as you pulled him free while the rest of your transformed body burned a way out for the both of you.

Sans was nearby, screaming your name franticly as the monstrosity above you waited and rolled. You wounded it any way you could as you flew around it, soaring past its skyscraper mass.

Then, like the clouds covering the sun, a mass of arms coiled together and you had to throw Red behind you and bend your wings in to block against the collected attack. You burned brighter and began to sear your way through.

When the sixth horn materialized you hardly noticed it.

“I’m not letting an ugly motherfucker like you touch any of my family damn it!” you snarled in a voice that might not have been yours for how deep it echoed in the void around you. You had a mouth full of angry teeth and you were ready to bite your way to freedom if you needed to!

Sans called your voice again and there were more bone attacks tackling the arms in your way-a lot of them-enough to fill a small skyscraper with.

“Get the fuck out of there,” he screamed in desperation to you.

You flared with new vigor and grabbed Red with your one hand and soared up through the opening Sans had helped make for you.

You rocketed out of there and as you drew closer Sans reached for your free hand and you reached back, letting the magic leave you fingers there so he wouldn’t be burned. He felt smaller when you tugged him along, back the way you came and towards the original scar you had come through. Sans’ magic was tight and ready to snap.

“I got us,” he said before managing one last thing.

The world opened up and like a hole in the darkness, everything else shrank from the light except for you.

***

You and Sans tumbled free and Red rolled limply along behind you, alive but out cold. Edge cried out in alarm and ran for you as your feathers started to turn to ash along with your horns and eye shield. The nature of your magic reverted to fire and it was like being taken off steroids as new weight entered your body and made you fall off your hands and knees into the dirt.

Sans was on his back, gasping and out of breath. He looked almost worse than you with dark smudges under his sockets and a dull shade to his bone. There were beads of sweat all over his brow and you could tell he was nearly all out of juice without even having to check.

When you looked to his eyes and tried to call out you saw his eyesights wink out before his sockets closed and he returned to unconsciousness.

Behind you Edge was shaking his brother and calling his name, cursing Red for getting lost in the void. “What happened to him? He’s covered in ice and his magic is nearly drained.” Then Edge reached over and smeared the ash off your face and grimaced at the caked blood. When he said your name it was a soft, sort of hurt.

“I’m fine. He was-we found Red tied up and getting sucked dry like a juice pack by something native to the void. He’s out of it because his magic but I’m sure he needs healing. His heath…”

“It’s in fractions! He only had 1HP, even if he slept in to come here with 2HP,” Edge finished for you with a grim expression. “Are any of the Gasters healers?”

“Not that I know of and neither is Raven. You’re the only one here who would know how to,” you gasped out, throat raw and ragged.

Edge snapped to look up at you and his eye lights shrank. “Me? I-I can’t. My magic hasn’t worked for healing in years. I can’t use green magic.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

.07

“If it wasn’t than I would have healed you when you were hurt! I-I didn’t and I couldn’t. I can only-I’m only good for combat.”

You were covered in ash and black charcoal flakes that fell away when you moved, but you wiped your face as well as you could and crawled across the dirt to kneel across from Red and stare up at Edge. He said your name and it sounded like a plea.

“Edge, he’s your brother. He needs you. I know you still have it in you. Please, save him. I’m begging you.”

.06

He whispered your name again and bowed his head but you reached for his wrist and grabbed it tightly enough to get him to look up again. But you didn’t say anything. You didn’t need to. He saw your look and the determination in your gaze and understood perfectly what you were trying to convey.

“I’ll try.”

“No, you’ll do it,” you corrected him.

Edge breathed deep and sat up, pulling his spine straight and holding himself poised over his unconscious brother. There were bruises under Red’s sockets and a dull color to his bones that was not unlike Sans’ to be anything other than Serious Exhaustion.

.05

Edge summoned his magic, nebulous and unfiltered into one of the colored domains. Then he forced it to turn green and pushed it into Red. It slipped off and pulled away, but Edge pushed on, pouring more and more of his magic into the green, filtered color. It came out dark and then muddy and then there were veins of neon green in the muck that started to seep into Red.

When you checked again his HP had stopped slipping.

“You’re doing it, you got this. You’re saving your brother, you’re not going to let him go like this. You’re going to save him, Edge,” you encouraged from the sidelines, watching as the younger brother did all he could to master a broken skill.

You didn’t know the details behind his trauma but you knew that no matter what they were, with all the help he’s had, all the work he’s put into bettering himself, and all the love he had for his brother that he would be able to conquer his fear for the sake of saving Red.

.07

“You’re getting the hang of this again, you’ve got this, you’re doing so well,” you said.

.075

And then with a slip and a pop the muddy green magic spilled out and only vibrant meadow green pushed into Red, making your surroundings glow like the inside of a tinted glass house. It was a moment that lasted longer than it did, but the beauty stopped your breath before it was over and all of Edge’s green magic went into Red bringing him up.

.08

.09

1HP

“Red!” Edge shouted in exhaustion, stumbling back on his hands.

You touched Red and felt him stir but stay unconscious. “He’s going to be okay, but he needs rest.”

Edge wasn’t nearly as rough as you or the other boys, but he looked shaken and you couldn’t blame him. Overcoming such a deep seeded trauma to save his brother had taken a different kind of toll on him. But when he spoke it was to say your name. You looked up and saw him watching you with a keen awareness that missed nothing.

“What happened to you in the void? You both look far worse than any of the times Red explored.”

“A native,” was all you said before you doubled over and turned just in time to empty your stomach into the dirt away from either of them. Edge leapt to his feet and ran around to crouch down alongside you and touch your back with one hand while he pulled your hair out of your face with the other.

“I’m fine, just woozy,” you grumbled.

When you looked up through your lashes you could see Red and Sans both knocked out in the dirt, looking too similar to each other in their exhaustion. It wasn’t good that both of your tickets home were out of commission.

Had Raven planned this? Or had one of the Gasters at least anticipated this? The chances of meeting one of those things-even a tiny one-was too improbable to chalk up as coincidence.

You felt Edge’s cool touch scraping along your skull as he finger-combed back your hair. “You’re unwell at the very least. I haven’t forgotten you never wanted to go back in the first place but you did for the sake of my…bone headed brother.”

“I think he was the one who pushed me out in the first place. I-I was having a panic attack and I felt something or someone push me away and then Gaster grabbed me before shortcutting out. Before Gaster had a hold of me I could have sworn it was Red who got me clear. I owed him this much.”

“You don’t owe anyone anything for doing what they want to.”

“Then lemme say it this way; I love Red too much to leave him behind. I don’t care where I have to go to drag him back,” you said before reaching out to take one of Red’s hands in yours and then reach behind your shoulder to take one of Edge’s. “I’ll walk through hell on my hands and knees for the both of you.”

“Just as we would gladly do for you,” Edge said, speaking for both himself and his brother.

You groaned and pushed up off the ground and stared out through the hole in the wall to where the barn house stood. No one had bothered to come out and check on you. Had they not felt the magic? Had they cared?

“Edge…I might start another fight tonight.”

He glared at the farmhouse, standing up behind you, shrugging off his jacket as he went. You felt the weight settle on your shoulders as he leaned closer. “You feel the need to?”

“We are at a tactical disadvantage with both of our transporters out of commission. They’re also vulnerable here like this.”

His hands reached down in front of you to button the front of his jacket once you had your arms through the sleeves. You were still covered in cracked charcoal, but that would fall off once you moved more. Edge caught a flake by your neck and leaned in close. “You want me to call Stretch or Black?”

You glanced back over your shoulder and smirked. “You don’t think we can take all of them on our own?”

“Oh no, we certainly can, but it’s always nice to have a clean up crew on hand to deal with the messes.”

“I’m not planning on dusting anyone, but I might hurt someone real bad if I don’t like what I hear. They knew more than they told us and I’m getting the whole story or I’m not leaving here,” you said.

“Fine with me,” Edge admitted with a smirk. He glanced back at his brother and then at the farmhouse. “But we should move the both of them out of the way first.”

You set out to help Edge pick up one of the boys and followed him outside to the far side of the barn where the grasses were tall enough to tickle your elbows. You set down Sans next to Red and pushed the grasses around to hide them both before jogging with Edge back into the area, past the old scar, and then out the far side to be in view of the farmhouse.

There was a commotion from the kitchen and the closer you drew the more clear the voices became. They were arguing about you, saying they should leave you all be vs. tracking you down to see what the magic usage was about.

Raven looked up when you stepped into the room and grinned at the sight of you. That grin fell off fast when you grabbed at his throat and kicked out one of his legs, landing him on his ass with your fingers around his neck and a knife made of flames pointed at Dee who was the closest.

“You are going to tell me the truth this time and if you so much as utter a single falsehood I will burn this place to the studs with you in it, so help me,” you snarled.

Behind you Edge flanked you confidently with is bone sword out at a ready stance.

Winn was complaining but Gaster held out an arm to keep the younger monster hybrid from rushing in.

Raven said your name but you squeezed his neck and he turned his eyes upwards. “What do you want to know?” he asked in as passive a tone he could mage with only half his voice.

“Did you really not know where Hightower ran off to or what he wanted?” you asked.

“I told you I didn’t! That’s why we needed your map to help us track him down. An-sck-I told you all I knew about the rest of it. Hightower never told me what he was searching for.”

“But you knew what it was or you had a suspicion.” You leaned in closer and some of your stray hair stands fell out from behind your ears and hit him across the face. “You were there when I cut my own eye out to keep myself free. You fucking knew what I went through.”

“Hey,” Winn cried from behind you. Edge didn’t lower his sword but stayed poised, refusing to fall for any sort of baiting. “He already told you all this. What are you getting so worked up for now?”

You glared back over your shoulder through your lashes and Winn almost flinched at how cold the look turned out to be. “Maybe,” you started while turning back to face Raven. “It’s because I now know where Hightower is and what he wants.”

“You know where Hightower is?” Dee asked, stepping back and sounding interested.

“Are you really so surprised to know he was hiding out in the void all this time with a brand new pet on a leash?”   

Raven went still and cold under you, confirming the least of your suspicions. “No.”

“Yup, saw him on my map before that went scratch and I had a fun little run in with one of those baby natives I was always telling you about. Nearly drained my friend dry and we barely got out with our lives but yeah, go on and tell me again how you didn’t know that Hightower was trying to fucking make contact with those literal abominations!”

The honest horror on your brother’s face brought you no joy, even as you let go and eased up on his neck. You pulled away and stood up, allowing him to do the same. No one stirred for a moment, but everyone had wandering gazes, looking to each other for answers and reactions.

“How-how did you know?” Raven asked.

It took everything in you not to laugh like some manic PTSD survivor at his question. “We had to go back for Red and pull him out, but the native was already sucking on him like a juice box so naturally we had to tango.”

“But how did you know it was Hightower?” Dee asked.

“The damn mental map you wanted me to use in the first place, smart-ass. He was there, on the edge of where that thing resided. He wasn’t taking damage either so either it didn’t notice him or thought they were family.

“He has to be stopped,” Dee said, looking to Raven and then to Gaster who no longer had to hold Winn back.  “We can’t let him unleash those nightmares upon the mortal world.”

Raven rushed to try and explain himself. “He can’t. Nothing is big enough for them to get through. Even with the biggest opening to the void one could-”

“Get a baby or an adolescent through,” you finished for him. “They’re like cats and can slither through if the opening is wide enough for their core-which that one nearly is! That was his plan all along.”

Raven looked lost and glanced over at Gaster and Winn before looking around for Dee. No one seemed shocked or amazed by the revelation like Raven was. You grabbed him to keep him still and then whispered low.

“If he finds a smaller adolescent and tries to bring it through that football sized pit from their last base, that’s it for a lot of human and monster lives,” you said before taking a seat to hold your head.

It didn't matter that the human government was now in control of that base. It didn't matter that Hightower had been chased out and was on the run. He was too old and too keen not to have some backup plan. He had always been two steps ahead of you at every turn, so you didn't doubt this also fell into his plans somehow. Were you a test? Was he just taking his time with the final step? 

Your empty eye socket throbbed with phantom pains and your head rang with white noise from a budding migraine. You remembered too keenly the last time you had seen the monster and nearly died, sacrificing your eye like a pinned limb just to get out and stay free before it could live inside you.

You also remembered recognizing some of that same horror in Hightower’s eyes when he would look at you, too cold and keen to be comfortable around.

His eyes were sharp and cold, devoid of love or affection. If you stared long enough you could swear you saw flickers of movement in the iris of his eyes-dark swirling shadows.

Shit.

Hightower was going to end the world and it was only a matter of time.

 

 

 

 

Ţ̸͕̣͔̦̞̰̞̻͉̱͔͈̃͋̌͌̄̾̄͊̚̕̚͠͝͝r̶̀͗̒̏̐̈́͘͝ͅo̴̷̧͚̟͍̯̮͉̭͚̣̊̈́̌́̽͌̿̉̓̈̂̾̾͝͝ ̷̹͕̏̅͂͂́́͌̇̕̚ţ̴͍̞͉̎̉̂̒͑͂͐͐ḫ̷̰͙̈e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚ ̵̡̮̳̺̰̣̫̘̫̃̀̐͜g̵̜͑́̂ȟ̴̢͍̹̤̥͎̈́̾͠ǒ̷̳̼̬̞͍̙̹̜̈͑̀͒̓̉̉͠ư̷̻̰̪̖̼̠͔̟͈̹͂̀͌̉́̓͐̇͝l̵͎̗̹̱͇̈̀̑͛͂͛̄͗͂͊-̵̠̝̯̻̣̠̇ͅg̶̝̲͎̩̗̉͆̂͛͗̚͘͜͝u̵͍͇̟̿̈́͒̄̔͗̚͠a̴̡̘̲̟̠͛͜͜r̵̲̐̈ḑ̸̯̲̤͇̤͇͉͙̬̙̟̈́̑̐͌͒͂̕͜͜͝͝ḑ̵̢̦͍̹͍̹̱͑͑ ̸͇̠͉̭̲̺̥͔̖̰̐͂̂͛͂̊̕g̸̨̡͈̣̝͖̳̥̓͌̄̉̑̅̌̃̑ǎ̴̭̹̈̽̌͘͠ṫ̶̢̨̨̳̗̤̜͍̞̈́̈̄́ĕ̷̛̖̝̠̹͂͐̆̋̉̐͠w̷̱̣̣̙͇͊̏̆͜ả̶̢̖̰͖͇y̵̧̡̛͓͉͖͎̺̺͊͊̊̊̽̿̈́ͅs̴̡̪͓̪͚̰̝̖̈́͊̔͜ ̵̢̛̹͍̹̲̝̠̙̒͆̍͠o̶̫̳̜̔̎͘f̷̗͊͗̆̈͝ ̴̢͉̺̘̟̬̍̈́̇̇ş̵̛̙͊̃̏͌͋͆̊͠l̷̨̯̩̹̺̈́͛͒͛̊̈́́͠͝ͅͅȕ̴̧̜̪͋̊̒̋͝m̶͎̫͗̇́b̶̮̝̰̟͔̃̇͜͠ḙ̴͍͎̣̣͕̥̣̋̇̓͒͌̾͛,̷̭͙̯̰̘̫̳̋̇̽̃̽͑͝

̷̰̺̗̭̹̯̲̆̊̑̒̉͐̿̐ ̴̡̖̺̗̲͓̲̎̃ ̶̯̱̯̹̖̼͚̳͎̅̋̚͘ ̵͕̉̔͋̈́͛̽͝ ̵̫͛̆̎͂̉ ̴͔̣̫͔̣̲̑̔̈́͊ ̵̛͓̹͚̾̃̋̎̊̿͛̚͠ ̶̧̤̤̜̠̅ ̵̬̼̼̼̄͐̓̒̽̚͜ ̶̻̤̯̝͗͐̈̊͐̈́ ̵̼̮̳̹̪̭̲̖̮̿͆͛̕̚P̶̢͓̳̟̥͋̌̒̏͝ą̷̖̳͖̘͍̼̤͐̽̉s̸͍̖̞̖͗̐̇̎̾͛̑̽̎t̶̜̖̘̳̹͚̤͐̇̍͛͝͝ ̸̧͓͖̝̫͎̱̱̑ṯ̶̢͉̭̲͈̼̣̜̘̼̠͇͈̺̝̹̹̑̏͗̅͌̽̅͊͆͂̿͆̽e̷̞̺̤̱̾̔̉̊̿̈́̕͝͝ ̶͎͇̠͎̓͂̔̊͌́̇͌́͐̾̈́̍ạ̴̰͂̈͝ǹ̷̜̑̈́̃-̶̯̪̻̯͎͑͒̂̓̔m̴̛͍̥̙̮̯̯͍̠̆̓̇̆̉͆̍͜͝ǫ̵̛̖͒̎̀̊́̈͠ǫ̶̥̟̮̱͓̰̘͝ņ̷̷̥̭̟̟͕̹͕͈̲̬̰̱̜̔̃̓̾̓̒̌͒͒͝d̵̨̨̰̠̫̙̪̯̠͊ ̶̛̜̗̿̇͑͛̔̔͝ͅä̶͈̙̙̻͕́̃̐͛͠b̷̦̩͓̮̲̺͔̘͍͆̿͆̉̉̆̔̃̎͜ŷ̵̡̢̏̉̓̎̈̽̒̕s̷͇̥̱̞͎̑̎͛̑͂̒͛̀͒͠s̶̨̡̮͔̗̙̹͕͓̑̅͝͠ë̵̪̞̣́̈̅ş̸̼̮͇̫̣̈́̓̃͂͆̈̈́̓ ̷̛͕̰͌̆͌̚̚ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘f̶̧̡̡̥͑̊ ̷̛̯̪͉͑n̵̡̘̥̟̥̹̥͍̓̈́͊̽̇͑͝͝͠i̷͔̻͒̊̔͒̄̕ģ̷͇̭̻̙̹̈́̌ẖ̶̱͚̎̒̋̈́̔̆̓̏͝͝,̵̱̺̥̥͙͉̖͚̇

̸̢͉̠̦́͜ ̸̧͍͚̯͎̘͛̌͌̇͒͋ ̶͍͖̜̙̃̅͆͐ ̴̢̰̦͎̭̞͉͙̪̅͆̃͆͗̉̇́̕͝ ̸̧̠̗̱͔̠̄͗̊ ̸̮̣̫͓͇̲̝͇̙̊͆̃̍̈̈̿̿͌̎͜Î̵̢̝͈̲̈͜ ̶̨̨̨̛̛͔̣̬̹͔͇͔̼̬̺͚͕̰̐͗̅̐̾̀̍͗͜͠a̵̤̘͓̥̭̻̾͌v̷̙̙̠͈̣̐͆è̷̼̞ ̵̧̧̳̘̣̅̇̀̽̽́̓͝l̴̨̧̛̲̙̲̥͙̠̫̠̊̊͗͛̍͛̑î̶͍̲̥̖̤͓͔͒ͅv̴̛̼̝̬̂̓̈̒͆’̸̫͊̓͒̋̕͝d̷̛̝̬̫̓͌̉͆͗́͌̚ ̸͉̠̓̕ǫ̵̵͔͓͇͚̩̫̪̠͙̇̓͋̿͜ͅę̸̫̤̟̋̇̈̋̊̎̌͝r̶̯̦̘̘̹̘͍̖͒̋̽̽̂ ̸̖̼̞̜̺͈̝͉̓͜m̷̛̫̻̘̙̎̎͆̽̆̿́͜y̷̧̩̤͔̲̪̣̒͑̽̐̿͗̽̚͜ͅ ̷̛͖̠̌̓̇̐̏͋͋͝l̷͓̘̂̿i̴̥̞͔̎̊͠ͅv̷̢̤͈̯͉̙̰̮͇̘̻̠̲̲͔̅͂̊͐͊̓͌̓̈́̚s̷̛͔̗̫͍̑̏͌͑̾͛̈́̓̏ ̸̡̙̥̳̬̣̬͉̦̪͚͇̲̟̖̪̺̀̎̃̓̽̓̆̉̊̚͘͝ͅī̵̪̣̲͕̕͜t̵̨̨̹͚͚͉̹͍͇̻̏̄͛͆ḩ̶̣̪̤̜̝̘̝͌̌̒͆̄̌͝ợ̵̢͈̤̞̖͇̱̞̪͔͎́͊̅̅̏̇͑̓̋̍̌͊̚͘ͅt̷̡̖͙̳̘̦̓̐̈́̿̃̿͂̎̅ͅ ̴̛̺̲̞̰̭̤̬̫̃̽͑̂͂͒͛͠ṳ̵̗͛̔͊m̴̤͎͕̜͉̹̳̝͖̦̔̽͒̐̅b̷͕̒̎̄̆̏é̴̼͚̱͚͈͕̠̯̻̱̃͌̔͆͊͋ŗ̷̧̨̨̻̺̮̫̳̙̫̳͎̩̜̐̈̃͛́̓͘̕͘

̶̛̠̼̩̜̾̐̒̓̇ ̶͉̖̮̓̇̾̈́̄̀͌̇̕͝ ̸̧͚̦̤͛̊̋̎͝ ̴̡̨̱͖͑̎̈́̈́̚͠ ̸̪͚̤͉͐͒͜ ̸̖͚̳̼͇̫̈́͌̿͐̈́͝ ̸̠̩͍̗̣͓̕͜ ̸̧͍̊̄̌̀̒̏̏͘ ̷̢͙͔͎̞̠̋̐̊̅̃̉̅̅̅ ̶̺̭̖̺̓͂̉̓̀̽̂͜ ̷͍̲̻̦̼͓͕̱̾̚Ì̶̛̤̰͔̞̣͎̺̩̓̃̓̄͂ ̸̗͈̆̇̈̿̍̀͊̐h̸̡̛͖͍̤̞͎̽̚a̵̧̪͕͖̭̥̝͌̌͜ṿ̵͎̭̘̜̹͍̋̔ḛ̵̛̹̲̪̟̫̩̼͖̟͊̐̒͝ ̵̨̛̹͚̟͚̱̳̎̉́s̴̡̧̝̩̘̣͎̳̓ö̴͚̮̜́͑̌u̴̯̤̜̱͎̳̗̯̓̏̾͗̒̽͝n̶̙̼̲̦̺̼̱̙͑͌̓͒̾̚͘͠͝ͅd̵̜͖̼̞͇̗̰̱̘̔̏̿e̵̬͈͌̆̈͒̿͘͘͝ͅd̵̛͙̚ ̵̝͇̝̍͊ͅa̵̯̹̍̋̋͒̎̽̿͠͝l̵̗̥̗͎̮͖͔̙̒̐l̵̼͔͖̇̓̒̐͆̓̋̍ ̵̺̗̗̠̻͛͜ͅt̵͕̑̐̓̔h̶̡̧̤̮͕̻͎͓̯̎͆̈̍͜͝͝i̵͈͇͇̎̽̈́͗̾͐͌͒n̴̰̮̾̄͐̃̓͆͗̈́͘g̸̢͕̙̀̓̄̐̚ ̴̹̲̦͙͚̩̗̆̀͊̌̒̉̇̓͜ͅẅ̶̢͙͍̬̬͖́̉̒͊̐͜i̵̢̯͊͒͛̌̾̎̒̒͝t̵̝͐̉͌͌̆̉̊̚͠͝h̵̟̫̑́͒͑͂̂ ̶̝̞͕̜̟͓̻̦̻̐̍̈́̿m̵̧͇̮̟̻̱̟̫͊̈́̐̐͒y̵̱̿̉̆́͌̀̀͛̌ ̶͔́s̵̟͖̻̤͕̅͗͜i̶̭̙͇̫̗͎̼̪̙̾̇͛̽͛̊̐̃̾́͜g̵̊͐̈́͊̊ͅh̶͙̹̮̯̳̮̹͊͂̀̅̈́̄̈͛t̴̢̡͇̖̼̍̾̈̅̓;̴̢̜͓̫͌̔̉̍͛̇̃́͘

 

 

Notes:

And that's the last of the Y&M chapters! Happy Season Finale and Happy New Year! Now we know what a huge mess this whole world is going to be in, but at least Red is safe. Also, Edge regained an old ability just in the nick of time. The 'natives' who live in the void are very heavily inspired by Lovecraft lore. I know some were hoping it would have to do with other skeleton iterations who hang out in the void but this is the direction I'm going in. The void is nightmare stuff. It's bad news bears. You don't want to hang out in it longterm.

I'm feeling a little melancholy about this fic since I've been planning and mapping out the outline for it's final story arc this weekend. Once that wraps up LOTRO will be 'complete' and it's kinda scary to think about it that way. The chapters in the last arc are a bit longer so I might be taking a few weeks to break and catch up in February, but we shall see what I can manage.

Chapter 71: Real Ones 1

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

I was just an only child of the universe
And then I found you
And then I found you
You are the sun and I am just the planets
Spinning around you
Spinning around you

You were too good to be true
Gold plated
But what's inside you
But what's inside you
I know this whole damn city thinks it needs you
But not as much as I do
As much as I do, yeah

-Last of the Real Ones
FOB 


SixH was the strongest of his group in terms of raw potential, but it was his mind that set him apart from his peers. He was brilliant, but other children had been brilliant too. SixH had all that intelligence but he followed through with it, never flinching, never caring for the consequences he would have to suffer later.

In addition to his raw magical stores and intelligence, SixH was charismatic and naturally suited for the position of delegator. The other children listened to him and trusted him. That came from years of making the personal sacrifices so they didn’t have to.

One of those was the pit.

They needed more data on why some harnesses came up destroyed and empty. They needed to send down someone who had already revived and finished the final stage of transition from human to mage. The children they were sending down weren’t coming up again and it was too risky to lead another lamb to the slaughter when instead they could send a lion.

SixH didn’t hesitate when they explained the situation to him. He knew the nicknames of the children waiting for their turn to transition and made it a condition of his cooperation that no one else go down into the pit until he could figure out what was wrong. He would make it safe for them.

It was a bold move on his part since children, even transitioned ones, didn’t have the authority to demand anything from them, but his ideals matched with their vision so they allowed him his hubris, so long as they all got the results they wanted.

When they fit him with a custom harness that could hold him there was another mage there with him, watching from beyond the safety tape on the floor. She had gone down after him and her rank was something that made it easy to pass her over, but he had always looked out for her.

On the far wall the other harnesses were hung up and cleaned, but they were all too small for either of them. The oldest child had been fifteen when she went down and the youngest had been nine. SixH was already eighteen and couldn’t be called a child anymore.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked him. “They haven’t even launched probes or the detonators before you. It’s reckless.”

“What if they’re still alive?” he whispered over the rigging of his harness, pretending to struggle with it. “What if they’re still waiting for someone to bring them back?”

“They’re not.”

“But what if they are? Someone has to try,” SixH whispered. When she looked up she saw the same face of the boy who had used his body like a shield for a useless OneT because he could.

“You have to come back. We all need you.”

I need you.’

“They need me to and I owe it to them to give it my best shot.” He started to pull away but stopped and his voice was still a whisper. “I don’t want to leave anyone else in the dark.”

“What about yourself, dumbass?” she whispered through the angry tears she refused to let fall. “You never fucking think of yourself.”

“Not true,” he laughed back at her, jogging backwards to the launch box painted onto the floor. “I’m looking forward to your face when you see me come back. Maybe then I’ll get a kiss out of you.”

“Stupid!”she yelled before turning on her heel and stomping up the stairs to the observation deck. She was one of the oldest so she had access to it even if she was considered near worthless by the rest of the organization.   

“Standby for void spill,” the operator projected through the speakers. The lights in the room blinked out and then the red emergency signals lit up around the edges of the rom. The red lights warmed and turned orange.

“Standing by,” SixH called back up.

The orange lights warmed again and turned yellow, then paled to a near white and the floor began to rumble as the ‘accent mechanics’ that kept a lid on the entrance to their void pit began to wake up and slide open. The different metal sections began to pull away in a star shape until the under layer was all that was left.

Then the countdown began, with every number after ten more of the lights came on in the room, struggling against the darkness spilling out through the last layer of cracks.

“3…2….1, hatch open.”

The last layer open with a snap, pushed by the force behind it and all the lights in the room blazed as brightly as they could to keep some small level of visibility.

“Launch.”

SixH jumped and like a needle pushing through fabric, the void receded with him until he punctured it and slipped out of sight. The harness’ tether hissed as it unrolled the first length and then gave some resistance before engaging the second roll to give SixH more line.

“Engaging first filter,” the operator said before flipping a pair of switches that pulled netting across the void entrance. The netting pulsed with light and with each flash the void began to recede back into the pit. Like a living animal that couldn’t find any food, it slunk back.

“Looks like the second filter won’t be necessary for your boy,” the operator whispered back, covering the mike with his hand so his words wouldn’t be broadcasted. OneT bristled and flushed when the operator winked, but didn’t respond.

On a screen above the control panel the stopwatch raced, keeping track of how long SixH had been down in the void. Time worked differently for people in the void, so hours felt like minutes and there was no rule or science to it that they could understand, because the time difference was unique to each person accessing the void. Some stayed in for hours and say they had been down for exactly how long they thought while other popped up minutes later complaining about being down for hours or even days.

It was such a mystery.

SixH had never taken long, but minutes felt like hours for her as she watched on. The clock ticked with every second and minute that passed. She began to pace and feel pressure in her lungs as fear began to choke her. What had he run across?

And then the line went taunt.

Time stretched on, minutes passed, and then the line began to shake with tugs.

“Recoiling start,” the operator boomed, flipping a few switches at once and pulling back the net while the line began to be rolled back up. It came so fast it made a loud ziiiiiiiiping sound that they could hear all the way up in the booth.

And then he was back, pulled free from the void and staggering into the safety zone while behind him the doors began to shut, closing off their access to the void and stifle out what was left in the room. 

OneT ran out of the room before the void could fully be vacuumed up and it made her magic tingle up to the surface and turn her skin blue in patches. She ignored it and ran for her friend, falling down on her knees at his side, grabbing at his harness to pull it apart and free him from its hold. He was groaning and holding his eyes.

She called his name, not the one they gave him, the one he took himself. She turned him over and pulled at his hands around his eyes, trying to see what was causing him pain. Was he bleeding? She managed to catch a glimpse when he blinked his eyes open and the black color that was only ever found one place in the universe was there, in his eyes. He moaned and squeezed his eyes, trying to cry it out and she screamed for a medic to help him.

The quarantine took four weeks to finish and by then his eyes had returned to normal and all his tests came back good.

Kids began entering the void again and coming back in one piece and life seemed to return to their usual, chaotic patterns. No one seemed to mind the momentary disruption and forgot it as soon as everyone physically healed and returned to duty. No one seemed to notice except for OneT, how her friend never flirted with her anymore, never checked on the kids, never did the irrational things that meant others might be safe at the cost of his body.

She asked him about it once, and he told her in so many words that all he had seen was the truth, and that he was better for it. His test and performance scores reflected that, but there was something dead inside of him that she couldn’t see and no measure of time or therapy could fix what had ruined her best friend.

Hightower was never the same again.

 

 

Red slept like a log, more than just drained. Sans was out too, but a day later he was aware enough to call out to you from the couch and pun a little bit before falling back asleep for another nap. Red didn’t even stir.

Edge claimed he wasn’t worried, that he trusted his brother to get up when he was ready to, but you could tell by how his training grew more complex and bruising that there was a underlying worry he was trying to hide or deny. He pushed his limits past what was healthy and only stoped when you went out to ask him too.

You had called back home to update the rest of the family with what had happened, explaining that you’d be sleeping over for another day so that Sans and Red could rest up before you all made the jump back. Stretch offered to make the shortcut over for you but he would have to leave one of you behind since his limit was 4 or 3 if there was someone with a lot of dense magic.

Black offered as well but he was easier to convince to stay home since the kids would need him to take them to school in the morning since you were still stuck. You felt guilty for missing them and ‘failing’ the nanny gig you had signed up for in the first place but Black wouldn’t let you entertain a note of regret before barking out something about priorities and his own competence with transportation.  You promised to be there for the kids as soon as you were back and the line was quiet for a while before Black answered with a reserved sounded ‘very well’ before his obligatory well wishes.

So for another day you sat up awake on the guest couch watching Red sleep, listening to Sans snore and Edge toss in the neighboring bed.

You wondered how long you could force yourself to stay awake for this time.  You weren’t looking forward to sleeping after the adventure you had. Rescuing Red was one of the only things that made you brave enough to traverse the void again-something you swore you would never do again.

Your empty eye socket still throbbed. It was like there was a memory nestled there, burrowed in the dead nerves and tissue, twisting for attention. You didn’t want to let it out. You were a determined soul, you weren’t brave.

It was dark in the room but you felt the shift before you looked up and squinted to see the shape on Red’s couch stir. Then there was a soft edged red light bobbing int he darkness before it rolled your way and went even softer around the edges.

“Sweetheart?” His voice was more gravel than rumble and as dark and alluring you were tempted to think of it, you couldn’t help but be concerned for him first.

You picked up the water by the nightstand and knelt at his side, holding the side of his head up before offering the bottle to sip from. He took it and threw it back, gulping greedily before crushing the empty plastic in one fist and sagging his head against your hand.

“You’re still exhausted. How are you feeling?” you asked, keeping your voice low. Across the hallway Edge was still asleep in his bed.

But Red didn’t seem to have heard your question, he just leaned in closer and reached for you with one of his hands, limply waving it before grabbing at your shoulder with it. He said you name and it came out more like the familiar rumble you always associated with Red and summer storms.

You sighed and waited for a moment before calling out again. “How are you feeling?”

“Missed you…missed feeling ya.”

“Red?”

“Don’t mind me, sweetheart.”He blinked hard and swallowed before readjusting himself on the couch. “I’m still asleep.”

“You’re awfully chatty for being asleep. You always sleepwalk this much?”

He chuckled. “Heh, almost as much as you.”

“I don’t talk in my sleep.”

“You say the weirdest shit, doll face,” he all but purred, sounding like he was enjoying your denial. “Usually it’s right before you get up to use the bathroom but sometimes you just sit up say some shit and then you’re back to the pillows.”

“You’re making that up. No one else has said anything about it and I know for a fact Stretch would have.”

“I’m special, ya only ever do it with me.”

You scoffed and rubbed at the side of his face, thumbs rough enough to manipulate his cheek bones into shifting slightly under your fingertips, like stiff clay, before he shook away your hands. “Careful with the moneymaker there, sweetheart. I gotta keep it in good working order for my babe. She’s only after me for my good looks, ya see.”

“Sounds like they have good taste at least.”

“Didn’t say they weren’t smart,” he joked.

“I think you’re lying about my sleep talking but I’m distracted by your face too much to argue the point any more.” You paused, waiting for Red to look you in the eye before saying anything more. “I’m glad you’re awake and I’m glad you’re here. I was worried.”

Red’s eye lights sharpened and he struggled to get both his arms under him and push himself up so he was sitting up on the couch and facing you instead of half laying down.  He grabbed for your hands and you let him take them, folding them up and cradling them between his own larger, boney, skeleton palms. When he tugged you closer to him you let your body fall happily. You would probably let him do anything to you.

“Thank you for what you did. I remember enough to know…to know what it cost ya.”

Your left eye socket throbbed and the shadowy memories were close enough to feel but you pushed through them to answer. “It didn’t cost me anything. I didn’t even get hurt-”

“You know that ain’t what I mean babe.”

You had forgotten how keen Red could be. Stretch wasn’t the only observant skeleton and you were wrong to have overlooked Red and, subsequently, underestimated him.   

“Then believe me when I tell you it was nothing, not because of how trivial the risk but because of how precious the reward,” you whispered in a rare, bold, confession before kissing the side of the skull. “It was nothing for me because it was for you.”

You felt his phalanges dig into the fabric of your shirt and tug you forward so there was not even a hair’s breath between the pair of you. He slipped both hands behind your waist and you felt the fold of his fingers knead into the skin there before settling over you. One stayed at the small of your back while the other dug into your hair and cradled your skull. You were all but powerless to turn away when he guided your face to his, lacking both the strength and desire to be anywhere else.

Red’s mouth was just as malleable as his cheeks and contorted adequately to your own, making the kiss as natural and easy as kisses are supposed to be if the rom-coms had any truth to them. You felt your stomach swoop and a thrill that was not unlike the sensation of free falling through the atmosphere made you gasp. His hand at your waist found its way under your shirt and your own fingers were reaching for ribs, wrinkling fabric to get at them. You felt dizzy with want and didn’t care about the rest of the world. Your surroundings fell away as you pushed into the kiss and grabbed at one of his floating ribs.

He nipped at your lip and then pulled away to peck it better. You tried to follow when he pulled away but he turned your head into his shoulder and kept you there while he struggled to breath even.

“Red?” You managed to turn around enough to see him but could reach him for any more of a kiss. His face as as bright as his namesake and he looked a cross between eutrophic and tortured. His expression turned that happy swooping to fear. “Was it-did I-I-”

Red hissed out a soft curse and then buried his face in your shoulder, rolling over enough to reach you without shoving you off the couch. “Shit, babe, no, no, don’t do that to yourself now, ain’t nothing of the sort. I’m-shit-” He struggled to articulate.

“It’s not me?”

“Never,” he laughed, sounding almost bitter. “It ain’t-there ain’t anything else on this planet I could ‘ave wanted more but I’m not the type of asshole to take without thinking. You’re still shaking, you’re cold, and sweetheart, when was the last time you slept?”

You pulled away a little. “You think I can’t consent?”

Red pulled the rest of the way away and sat up, holding you by the elbows as you rose to meet him. “I’m saying I have ta be sure before I charge into anything,” he laughed in a voice that was two steps from manic.

His grip on your elbows was a shivering one and as you shifted you realized why. Carefully, you moved your legs away to relieve any unconscious pressure and pointedly looked away while trying to not think about Sans’ monster sex talk. Still, you must not have been as subtle as you thought if Red noticed and chuckled deeply, sounding less manic.

“Yeah, it’s not you, sweetheart, trust me.”

“I’m not drunk though so why would you think I wouldn’t be able to consent? If you wanted me, why the hesitation?” Your voice was a whisper as you stared off at the far corner of the room and not at Red. You didn’t want to see what sort of face he was making.

“There’s more than one way to take advantage of a person. Bribery, cohesion, distraction, alcohol…. fear.” He touched your hair and you let him grab a fistful of strands to tug on and kiss. “I want this a whole fucking ton but I want you ta’ want it too and not just some easy distraction.”

There was a truth to his words you hadn’t considered before. Had the situation been different you would have wanted a ‘first time’ to be somewhere nicer, not in someone else’s home on a couch where the roommates could hear you through the walls. You weren’t going to pretend you didn’t know where Red’s hands had been itching for when they started to slip under your shirt.

“Maybe you’re right but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you…” you whispered to Red.

“Sure,” he chuckled, touching his forehead against yours. “But how about we table this for some other night when we’re not sharing the house with my old man lookalikes? I… I wanna be more than just a distraction.”

“You are,” you promised softly, pulling away. Red grabbed for one of your hands and tugged you back closer to his side and then slipped an arm around your shoulders.

“Don't’ got too far from me, I’m almost calmed down enough to be respectable company. Give me another minute.”

You couldn’t help the mischievous grin you failed to bite back.“So…. aside from super turned on how are you feeling?”

“Laugh it up now sweetheart, but just you wait. I’ll have you screaming soon enough. Don’t tease me too much.” He chanced a peck at the side of your face before pulling back enough to watch your expression. “I’m doing loads better. Back up to full and then some.”

“You rested long enough for it. I was worried. You were asleep for two whole days and night. Sans and I went after you but he woke up for a spell yesterday evening and was ready to roll.”

“Have you been keeping vigil this whole time?”

“Someone had to. We’re still not home yet.”

“No, I noticed that, but I meant sleep. You look spent and I don’t mean that to be flattering. When was the last time you got some shut eye?” You grinned instead of answering and Red swore. “Don’t tell me you’ve been up all this time. Sweetheart, you’re a human bean, you need your sleep every night.” 

“I’ve pulled my fair share of all nighters.”

“I can tell, but your magic is getting broken down to compensate. When you don’t eat and sleep enough your max magic levels take a dip.” When you glanced over at Red you could see one of his eyes blazed with multi layers of color as he used his Judge skills to see beneath the surface of your lie. He could see more than you could hide.

“I’ll be fine once we’re all home. I just…I don’t want to go to sleep.”

“Nightmares?” he guessed.

You snickered in spite of yourself. “Wasn’t that the reason you all started up the cuddle chart in the first place?”

“Nothing saying we can’t bring that back for a spell. You mind bunking with me now I’ve got my magic under control? I’m an excellent snuggle.”

“I know,” you laughed, reaching for his arms and curling up in his embrace. You were still scared and still shivered and your left eye socket still throbbed with bad memories, but those things were easier to ignore when you felt the way Red held you. It was warm and safe and you knew you were loved. Red made you feel safe.

“Hold on tight, sweetheart. The dreamtime express is pulling outta the station.”

You buried your face in the crook of his neck and mumbled something about ‘at least you know how to pull out.’ Red paused to listen and then choked on his laughter when he understood. You felt him kiss the side of your face and closed your one good eye, content with this version of the dark.

You missed how Red glared pointedly over your head at the crack of space between door and doorjamb where a tall skeleton man with holes in his hand had been watching. Red’s left eye flashed with layers of colors and then the door clicked shut, pulled closed with red magic. 

 

When you woke again you knew you had slept through a nightmare, you skin was clammy and dry sweat made your neck feel icky, but there was no memory of it to chase you into the daytime. You were going to be fine.

When you shifted in bed you realized that the couch you had fallen asleep on with Red was doubled in size. Behind you Edge lay curled up with the other couch pushed up to make an uneven bed for the three of you. You pretended to snooze just a little longer to better enjoy their company before it was time to head back.

But eventually the morning came and with it another heart to heart with your brother.

“If Hightower really still is in the void there is no way for me to track him without going in after him, and sorry bro, but I can’t do that again.We got lucky last time but as soon as I got close it went wack and there was the whole native nonsense.”

Raven handed you a tall orange drink and you took a sip, tasting the vodka mixed in.

“He’ll have to surface eventually,” Raven said over the rim of his own screwdriver.

You shrugged and pounded your drink before asking for seconds. “When he does that I’ll be the first one to call you. Do you think you can come up with a plan with the boney brothers before then?”

“What about you? I heard you had more of an army than I did,” he teased.

Raven emptied the Gray Goose into your cup and then polished it off with orange juice. It tasted like flavored vodka and burned going down, but didn’t do anything for you. A happy side effect of Hightower’s upbringing with a resistance to inhibitors including booze and drugs. It took a lot to get you hammered.

At the kitchen counter Edge was assembling a family sized platter of waffles and eggs with bacon and sausage links sizzling on the stove’s back burners. Red and Sans pretended to be too tired to help while the other Gaster boys set the table. Edge didn’t allow any of them into the kitchen except for Gaster who was pouring for himself a cup of coffee from the pot he had been allowed access to.

“I’ve got a good sized family. You should meet them all sometime, like in a normal way, say at a bar-b-q or family dinner? Dropping in while I’m in soul surgery was sort of drastic and left a less than stunning impression for some of my fellas.”

Raven made a face. “Sounds like you’re playing house.”

“Don’t knock it till you try it. I’m happy.”

“That’s gross.”

You made a face at your brother. “What? The fact that I’m happy or the fact that I have a home with monsters?”

“Which one are you dating?”

“All of them,” you answered without missing a beat. When Raven choked on his screwdriver you couldn’t help but snicker.

“Not funny,” he coughed.

“Not a lie either, little brother. Get used to it. I’ve found a home and people who love me. I’m not giving that up for anything so you can trust me when I say I’ll be watching for Hightower very closely these coming days and weeks. Once he surfaces I’ll have the details for you and backup.”

“How?” Raven squeaked out, still sounding winded. “All of ‘em? What the hell did you all-is it-is it a monster thing? That’s so gross. I don’t even wanna-oh, ew, no, not gonna.”

“It’s not,” you snapped back without looking, already prepared for your brother’s reaction. “Get over it. It’s my life to live and you’ve got no grounds to criticize me on any of it. You’re the reason they’re all here in the first place, though, so I guess I should thank you.”

“I never would have predicted something like this. Ugh, that’s still so…they’re all so different. I don’t believe you. Even if your tastes were that varied it wouldn’t make sense for them to all wanna share.”

“Actually,” Dee interjected while walking behind Raven to get to the fridge, “sharing is pretty common with monsters. They call it a pride, but I’d agree with Raven on the fact that so many mates is a lot to juggle.”

“It is not!” Edge shouted from the counter with both hands on different skillet handles. “And she’s doing fantastic so don’t criticize what you know nothing about. The bacon is finished for those who like them stringy. RED, GET YOUR BACON NOW BEFORE THEY ALL GO CRISPY!”

You pushed off the counter to slide up alongside Edge and watch as Red blinked in and out for a handful of strips. Edge then turned the skillet your way and offered it to you to pick from. Your hand turned charcoal black when you touched the side of the pan but didn’t burn or sizzle while you dug through the meat for the juiciest strip. You pulled one free and Edge inclined his skull enough for you to recognize what he was asking for. You pecked his cheek and skipped back over to where Raven and Dee were watching- extra petty just to get under his skin. Your brother looked grossed out but Dee seemed to think it was hilarious.

“You’ll get used to it kid,” Sans called out from the kitchen table with a mug of steaming coffee. You almost missed it but you caught the way Sans eyed Gaster carefully while Red made no ‘bones’ about his blatant staring at the same figure. That’s when you noticed Winn was out of the room already, off with his coffee on the nearby patio with the collar of his jacket turned up.

“You won’t get used to it if you don’t hang out, so take my offer seriously sometime. I’d hate for us to be, like, only seeing each other when the fate of the world is at stake. We’re siblings so it should really take a whole hell of a lot less to get coffee or something.”

“Without the entourage?”

You shrugged. “I dunno, I kinda really like my entourage so I’ll have to think about it.”

Raven rolled his eyes and then dumped another bottle of gray goose into his cup without orange juice and drank straight from it. “I’ll see what my super busy schedule will allow.”

“How do you make money, anyway?” you asked.

“What?” the look he gave you was the blank deadfall of a person who had never seen money in his life.

“…Raven…who’s house is this?”

He took another long drink of his Gray Goose. “No one was living here and it was a dump so we fixed it up. Why?”

Red and Sans started chuckling from the kitchen table and you glared at them. “It’s not funny,” you moaned at them before turning back to glare at your brother. “You’re squatting in someone’s house.”

“It was empty, they’re probably dead or don’t care, why are you busting my balls on this? You think I could make enough to afford a house with eleven months experience of not being a human guinea pig for magical child soldiers? Get bent.”

“No one our age can afford anything and, ugh, I’m not even gonna try and get into it with you. Whatever. Live your life however you want to, you cheap bum. I’m not going to ask where all this food came from.”

Dee laughed behind Raven who had the good sense to at least look a little ashamed. “Wal Mart wasn’t going to miss it.”

You took his cup out of his hand and drank down what was left of the horrible tasting vodka then passed it back. “I said I wasn’t gonna ask.”

And honestly, it wasn’t like you hadn’t had your low moments so taking the high horse was not a move you were willing to make, least you fall off and look like a hypocrite. All of you were pretty fucked up so you weren’t gonna blame him for living on the run the only way he knew how.

After breakfast the four of you assembled outside and waved off Raven and his gang. Edge was anxious to get back to his car, and you wouldn’t lie and say you weren’t in a hurry to see the rest of the boys. You had been texting Blue and Rus plenty while staying up at night, but it wasn’t the same. You wanted to see their faces. You owed Dusk and Paps a visit soon too. Plus there was that apple orchard field trip the second graders were going on that you wanted to go on with Peter. You also never got around to visiting Grillby’s new underground club, the speakeasy he had started after escaping with Paps. There were…a lot of things you wanted to get to and do.

Raven called your name and you looked back.

You watched him and then leaned in. He wrapped you up in a hug and you felt how thin he was through the embrace. His skin was placid and thin but there were no bruises. Still, you felt only anxious when you pulled away and saw him again. He should be so much taller than you but you were both still the same height. Thrive probably towered over him.

“Take care of yourself you little shit,” you whispered into his hair.

“You too, slut.”

You playfully punched at his chin and backed up, watching as he watched you. Behind you Sans reached for your hand and you let him take it. Your heart hurt while you watched Raven but you didn’t say or do anything to stop Sans when the darkness cut you out of that space and flung you across the county to a parking lot where Edge’s car was left in perfect condition. You took a deep breath and could smell the oncoming winter. The world had gone so cold so fast, or was it just you?

“That didn’t get easier,” you admitted out loud.

“It never does, princess.”

Sans was still next to you and you wondered if this was how he felt when he and Papyrus parted. You hoped you would be as lucky with Raven in the future. As rough as you both were with each other, he was still your brother and you missed him.

What would become of you next? What was waiting for you in the future? 

All you could do was wonder and wait. But you wouldn't be waiting alone. 

Notes:

So, who thought the last arc of the story would start with 'that' person? A little bit of backstory to help explain how SixH and SevenA /(MC) were both children with good intentions, who slipped into forbidden realms and were exposed to things they should never have been. The difference, and what makes them foils of each other, is the fact that one cut their eye out to resist and the other let it in.

But I know y'all's fav part was probs with Red, wasn't it? He's a good guy (who is also aware of this fic's rating).
But speaking of that, I've contemplated bumping this fic from a T to an M. Up until this point I've been confident that the content is what you'd see in a PG13 rated movie in the states, or a Teen appropriate level. I'm curious about your thoughts on bumping the rating from T to M- I won't get into E for sure, I'm not quite proficient enough to be comfortable writing E- but with all the violence and suggestive content I want/plan to add it might be better if I bump it up to M for the last few chapters. What would you, as readers, prefer or mind?

Chapter 72: Real Ones 2 - Gyftmas

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

The holidays for monsters weren’t exactly congruent with those of humans, so Gyftmass came on its own as sort of a surprise. You had it on the calendar, but after days and weeks of nothing from Hightower, (or Raven and his gang) you could barely tell what differentiated one day from the next. Everything blending together into a sort of haze if you didn’t make an effort to pay better attention.

Thankfully, your boys were brilliant about that. Without them you doubted you’d remember what days you needed to wake up in the morning to make school lunches for the kids. And then when their winter break started you needed someone to remind you there was no need to do that anymore, since everyone was opting to sleep in.

Still, rising with the dawn was a hard habit to break, so before long you fell back into it.

 

You went out to train and jog with Papyrus while the world was still dark and came home in time to make breakfast with one of your lovers. It felt like a little victory against the madness that came with dreaded anticipation.

You washed off the skillet in the sink while Rus put away the extra pancakes and Edge cleared the condiments off the table. Red was in the living room with the kids and he called out to his brother about something, likely overwhelmed since he was likely the biggest pushover when it came to children. (Edge wasn’t much better, but together they stood a chance so long as Wendy didn’t cry or break out the puppy dog eyes.)

You startled, hands slipping further into the sink when you felt the pressure behind you. Rus chuckled darkly, pushing up against your back and wrapping his arms low across the front of your waist, pinning you close to his front. “I thought I’d never get a minute alone like this,” he whispered into the shell of your ear before kissing it.

“Rus,” you snickered, flushing from the affection, “we’re in the kitchen.” You weren’t unaware of how handsy Rus could be when the kids weren’t looking. Apart from being in the presence of minors, he had the least amount of shame and enough desire to make him dangerous.

“I’m still hungry,” he teased. “Give me ah nibble, won’t you, precious?”

“Horndog.”

Hungry,” he gently corrected while his hands wandered. “No one ever accused me of being patient.”

“What about careful?”

“Edge owes me a favor and I trust him to be capable enough. Plus, no one would blame me if they were here right now. You’re wearing an apron for stars’ sake,” he laughed.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You wanna explanation of everything that turns me on? Apron is on the list, but so are these,” he purred, reaching down to touch the side of your extra high socks, the candy white and red stripped ones that went well over your knees. You were still in your pj shorts and long sleeve shirt, but hadn’t forgotten what Stretch said about socks and underwear all those weeks ago. Over your shoulder Rus chuckled again. “But you knew about the socks so I’m only gonna assume that means something. Was I right?”

“I don’t know, did you like it?” you asked without glancing back, enjoying the feel of him too much to pretend to deny it. You had gone too long without this type of fun and it was only made all the better with someone you actually loved and trusted.

“I really wanna drag you away with me and keep ya out of sight for a coupa’ of hours, but I already promised I wouldn’t take more than this ‘till everyone was ready.”

Rus’ words slurred slightly as he turned you around and lifted you up by the hips to sit atop the counter. Your legs naturally bent, like it was a reflex to curl him closer to you. He leaned in with his skull even as both his hands slid down your thighs to where your knees rested atop his hip bones.  He pushed them off only slightly so he could push himself forward, closer to you as you responded to the kiss.

Kissing a monster with a mouth full of magic made your own tingle all throughout your body. It wasn’t unpleasant-far from it- but there was an easy thrill that came just from the proximity. You had never been this sensitive to what your magic could feel, but maybe it was more than that. You had butterflies and bats in your stomach as the way Rus pushed into made your gut swoop with delight.

This was nice.

“I said I would get the bananas!” Edge hollered loudly from the nearby room. “Sit down and watch your brother while I get the food. We don’t all need to get up and go to the kitchen.”

Red growled against your lips but detangled himself and tugged you down off the counter, separating just in time to turn and see a grumpy looking Edge march in with a dutiful looking Peter hot on his heels, near oblivious to anything else. When Edge stopped in front of the fruit bowel Peter mimicked the way the skeleton clicked his heels together, even though Peter was still in his squeaky crocs.

“Peter, those better not be your dirty outside shoes inside the house,” you warned in a sweet song-ish voice that made him flinch and laugh nervously.

“But they’re the only shoes I have that make sounds, mom.”

Whenever one of the kids called you mom it made your brain short circuit for half a second. One time Wendy ran for you screaming ‘mommy’ when Peter and Tron were chasing her with a worm they said was really a stick and it had made your brain blue screen for double the usual time. One day you might get used to it, but that day was not this day. Thankfully, you always recovered before any of the kids could notice.

“You want your shoes to make sounds. Why not the light up sneakers you just got.”

Peter absently nodded along, remembering the sneakers. “Yeah, those are really cool, but they….” He glanced backwards at Edge’s boots, “but they don’t make sounds when I walk.”

“Ha! That should be to your advantage,” Edge interjected, snapping a banana off the bunch and peeling it before handing it down to Peter. “Stealth is a great asset to any upcoming military hopeful.  It is only in peace time when one is afforded the luxury of ostentatious displays of grader.”

“Yeah, awesome grand-ours,” Peter tried to copy, holding himself just like Edge. It was adorable even if Edge complained that it wasn’t. Edge didn’t seem to think it was in Peter’s best interest to copy a person like himself- someone who was still too harsh and sharp around the edges. You disagreed.

Edge said something else about fruit and Peter began to eat his banana sideways, setting Edge off about proper eating habits that only encouraged Peter to be that much more chaotic for attention.

You glanced back over your shoulder at Rus and spared him a sympathetic smile. He leaned in so that his chin bumped the edge of your shoulder and you tilted your head down so that your ear was closer to his mouth. “Save me and Blue some time later this week. We’re taking you out on a date all proper- like.”

“We’ve gone out plenty of times before.”

“Not like this. It’s official date time. You’re busy enough with worrying over this whole damn world, but it’s about time we properly wow you.”

“I’ve already been wowed and wooed,” you laughed.

“Then maybe it’s time you were worshiped,” he purred, tugging down the back of your shirt enough so that he could kiss the skin there.

He pulled back and exited the room before you could say anything more. From the doorway you could hear him calling out to Stretch and Tron while elsewhere Wendy played ‘competitive’ tea party with Black and Blue. The house was loud and full of love and safer than it ever had been before, so maybe it was time you considered going out on those proper dates.

It wasn’t like you hadn’t had the talk with everyone. After the whole fiasco with your brother and the revelations that came soon after you spent a long period resting and working like a zombie. You would snap out of it to preform your ‘ritual’ tasks, or the things you did everyday. You prepared food like a robot, half awake, you trained and worked out to keep your body limber, but you also slipped. Sometimes it would be Sans who found you and shook you back to awareness, telling you he found you listless or crying all on your own.

It was rare they left you alone after the first few episodes and you felt bad when someone called in to take a day off of work to ‘watch’ you, but shaking the horror from your worst trauma took longer than you cared to admit. You apologized but no one would let you feel sorry for anything. Even when you complained about being a bad date mate that didn’t deserve a mate, let alone two or ten, everyone was quick to correct you.

More than one night had ended with tears and cuddles and the sweetest reassurances.

You hated how much time it took for you to feel like yourself again and you hated how paranoid you still were when it came to Hightower, because you wanted to do nothing but love your new family, but that fear was less a battle and more like a war. You weren’t going to win once and be done. Each day was its own skirmish in a long campaign.

When you looked up Edge had paused in the doorway and was watching you, eye lights too keenly narrowed to miss it if you started to slip again. When you looked his way he held out a hand, offering for you to take it. You followed him into the living room and saw Red struggling with Phil, reaching down to take the youngest of the bunch from his arms. Red found it easier to tug you down onto his lap and hold you as you held Phil. In the background his brother helped Peter pick out a quick movie to wind down with. They had plans later in the day for how they would spend the rest of the Gyftmass, but for now they would make themselves content with-

“No these live action Transformer films are atrocious and not at all appropriate for my magnificent tastes.”

“Bu-but, then what?”

“The animated television series is far superior. Let’s just watch a few episodes instead.”

Peter brightened comically. “Yeah, you’re right! They’re so much better. I knew that too.”

You were content for now.

 

Around lunch time Black came down with Blue and Wendy to help you pack up half of the kitchen in anticipation for where you would be going next. You were excited as were the kids for what this would mean.

Black had, with much persuading and reassuring, agreed to spend the afternoon of Gyftmass with the horror brothers at their cabin. Sans and Papyrus would be there as well, so it would be a little tight in their home, but that was fine since you figured it would be a good location for a first formal get together with the kids involved.

Peter and Wendy had been in charge of finding an appropriate movie to give the brothers as a gift for their growing home collection and you were proud of how well Tron wrapped it for them.

Your own gift was an edible basket of dry goods they could break out and much on whenever they wanted. You weren’t sure how much self control they’d use, but you hoped it would last longer than the first day since it had taken you that long to make the bread, cookies, and treats. 

Not to be outdone, Black had already delivered his gift, disappearing via shortcut for less than a minute to drop it off with a card and come back, too stubborn to hang around long enough for one of the horror brothers to notice him on their property with a new, fully stocked, chicken coop with four ‘french’ hens.

Like in the song that never ends,’ he explained when you asked about it. Russ had a pear tree in a pot and you thought the pair of gifts were just darling. Who gave them permission to be so cute?

“Does everyone have their coats and outside shoes on?” Black barked, looking over each of the kids like a general at inspection. Wendy smiled up at him and he reached down to pinch her nose playfully before looking over at you. “Where’s your coat?”

You playfully flared a little burst of fire underneath the surface of your face and for split second you looked more like Fuka or Grillby before that faded. “Don’t need it.”

“Maybe not but it completes the outfit,” Rus chuckled, answering for his brother as he came up behind you with a peacoat the pair had picked out for you. It was a wool gray that was a shade lighter but in the same style as Black’s.

“You look good, mom,” Tron complemented, smiling like a shit when your brain short circuited for half a second. Out of all the kids he seemed to be the only one who noticed what the title did to you and was determined to wear you down with it.

“We-we’re going to be late if we don’t hurry,” you excused, grabbing for your gift basket and accepting Wendy’s hand when she reached for you.

From the doorway to the living room Blue and Stretch watched on, having agreed to stay behind and watch the house while the rest of you were away. Sometime after breakfast when you saw Blue again he had snuck in an extra kiss and said something about a promised date, and ever since then whenever you caught his eye(light) you wouldn’t be able to help but blush.

It was a bit unusual how both Rus and Blue thought it a good idea to team up for a date. You had thought they would all want their own individual dates, or maybe to go on a joint date with their brother or even their alternate. Blue and Rus…didn’t have a lot in common when you thought about it. Was there something you were missing? Did it matter?

“Don’t worry about us, we’ll hold down the fort. Go have your fun and take your time. Don’t hurry back,” Stretch sarcastically called while leaning against the doorframe, looking playfully bored.

“Don’t eat my cereal please!” Peter requested.

“No promises,” Stretch teased.

Peter started to fidget and look worried up at Black. “Dad?”

Unlike you, when Black got called dad he seemed to inflate with pride, like a freaking peacock or something. “Stretch will stay out of your cereal since you said please. Believe in the power of your magic words, Peter,” he encouraged.

“Oh, okay. Then, thank you for not eating my cereal uncle Stretch!”

Rus snickered and Blue laughed while Stretch dramatically sighed and made a show of promising not to touch his ‘favorite’ niblet’s cereal because of the power of his magical words. It was enough to even get a chuckle out of Tron.

“We’re almost late,” Rus interrupted. “Is everyone ready for the jump?”

You moved closer to Rus and the kids, checking to make sure everyone was somehow connected to Black who was in charge of calculating the jump with so many passengers. There wasn’t an easy road up to the brother’s cabin, so it was best to huddle close and take a shortcut to their doorstep. Plus, when Black and the family left in the evening, they’d be leaving with one less passenger.

Dusk and Paps had their turn for snuggles with you again. There was an overnight bag already in Paps’ room, waiting for you.

“We’re good to go,” you confirmed.

It wasn’t lost on you how much you and Black sounded and looked like a married couple with kids. You tried not to think too deeply about how that was now your life before the world warped around you and then broke open to unfiltered sunlight.

“Cold!” Phil exclaimed, having already partially wriggled out of his coat. You bend down to button it back up and puck him up into your arms. He was getting big-almost too big to be held- but you were strong enough for things like this that mattered.

“This is why coats are so important,” Black quipped, sounding a tad different. It was barely noticeable, but you picked up on the note of distraction as he stared down the hunter’s lodge in front of you.

Since last time it had been decorated with garlands and Christmas lights, but during the day only the garland was visible. There was frost on the grass and a promise of snow colored the smell of the air. Most of the human holidays had passed, but Gyftmass felt like…the big one when you saw the tiny details and decorations. From outside you could smell the ham Paps was cooking.

This was…going to be so much better than the other human holidays.

You leaned closer to Black, catching the corner of his jaw with your lips for a chaste kiss that Phil tried to copy but couldn’t, since he was on your opposite hip. When Black turned to look back up at you Phil tried again and that got you to laugh. “Thank you,” you whispered over the youngest child’s squirming for kisses. “This means a lot.”

“This isn’t exactly new to me,” Black whispered back while looking to where Rus walked up with Tron and Peter. “But having so much to lose is… never easy.”

“Daddy?” Black squeezed Wendy’s hand when he heard her call out to him and turned to stare down. Wendy just smiled up in reassurance, not knowing how powerful her expression really was.

“It would be a shame to be late, let’s be off,” he said with a soft smile for two of his favorite people, tugging Wendy along the path leading up to the house.

Before you could even reach the doorstep Paps was there, wearing a Santa hat with the detached, fake beard, and a tailored red suite that made the kids exclaim in excitement when they saw.

“WELCOME TO OUR HO-HO-HOME!”

Papyrus stepped out after his look alike in regular attire, a cozy holiday sweater and pants, but welcomed the children with just as much cheer. As you stepped in and said your thanks you noticed that Pap’s glasses were changed out for a pair of brass, circular spectacles.

“You look adorable Paps,” you gushed, reaching up to hug him around the neck with Phil who was still in your arms. You quickly turned and did the same for Papyrus.  In your arms Phil complained and wanted you to turn around back to ‘Sanna Claws’ again. Even Black thought that was cute.

“He can walk around just fine on his own but he loves hugs and being carried, wanna try?” you asked, offering up Phil to Paps. Phil, to his credit, was making grabby hands and squirming to get closer to ‘th tawl one.’

Paps looked nervously to his side at Papyrus and then down at Black before nodded and stepping closer to accept Phil into his arms. Even with his smaller than normal sockets you saw the way lights and stars spun into existence behind his spectacles when he felt Phil in his arms. There was an audible rattle to his bones as he shook in excitement. It was familiar delight and you laughed at how excited he seemed just to hold one of your kids.

Behind you Papyrus rubbed at your shoulder in thanks and you could tell what he wanted to say without words. This acceptance meant more than most things.

“We got bags and stuff, where you want them, Stringy?” Rus called out, holding up one of the gift bags that had your gift as well as a few other items.

Papyrus left your side to help Rus put things away and you waved for Peter and Tron to come back over and stand beside you in the main hallway with Black and Wendy.

“Thanks Paps for accepting us into your home. You remember the kids from Halloween I bet, but this here is Tron, our oldest, then Peter, Wendy, and you already met Phil. What do you guys say?”

Tron opened his mouth to say ‘thank you’ but was interrupted by Peter’s “You’re tall! Not even Uncle Rus is so tall. Can you touch the ceiling with your face?”

Paps was only too happy to reply and you felt like the word ‘giddy’ wasn’t exactly accurate for how you were feeling, but it was close. You felt light and happy and never wanted the day to end. Black stayed with the kids and you touched his shoulder before stepping away to greet Dusk and Sans who were hanging out on the screened-in porch out back where a number of potted plants hung and stood.

“Knock knock,” you said, rapping your knuckles on the doorframe they left open. Both boys were leaned back in their recliner chairs at opposite ends of the room, an empty couch and coffee table between them.

“…who’s there.”

“Nobel.”

“…heh, nobel who?”

“No bell so I knocked. Hey there sleepy head, were you napping?” you asked as you stepped into the room and leaned down to kiss the side of Dusk’s skull. You heard a happy grumble deep in his chest and delighted when you recognized it as his ‘happy’ purr.

You stepped around him to reach Sans who looked more of out it than his counterpart and woke him with a soft shake to his shoulder. He roused slowly, mumbling about stars and constellations. You noticed the telescope pointed out and the leather journal on the endurable with glued in star charts and hand written notes. 

“Did you guys stay up late watching stars?” you asked, brushing the back of your hand over Sans’ skull while looking to Dusk.

“We’s were looking for Venus, actually, but I guess the stars were a nice constellation prize,” Sans joked around a yawn. “Hey there, princess, thanks for dropping by. You bring the kids?”

“That’s all the chaos you hear in the next room over, but I wanted to make sure you guys weren’t about to sleep all of Gyftmass away on your own out here.”

“…mmm, ‘dat depends…you joining us?” Dusk rumbled playfully, “we got an overnight bag for you and everything.”

“Oh good, I’m glad that made it here okay. But before all that I figured you might wanna say hello to the company and get ready for Gyftmass dinner.”

“It’s only 1:30,” Sans complained, squinting up at the analog clock on the far wall.

“Eh, closer to 1:45, but by the time you manage to waddle out and get your introductions I figured the ham would be done. Papyrus said he was planning on serving dinner with Paps at 2:00.”

Dusk blinked and leaned forward a little. His skull tilted like a cat listening to something behind it. “are…. are the kiddos here?” he asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, I brought the whole gang with me. Let’s go out and say hello,” you laughed, realizing that wobble to his eye light was because he was excited.

Almost all of the brothers were fond of the kids and looked forward to seeing them, but especially Paps and Dusk who at one point had been nearly barred from visits by Black. Now that Black felt more comfortable about Dusk and Paps’ reform, he was willing to share his family a little more.

Dusk was a slow fellow, but he pushed himself up out of his seat and tottered to the doorway all on his own without much hesitation. When he turned you caught sight of the magic pads on his skull wound. They were starting to turn a little pink in the center from filtering and catching so much stray magic, but it sounded like they were helping if the stories Sans and Papyrus shared with you were enough to go by.

They had managed to persuade Dusk to visit a physical therapist after finding a recent ‘monster specialist’ graduate from Ebott U. There were not a lot of professionals who could help monsters the same way they could with humans, but every year more and more graduates emerged with dual qualifications, ready to help anyone they could. Dusk’s therapist was a plucky young woman with arms like a bull’s and a tempter to match. She was patient though, and knew when to push and when to cushion.

Due to his injury, Dusk’s body had adapted the only way it knew how, and as a result, there were some things Dusk had to unlearn and work on. Mobility was one thing you hadn’t even anticipated him needing help with, but you were glad Sans noticed and set up the schedule all on his own.

Therapy was on the list as well, but Dusk had asked that element of his recovery treatment be kept more private, and you respected that. Sans assured you the big guy was getting looked at and listened to by someone who finally fit, and that’s all you wanted to know. Anything more, Dusk could tell you himself.

“Thanks for stopping by, princess,” Sans said as he took your hand and walked with you to the doorway.

The pair of you paused on the threshold to watch Dusk interact with the kids. Someone said something and he slowly lowered himself to the floor and like magnets the kids began to climb over him while Black watched on from nearby. In the kitchen Papyrus finished up while Paps stood spellbound in place, stars in his eyes as he listened to his brother’s long lost laughter.

Behind them the Gyftmass tree twinkled and you felt a dreamy lull in your heart weigh you down. You loved watching the kids so happy, of Dusk laughing, of Paps’ teary eyed delight, of Black’s begrudging approval…everything you looked at was perfect and it fucked you up majorly when you felt the pull in the back of your mind, reminding you to be vigilant.

“I’ll keep this safe,” you promised in a wet voice. “I’ll never let this be threatened by anyone, I swear.”

We swear.” Sans shook your hand and you noticed how it shook in his. You had been trembling. “You know when humans grow up being taught to never pursue the things that make them happy, it’s all the more hard for them as adults to accept happiness. Princess, we know you’re worried, but we’re here together. Don’t go getting all afraid on me. I’m here.”

“How’d you know that’s what I was worried about?” you sighed. “I could have been just cold.”

“You’re never cold unless there’s something wrong with your magic, plus, give me more credit. I know you better than that. I should since I love ya this much.”

“You’re sweet, Sans.”

“Yeah, but you’re the cupcake.” He perked up as if suddenly realizing something and then laughed. “But that reminds me, thanks for the gift. I saw it this morning.”

“I asked Papyrus to hide it at your place since I knew you we’re trustworthy enough to hold onto it until today,” you laughed. “You have no patience.”

“I have a ton of patience, trust me, theres plenty of evidence that I can wait for good things, I just can’t keep my hands to myself when I see wrapping paper. There’s a difference.”

You had a feeling you knew what Sans meant when he argued that he was patient, but you didn’t want to call him out on it in case you were right and things turned awkward right before Gyftmass dinner. You still felt a little hot and bothered when you remembered Rus in the kitchen. It’s a good thing you remember having excellent stamina.

“ARE YOU TWO COMING?” Paps called out, drawing your attention to the filtering herd of bodies migrating towards the dining room table.

Papyrus already had the ham set out and Paps had two different dishes with vegetables in either hand. Rus worked open a bottle of sparkling apple cider the kids could have and then another bottle of wine for Black and the rest of the adults. Dusk couldn’t drink because of his different medications but he enjoyed a glass of sparkling cider with the kids.

You ended up sitting next to Black at the end of the table with Paps on your other side. The kids were mostly between Black and Rus, squeezed onto a bench seat across the table, though Phil managed to find his way into Rus’ lap for more cuddles. (You swore that kid needed hugs more than water sometimes-but if snuggles were the worst of his abandonment issues you would count yourself lucky.)

Rus, surprisingly, got along great with Paps while Black kept a polite but shrinking distance. Over dinner the topics of conversation ranged from work to school to human culture (shock) and then back to entertainment and movies. The kids had a movie they insisted on Paps and Dusk opening after dinner to watch with them.

“How are your classes going, Papyrus? You figured out your focus for study or changing your mind?” Rus asked at one point.

“I’m quite confident I’ve found my fit in law.  It’s a bit heavy at times, but nothing I can’t work through. I appreciate the pod casts my professor recommends. I can listen while I work out and train so I don’t feel like I sacrifice anything!”

“AND IT DOENS’T HURT THAT YOUR BROTHER HAS ALREADY GONE THROUGH THE EDUCATION SYSTEM AND CAN ANSWER PLENTY OF QUESTIONS,” Paps added.

“Oh shoot, I have to remember things from uni?” Sans said jokingly. “We were so broke we couldn’t even afford to keep the lights on. Those were dark days.”

“Sans,” Papyrus groaned, holding his face in embarrassment.

“Sorry bro, there’s not a lot of help I can be. I was totally booked at the library for most of it.”

“Actual encouragement, please,” Black sighed.

“I know it's cheesy, but college food is grate. You won’t beleaf how great college is,” Sans added, only emboldened when the kids laughed at his puns. “Just remember to periodically show up to science class.”

“And there goes my appetite,” Black sighed while you joined Dusk and the kids in laughing at Sans’ puns towards his brother. “Time to clean this up. You two cooked so we’ll clean,” Black said while nodding to you and Rus.

“BUT YOU ARE OUR GUESTS! WE COULDN’T POSSIBLY-”

“I’m not,” you interrupted while reaching over to pick up his finished plate. When he blustered you winked and that made his skull flush with faded magic.

“Our status as guests is enterally beside the point. We have benefited from your services and will meet your generosity with due gratitude. Children, you have something for our hosts, don’t you?”

“Open it under the tree!” Wendy cheered, tugging over Rus to reach Paps.

A number of dirty dishes and pans floated in the air, following Black into the kitchen while Rus begrudgingly followed you behind.

“WA-WAIT, AREN’T YOU-ARE YOU NOT GOING TO JOIN US WITH THE CHILDREN?” Paps asked in a soft panic.

From the kitchen Black scoffed loudly. “I’ll be here if anyone needs anything, but I doubt you need the supervision.”

The look on Paps face was enough to make you want to coo again, but you kept your voice off as you helped clear the table. At some point Rus snuck off to hang out with Sans and Dusk, chilling on the couch while Papyrus played the movie the kids had picked out for him: The Nightmare Before Christmas.Whenever the main character would appear on the screen they would cheer ‘that’s you!’ before going quiet to watch the rest of the movie without interruptions.

You were putting the leftovers into plastic cartons for the fridge when you paused to watch. If you leaned out you could see them huddled up in their extra fuzzy blankets-a gift for Dusk who adored anything with soft texture.  When you looked back Black had already pulled out the hot water kettle and was filling it. You reached over him for the hot coco packets and when you turned back he already had a tray half set up with mugs for everyone.

“I’m proud of how far you’ve come,” you whispered behind his skull, kissing the junction underneath where his ear canal was. He shivered slightly but turned his head to the side to allow you better access. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me like this when I have to give you up in a handful of hours,” he darkly purred.

Black reached behind him and turned when he found your face. With only a cursory glance to the room behind you, he pulled you closer and met your lips with a hungry mouth. You slipped your arms behind his neck and leaned in while his hands wandered far enough to settle on your hips. 

You pulled away only because you needed to breath and hummed in appreciation when he kissed at your neck. “Soon enough I’ll have a time with you when it’s just the two of us.” He paused and gauged your reaction. “Would you like that?”

“Always.”

“No matter what it becomes?”

There was an implication there you picked up on and found an absence of reservation. “I can’t say I’m not open to the possibilities…no promises but… I don’t feel like I have to hold back.”

“Never,” he assured with a dark chuckle. He pulled away just in time to turn off the hot water kettle before it could scream. “And I’ll always respect your decision in the moment. You are my treasured one.”

His words gave you butterflies. “I’ve not been loved like this before,” you whispered before you realized what you were saying. “It’s…this is a nice change. Thank you. Thanks to everyone but… I’m really happy this time around.”

“It’s a shame others did not treasure you before us but their loss is our gain and we will not repeat their mistakes,” he vowed in a low voice that was too dark and deep to be a whisper. He touched a strand of loose hair and kissed it before turning away. “Until then, my love.”

He took the tray filled with mugs of hot coco and you let him pass, feeling like you needed a minute more to cool down. You took the leftovers and decided they had cooled down enough to put away in the fridge. You joined Dusk in the living room, watching the movie from behind his chair with one of your hands drifting down to play with the familiar fuss of his jacket hood.

The evening rolled on and after the movie the kids wanted to play a little more but then evening turned to twilight and Black noticed how late it already was before signaling to his brother it was time they packed up.

“We have to go now? It’s not even bedtime. It just gets dark extra early,” Wendy protested. “We wanted to play more with Jack and Dusk.”

“Jack?” you echoed curiously, wondering if you heard Wendy right. Were they still thinking about the movie?

Peter hopped up and touched Paps’ leg and smiled wide. “Yeah, Jack Skellington, cause they look the same but Paps is dressed like Jack, see?”

“Was that planned?” Rus asked, looking over at Paps who was blushing and fidgeting with his hands as he looked from one child to the next.

Wendy and her brother Peter shared identical smiles full of cheek and mischief. Tron sighed but couldn’t hide his smile either. You realized you had underestimated the kids. No wonder they were adamant about the movie being a gift for Paps. Just like Dusk, Paps had a new name from the kids… if he wanted it.

“It has a nice ring to it,” you said. “Jack… what do you think Paps? It sort of sounds similar too. Jack, Paps…”

“For Me?” he squeaked, looking overwhelmed and delighted all at once. “I….I Don’t Know What To Say,” he confessed in a strained voice as happy tears collected in the corners of his eye sockets.

“…tell ‘em whatever you want to say,” Dusk encouraged.

“Do you not like it?” Wendy asked.

“I L-LOVE IT, OF COURSE!” the newly renamed skeleton exclaimed, face bright with vibrant magic as his eyes sparkled in delight. “I HAVE A NEW NAME NOW. BROTHER, BROTHER, DID YOU HEAR THAT. I GOT A NEW NAME JUST LIKE YOU. DO YOU LIKE IT?”

“…love it bro, it’s so you.”

“IT’S SUCH A COOL NAME TOO!” 

To that everyone in the room agreed. And just like with his brother, the old nickname that felt like it had only been holding a place for something better, got switched out with something new, something that delighted its owner. Jack was delighted. He was over-the-moon thrilled and that excitement only fed you all the more.

It worked to buy the kids a few more minutes of tearful goodbye’s and a promise to return soon, but the sun was set and the sky was rapidly darkening when Rus snuck a goodbye kiss and the group blinked away. Not long after that Papyrus and Sans also confessed to needing to head home. It was a transparent excuse to leave you alone with Dusk and Jack, but no one was willing to call them out on it.

“We’ll see you soon, princess,” Sans promised. “Me and bro here were thinking of making a day out of it.”

“You too?” you laughed.

“What, are we last in line or something?”

“No, but it feels like a lot of these questions are coming up at once…this wasn’t another spin the wheel/draw the lots sort of arrangement, was it?”

Sans laughed and nervously flushed. “No, not this time, though it was considered. Instead it’s just a…we all get a fair shot at asking ya out and however you feel is how it goes. Don’t feel pressured.”

“I’m not. I’ll be looking forward to our date then. Find a day that works with Papyrus’ school schedule. I don’t want him giving that up for me.”

Hearing his name Papyrus bent over and leaned in to kiss the side of your face. “You’re too considerate but not to worry! All my weekends are free and I never leave my homework alone for long so none of it should be piled up whenever you’re ready.”

“I’ll look forward to it then!”

With a final salute the brother became a blip that was here then there-gone from sight but not out of mind.

“…you’re looking a little flushed.” Hearing the familiar rumble you looked back up at Dusk and sighed. He only chuckled at your expression.

“I’m not used to it but I’m learning.”

“…coulda fooled me, sugar.” He leaned down to wipe at the side of your face with the soft bone of his thumb. It was a gentle caress. “you’re far too sweet to wanna pass up on.”

“Wow,  you waited a whole twelve seconds after guests left before putting the moves one me. Is that a new record for you, big guy?” you teased, knowing he could take it.

Dusk didn’t strike you as the mischievous type, but there was an element to chaos in him that Sans didn’t have exactly. His harsh world had taken so much from him and his brother that in the end, the result was a proclivity to steal whatever happiness and joy was possible, no matter how simple or silly.

Dusk tugged on your arm and your turned before stumbling backwards into his arms, folded into his chest so that his chin hovered over your shoulder, nuzzling against the side of your face. You felt his whole body deflate a bit when he felt your weight in his arms. With your back to his front you could see it when his brother noticed the two of you and came over.

“BROTHER, DID YOU CATCH OUR MATE ALL ON YOUR OWN?” Jack asked, sounding as if he was teasing. “YOU KNOW I’M THE ONE WHO IS SUPPOSED TO SET THE TRAPS.” 

“…it’s already been pointed out but…it seems i’ve got no patience…sorry bro.”

You laughed at their friendly banter, still a little light from all the Gyftmass joy. Jack bent over and leaned down so that his face was right in front of yours. He had pulled off the hat and fake beard, but he was still wearing the spectacles, scotch taped to his skull. He angled his face gently so that he could nuzzle the opposite side of your face and neck, sounding like he had been starving for this very thing all day.  You reached up and gently stroked the back of Jack’s neck and reached backwards with your opposite hand to do the same for Dusk.

“My boys,” you sighed in contentment. “How is this really the first time I’ve slept over?”

“WE CAME TO YOU LAST TIME,” Jack reminded you gently, sounding distracted, “BUT IT DOES FEEL LIKE IT HAS BEEN A WHILE, DOESN’T IT?”

“…are you tired already?”  Dusk asked.

“Not really, maybe a little bit but I’m not ready to sleep.”

Dusk made a rumbling sound and squeezed you once. “cuddle and snacks?”

“AN EXCELLENT SUGGESTION, BROTHER,” Jack cheered. “I HAVE MIDNIGHT SNACKS THAT WE CAN BREAK OUT EXTRA EARLY AND DRINKS FOR BEFORE BED. IT’S BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE LAST ATE DESSERT.”

Dusk picked you up, flipping you up into his arms to hold bridal style, smilier to how he had carried you so many months ago when the two of you were making your escape together. He turned and carried you with him into the back bedroom. There was only one extra large bedroom with an on suite, but it had been naturally separated to distinguish Dusk’s side from Jack’s side. Both of them had huge California king sized beds that left little room for anything else. Dusk hesitated, seeing the two different beds before he dropped you down onto the nearest one and then moved behind the opposite bed to push it across the room, making the two into one.

With a satisfied giggle you rolled across the mattress of the first bed onto the second and looked up at Dusk, still upside down on the mattress. “Does this mean we’re all cuddling together?”

“hope you don’t mind that.”

You looked up when you heard someone in the doorway and turned around to face Jack as he came in carrying a tray of warm finger foods and drinks. There was even a small dish with chocolates piled up into a miniature pyramid.

“It looks wonderful, but are you sure you’re okay with us eating in your bedroom? What about crumbs?” you asked, knowing that Papyrus, Edge, and Blue had all voiced their dislike of crumbs or eating in bed at one point or another.

“IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE ONE EATS. I CAN ALWAYS CLEAN UP LATER AFTER ANYONE WHO EATS IN MY BED, AND I’D RATHER YOU BE COMFORTABLE THAN CLEAN IF IT CAME DOWN TO IT.” Jack set the tray down and then flushed with pale magic arose his skull before admitting, “AND SELFISHLY, I DO ENJOY SEEING YOU HAPPY AND EATING.”

Dusk tugged at your sweater and then nodded to the adjoining bathroom. “…if you want, you can get changed into your sleeping things over there and come back… no on wants you uncomfortable in bed.”

“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” you admitted around a yawn.

Behind you Jack was setting up the tray and looked like he was planning on heading back into the kitchen for more. You touched Dusk’s arm before passing him to make your way into the bathroom.

Your things were already there and waiting for you, so it didn’t take long. You let your hair hang free and then realized it might get in the way if you had to climb across the mattress on your hands and knees, so you put it back into a loose braid that kept it mostly contained. You had never had to worry about such long hair before. It seemed to be growing faster than it should, and you knew that was because of how much magic you used.

You hesitated in the tiny bathroom and watched your reflection in the mirror. Slowly, you pulled up the sleeping shirt and touched the ugly scar over your chest, then the others over your ribs and abdomen. The one on your chest was the worst of them but it was far from your only mar. It was horribly colored still and time hadn’t erased nearly as much of it as you had wished.

But…

You replaced the nightshirt and exhaled like there were toxins in your lungs you needed to get out instead of nightmares in your heart you needed to heal. You could finally stand to look at yourself without getting sick and you hoped that Dusk was close to doing the same. You hoped he was healing too, even if the scars would still be there that they didn’t haunt him nearly as much as they once had.

“peaches?”

The door had been left slightly ajar and you saw the back of Dusk just outside, waiting patiently.

“I’m nearly finished. Sorry for making you worried?”

“…not too worried, just wanted to make sure everything is not too match for you.”

You snickered and then pulled back the door to step out in your extra long nightshirt and socks. “Oh really, and here I thought you just wanted to catch a peak before I put my pants on.”

There was a visible shiver that ran up his spine and he nearly turned around but stopped himself, just short. There wasn’t the expected nervousness but something else in the way he held himself.

“peaches… ya know… what you’re doing? my brother and me ain’t used to…letting things we want go when its in reach.” When Dusk spoke his words were strong and sure, but there was a warning in them.

You stepped back into the bathroom with a tight smile. Your heart had skipped a little but you needed to be a bit more on top of things and not get swept up. “Hang on then, I’ll put my pants on and we can get back to that talk.”

Dusk nodded but didn’t move to leave or turn around. You found the pj pants with happy sushi decals all over and tugged them on. When you emerged this time you were sure you hadn’t overstepped any boundaries or lines.

“…didn’t want you thinking like you couldn’t do what you wanted when you’re here…but it was only fair ta…uh….throw some light on the situation, ya know.” Dusk’s singular red eye light wobbled a bit in his socket before he yawned and interrupted your staring.

“SNACK TIME,” Jack interrupted from the bed, having seen the whole exchange and was still watching with a keen look to his eye lights. You climbed up ahead of Dusk and snuggled into one of the fuzzy blankets left for you. When Jack offered you a whole-grain cracker with hummus on it you happily accepted before helping yourself to some of the veggies also on the tray.

Dusk picked at some of the pumpkin seeds while Jack cracked a few nuts between his back molars. It didn’t take long for Dusk to ‘crack’ the silence.

“…so you haven’t done anything else with the others it seems.”

You almost choked on your cracker but it was Jack who sputtered loudest. “SANS! AGAIN WITH THE CONFIDENCE THING. I THOUGHT WE WERN’T SUPPOSED TO SAY ANYTHING ABOUT THAT?”

“…no one told me nothing and they’re not talking about that, so don’t look too worried, peaches.” Dusk reached over and tugged at your extra loose pj pants. “…just guessed it on my own. did I heat the nail on the head or what?”

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO ANSWER OR EVEN TALK ABOUT THIS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO! WE’RE PERFECTLY HAPPY EATING OUR SNACKS TOGETHER AND CUDDLING. THIS IS ONLY OUR SECOND SLEEPOVER, ISN’T IT A BIT SOON TO BE PUSHING THE ENVELOPE, SANS?”

Dusk just shrugged, not minding that his brother had switched back to calling him his actual name. “…dunno, is it?”

“I’m okay talking about it if you are. I think it’s actually a better idea to have these healthy boundaries and conversations discussed instead of implied. What was it you wanted to know first?” you asked.

“ONLY IF YOU’RE COMFORTABLE ANSWERING. I KNOW THERE IS A LOT OF OTHER THINGS ON YOUR MIND RIGHT NOW. THIS SHOULD BE THE LEAST OF YOUR WORRIES.”

You reached over and kissed the side of Jack’s skull. “I’m giving you clear consent in this situation. Right here and now you can ask me anything. If it’s not something I know or something too hard to talk about I’ll be honest with you, deal?”

Jack hesitated only a little longer, glancing to his brother before nodding and leaning closer to you. “Then, Can I Kiss You Right Now?”

You turned Jack’s jaw with two fingers and leaned up to match his mouth with yours. It was a little different from kissing a human of course, since the source material was different, but where your lips met bone it was soft and malleable, shifting just as easily for expressions.

Jack reached for one of your hands and then you felt yourself pushed backwards onto the bed as he followed you down, on hand resting next to your hip as he loomed over you, mouth still open and hungry for another kiss that he moved to take before you could get a second breath in. It was a lot and you felt a new sort of ache as your mouth filled with the feeling. You were hungry for whatever this was you realized as one of you hands grabbed at his collarbone. He whimpered into your mouth and  broke off to gasp, giving you the opportunity to gulp down fresh oxygen.

There was a new arm over your head, one that was thicker pushing Jack back off you. Then you saw Dusk’s skull staring down at you, watching to see if you were okay.

“Not what I had in mind when you said you had questions…but I hope I satisfied,” you lightly teased, still feeling a tad light headed.

“…lemme ask one then…you don’t seem…hesitant for the easy things, but…” Sans leaned down only enough to rub one of his thumbs over your lips, flaring them around the digit before tapping your teeth with his bone. You thought he might push his thumb into your mouth but he pulled back instead. “but what are you really comfortable with?”

This sounded a lot like another conversation you had with Sans not so long ago, one that included Papyrus confessing his love but not his sexual attraction to you. You rolled over and then pushed yourself up into a sitting position to face the both of them.

“You mean if I’m willing to have sex with a monster?” you asked, echoing Dusk’s classic bluntness. “But more specifically, you two?”

Dusk just grunted in affirmation while Jack nervously nodded along.

“I’m not… opposed to it. If I was I would have said something about it before jumping in. I know not all my partners are sexually active or sex positive, but I’m open to it…whatever you’re comfortable with. My main reservation is just…it’s a little complicated balancing this with so many partners. How do I keep everyone happy, but make sure no one feels left out? I’m still figuring that out.”

“do you have…hn…. reservations against…multiple parents at once?” Dusk asked in his pausing speech. You noticed the pads on his skull wound looked a little darker too. He wound need to change the bandages soon.

“Not…not if that’s something they’re okay with and consenting to. I’m not sure if that’s something I’d want to push anyone towards, but…why ask that?”

“WITH THE BOTH OF US, UNFORTUNATELY, THE DECISION TO ABSTAIN MIGHT HAVE BEEN MADE FOR US. NORMALLY, A SKELETON MONSTER WOULD HAVE TO MANIFEST SPECIFIC BODILY ELEMENTS FOR…COMMUNION, BUT SINCE THE FAMIN THAT’S BEEN SOMETHING NEITHER OF US HAVE BEEN ABLE TO ACCOMPLISH.”

“….not that there was much need for it, since no one wanted to make any new monsters in that hell hole when things were so bad, but sometimes….you… you want to share a lil …something with someone to forget how bad the world is” Dusk blinked hard, struggling with the words for only a brief moment before they came to him. “but…no dice for either of us.”    

“So you can’t…”

Dusk caught your eye while Jack looked away and laughed at your expression. “we’re creative but it wouldn’t be the traditional romp if that’s what your deal is… sorry peaches for not spilling the beans earlier, but…what you see is what you get… a ‘hole’ lotta nothing.”

“THANKFULLY WE’RE NOT YOUR ONLY OUTLET. EVEN IF I WAS UP TO THE TASK I’M AFRAID I WOULDN’T BE THE MOST ATTENTIVE PARTNER. IT’S A BIT OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE, EVEN WHEN I’M WILLING,” Jack admitted, touching your face softly with the back of his knuckles. “BUT I DON’T HATE IT. IT’S A BIT COMPLICATED.”

“If you identify as Ace or Demi that’s not a deal breaker for me. I don’t care what you can or can’t do. You’re still the monster my soul wants, monsters I feel safe and cared with. I love you guys.” You reassured Jack while also reaching for Dusk. Jack found your free hand all on his own and he squeezed it once.

“I STILL WANT TO KISS YOU WHENEVER I CAN, YOU’RE MY FAVORITE HUMAN.” Jack glanced up over your head to where his brother sat on the bed. “AND I STILL ENJOY IT WHEN YOU’RE HAPPY, EVEN IF IT ISN’T WITH ME. IT ACTUALLY MAKES ME ANXIOUS IF I THINK YOU’RE NOT BEING TAKEN CARE OF. I THINK ABOUT THAT OFTEN AND WONDER IF SOMEONE IS FEEDING YOU ENOUGH OR IF YOU’RE RESTING SOMEWHERE SOFT AND WARM. I…I ALWAYS WANT TO KNOW YOU’RE BEING TREASURED.”

“That’s exceedingly generous of you, Papyrus,” you said, using his actual name. As much as he liked his new name for the surface, you didn’t doubt that when it was just the two or three of you, he wouldn’t mind hearing ‘Papyrus’ again. 

“…i…also like kissing and other things…so…when you’re ready….” Dusk said while looking at your happy sushi pjs. The message received was clear enough for him. It wasn’t a ‘no’ but more along the lines of ‘not tonight.’ Now that their preferences were out in the open, maybe that would all change.

You desperately wanted to know what ‘other things’ meant but you also understood that it was late and maybe the pair were wanting to cuddle up for the night. What you’ve discussed so far was good.

“I’ll always let you know what I’m comfortable with and what I’m not. But how about for tonight we just…snuggle up.”

“THAT’S THE BEST GYFTMASS GIFT ONE COULD ASK FOR!”

Dusk chuckled but pushed the empty food tray aside and pulled down the sheets. Jack cleared the tray off the bed and helped his brother before pushing most of the pillows up and making them into a long row to lay atop of. Dusk turned down the lights and in the new darkness Sans’ bloated red eye light however in the black, fixated on how you snuggled into bed. Dusk pulled you close as soon as you were settled and then Jack followed soon after, reaching for you too.

“Merry Gyftmass boys,” you whispered before falling asleep.

You didn’t manage to hear their replies, but you felt their love and that was good enough.

 

Notes:

This was supposed to be primarily a horror boys chapter but it was nearly six thousand words before I felt like I actually got to the meat of their scenes so accept this extra long (late) Gyftmass gift of a chapter where reader discovers her boys are revving to go in more ways than one.
Also-Paps finally gets a new name! Jack or Jack Skellington as the kids like to call him. It might not translate culturally, but it’s what came to mind when considering the story and how kids would see a giant skinny skeleton man who likes to dress up as Santa-claws. Lol

Apart from that, dates are being put on the calendar. I only have the first one written/planned for, but it's with Rus and Blue. What do you think Blue and Rus have in common? Hmmmm?

I'll be off next week for rest reasons, so thank you in advance for your patience. I've also decided that an M rating would be most appropriate going forward, but there's a hard line between writing anything E in this fic. There will be no smut here. Suggestive content, language, and violence with body horror elements, but no smut. I'd put all the really saucy stuff into a side fic that readers can choose to look for on their own later on. So that might be what comes after this project finishes. We shall see.

Stay safe people!

Chapter 73: Real Ones 3

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

 

 

Ţ̸͕̣͔̦̞̰̞̻͉̱͔͈̃͋̌͌̄̾̄͊̚̕̚͠͝͝e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚r̸̬͔͇̆͂̈́͂e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚  w̵̧̛͆͆a̴͈͋̈́̓̕̚s̶̜͎̘̼͕̈́̈́͌̐͆͑̉͌ a̴͈͋̈́̓̕̚ d̶̨͇̹̥̦̥̖̠̙̍̋̽͌̾ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘r̸̬͔͇̆͂̈́͂

 

You woke up sweating again and groaned when you recognized your surroundings. You were on the couch again and it wasn’t even regular sleeping hours. Not to say you were actually sleeping during regular sleeping hours, but still…there were standards you were trying to keep.

You noticed the television on and turned to see Peter on his belly coloring on the ground while one of his favorite shows played. From what you could see he was trying to make a comic of the characters in the show. When you sat up and turned around a blanket fell off your lap onto the ground.

“Was this from you, sweetie?” you asked, standing up and folding the blanket as you went.

Peter glanced up from his drawing and grinned. “You fell asleep real fast but you didn’t nap long at all. It’s still the same episode!”

“Is that a good thing?” you asked while sitting down next to him on the ground. He made room for you and showed off his drawing.

“I like it when you’re awake. You don’t look so sad.”

Oof

“You and me both, buddy. Mind sharing a paper with me? I wanna draw too.”

With excitement Peter scrambled to get another paper from his drawing kit and share his twistable crayons with you. You noticed absently that one of the boys had been coloring or drawing with Peter at some point since there were a few saved art pieces in the kit that had to have come from one of your boys. Your money was on Rus judging by the cross hatch style he seemed to favor.

Rus liked to pretend he was only a master hacker and brilliant coder, but you knew he had an artistic side when it came to things like drawings and paintings. The only problem was he was almost as secretive about it as Stretch was with his creative writings.

“I’m not very good at this but it’s fun,” you absently commented to Peter before pointing to the art piece. “Did Rus make that for you?”

“No, I stole it from him when he wasn’t looking cause I wanna copy it and get that good.” Peter glanced up with a guilty look. “Please don’t tell him.”

You chuckled. “How about I  not mention it until he does. I won’t lie for you, squirt,” you said while reaching for his nose to bop, “but I’ll not go squealing to him about it right away.”

“You can give it back to him if you want since I’m done with it. I couldn’t get the face right so I’m making anime man.” Peter showed off his picture and you glanced to the television where an anime was playing. It was a newer one, a series you didn’t recognize, but you doubted the main character was really called anime man. Nevertheless, it got you to grin.

“Cool pose. You good to keep drawing here while I look for Black?”

“Daddy?”

The new title never failed to amuse you. “Yeah, I’m gonna go find daddy. We’re going to have dinner later and I should talk with him first before I put anything together.”

“Burgers please!” Peter called out while ignoring you in favor of adding more lightning and fire to the background of his comic drawings. 

You pulled out your phone and yawned, checking the time before heading deeper into the house to find someone. It had been a little over four weeks since you returned but time felt like it was flying as you waited with baited breath for any sign that Hightower was going to end the world. You felt guilt for sleeping and doing anything that wasn’t searching with your map for any sign of the guy, but you knew at some point you would have to learn to let go. If you were taunt like a bowstring all the time you would slip up sooner or later and end up hurting the wrong person-or just burn yourself out before the fight even started.

That’s why you had a date marked on your calendar for when Fuka would come back to visit her dad. The two of you were planning on hitting up the new ‘underground’ nightclub her ‘uncle’ had set up. You had nearly backed out but everyone around you was adamant on making sure you took the time to enjoy yourself.

“And remember if the world really is ending, might as well enjoy it while you can,” Rus had told you after one such argument. He was doing his part to monitor the government’s occupation of Hightower’s fallen hideout with the largest portal to the void on lockdown. It was beyond Hightower’s reach as long as the seal was still covering it so you were more worried about the other two openings under the embassy and the one inside Mt. Ebott. You were as careful as you could be…but still….

You reached the top of the stairs and knew Black would be in his office but didn’t want him to hear you coming. You knew how to be quiet but he could normally tell you were close without the need for sight or sound. Something about your magic resonating with his.

You slipped in as close as you dared on silent steps before dashing in through the open doorway and sliding to a stop in front of his desk on your socks. Black startled at the sight of you and dropped one of his papers when he stood, looking shocked.

You heard him exclaim your name and you laughed because you could. “You startled me. What are you doing here?”

“Trying to startle you.”

Black almost glared at you but the sparkle around your throat always sates his irritation. You watch as his eye lights find the floating rubies and then go soft for you. He reached for you and rounded his desk to grab at your hips.

“Then consider me throughly startled my dear. I’m curious about this new, playful disposition, but I can’t say I’m enterally in disapproval of it.” He tugged your closer by the belt loops and then kissed at your neck which you hummed in appreciation to. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, my pearl?”

“Wanted to know what you wanted for dinner, Peter requested burgers but I’m sure you’d like a little more variety.”

Black pulled back enough to stare up at your face. “You just came back with him from their field trip. Aren’t you tired? I can cook.”

You didn’t want to admit you were always tired, not to Black, so you just chuckled and kissed him back. “I’m feeling fine enough to burn a couple of burgers for the kids. No need to rush off like a white knight for my sake.”

“You think it’s for your sake?”

“Isn’t it?”

“Maybe, but it’s also for my own sake because I like seeing you well rested. I’m selfish. I want to do things for you and you just keep doing things for me and my family-our family.”

“That’s right, our family,” you gently corrected. Black just hummed in contentment as you looped your arms around his waist and swayed slightly in place, drifting in contentment.

You remembered Raven in that moment and missed him-wishing he could be a part of your new family. Neither of you were perfect but he was your brother and you wanted to go forward in life knowing he was a part of it. Being in Black’s arms, talking about the kids, making plans for dinner… it was perfect and domestic and easy…all things you never believed yourself capable of. None of you had believed in such a happy ending for yourselves.

“You’re drifting on me. Am I not captivating enough?” Black teased with a fond chuckle that only came out for you.

“Sorry, just thinking about family things…my brother, where he is now and what I wish he could see. I’m so damn happy and none of us ever believed that was possible. It’s funny, how natural this feels.”

“Happiness?” Black clarified.

“Yeah. Is that how happiness is supposed to work? Is it supposed to feel so natural?”

Black frowned and then brushed a strand of hair out of your face. “I wish you didn’t have to wonder or ask questions like that. I only want to spoil you further until you can’t even doubt your own happiness.” He kissed at the side of your face again. “I’ll never forgive them for making you doubt your deservingness.”

You swallowed and then nodded to the desk. “What were you doing? You have work you need to finish up? I can make something different for dinner no problem if you have stuff to do.”

You were wrapped up in his arms so you felt it when Black tensed a little. Still, he was a master of his own emotions if nothing else so you were almost unsure if you had actually noticed anything or just imagined the flinch of tension. 

“That’s alright, I’ll make burritos for the kids. You should rest,” he said, sounding as casual and normal as ever.

“You wanna disappoint Peter?” you teased back.

“He is easily persuaded.”

You leaned in and kissed his skull but pulled away. “I’ll let you make dinner tomorrow and I’ll cover tonight. I’m not tired so save your offer for some to her time. Deal?”

“Only if it’s for the kids,” he grumbled, eye lights flickering over you in worry.

You paused in the doorway. “Honest, Black, I’m fine.” You swallowed and shifted the weight of your body from one leg to the other and then added, “If you need me for anything you know I’m here, right? Even if it’s to listen to you vent you know you can talk to me, right?”

You saw the moment Black realized you had noticed his flinch from earlier. His shoulders sagged and he looked pointedly away before returning to his desk where he picked up a letter from off the floor. “I’m fine, just a bit disheartened by the nasty nature of some of this business.” He waved the letter and shook his head. “I don’t like dealing with this woman.”   

“Who?” you ventured a step back into his office and folded your hands behind your back.

Black’s expression turned dark. “Tron’s aunt, also his legal guardian. She’s a negligent addict who…she hadn’t even noticed when Tron left until she saw him with us and…began sending these letters every month.”

You felt cold ice in your veins. “What letters?”

“Just requests for more money to keep it quiet that we’ve been taking care of her nephew, or ‘kidnapping’ in her eyes. Never mind how she never cared all the other times Tron tried to run away  in the past. She’s only doing this now because we have money and she needs it. But, don’t worry. I’m nothing if not good for it,” Black sighed. “She’s just a pain to deal with. I had hoped I was past these sort of deals since surfacing.” 

“Wait, are you telling me you’ve been paying her a-a blackmailer’s fee so she doesn’t blow the whistle and grab Tron? I thought-what about the others?”

“Peter and Wendy were wards of the state and easily adopted. Phil was also orphaned with no relations but he was left with this aunt of Tron’s for reasons beyond me. They’re distant cousins of some sort and no one bothered to look and see if this addict of a woman could take care of her own nephew before saddling her with another. That’s the reason Tron ran away when he did, because he feared for Phil’s safety. Peter and Wendy joined him along the way.”

You couldn’t believe you didn’t know the whole story. You had thought you knew but the truth was a hell of a lot worse. Your gut rolled to even think about Tron, a kid himself, forced to grow up and take care of another child because he was in fear for their lives.

Notokaynotokaynotokay

“And this aunt of his…she’s been asking for money?” you asked.

Black huffed in irritation. “Yes, not a word of concern for Tron or Phil, just money. I’m sure she doesn’t care about anyone but herself if she can’t see the treasure of a soul her nephew is. It’s her loss.”

You didn’t want to but you asked, “How much was she asking for.”

“The usual amount,” Black answered before showing you the letter. The zeroes in her number made you a little sick. You felt a little less bad about taking money from Black for watching the kids and driving them around.

“Don’t tell me you’re sending this to her, Black.” You looked up, horrified. “She’s only going to leach more and more out of you. There’s no way any human can be satisfied with leverage like this.”

“As much as it pains me to admit it, even with my brother’s help we’re unable to find another way around her demands. She’s unwilling to surrender her rights and let us adopt Tron legally, and we’ve tried. It’s why she’s demanding so much, because we were foolish to dangle that amount in front of her face.” Black touched the unsigned adoption papers on his desk and glared at the empty signature line before sighing.

You swallowed before asking, “You can’t scare her into giving Tron up if she’s unwilling to negotiate?”

“We’re monsters on the surface so we can’t resort to usual tactics, and at least at this point in time she’s not being unreasonable.” He then tried a wry smile. “I’ve spent enough of my life being cruel and forcing my way out of many lesser monsters. It’s about time I changed my ways, no?”

“Black, this is a lot of money.”

“Yes, but I’m quite well off, I assure you, this isn’t even denting my reserves.” He waved at your concern. “Besides that, Tron is worth it. I don’t want to make this into another trauma for him.”

You glared down at the letter and turned it over, seeing the envelope still taped to the back with a return address. She didn’t live far. She was technically no longer in Blackberry’s town limits but not by much. You knew how long it’d take you to reach the neighboring city. Stretch was also free by this time. He’d be able to help if it was for Tron’s sake.

You dropped the aunt’s letter onto the table and picked up the unsigned adoption papers, folding them neatly into a new envelope that would keep them safe. “Black, can you cover dinner tonight? I’m going to take care of this,” you said, waving the envelope.   

Black’s eye lights flickered out for a solid five seconds before he recovered and reached for your wrist to stop you from leaving with the adoption papers. “Wait, what are you going to do? If you try to frighten her she could go straight to the authorities.” The implications that monsters were not friends of the cops wasn't lost on you. It was a long road for equal rights but there were strides being made each year.

“Not if I am the cops.”

Black let go of your wrist. “What?”

But then he started to get an idea of what you were thinking when you turned and headed downstairs in search of Blue’s room. You knocked on his door and called his name, waiting to hear an affirmation before letting yourself peak in.

“Blue, I need to borrow something from your closet,” you called from the threshold.

Blue looked up from some of the ’Terms and Conditions’ files he was reading for another side job and blinked owlishly up at you. “Borrow something? If you think anything I have could be helpful I wouldn’t mind but what are you needing?”

“It’s not actually your clothing but it’s something you bought. Where are the sexy cosplay uniforms you bought online with our shared Amazon account?” you said, forgetting to relish the moment of shock and horror as his kink was exposed. (It wasn’t like you would be against it so he shouldn’t be so worried looking.)

“WHA-WHA-WA-WHAT ARE YOU WAIT! WAIT, I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO -WE WERE GOING TO TALK ABOUT THIS FIRST, HOW DID YOU KNOW-NO, HOW LONG HAVE YOU KNOWN?!” Blue panicked. His face was as dark as his namesake and you could see the beads of sweat rolling down the side of his skull. You would have laughed if you weren’t in such a hurry to deal with an extortionist.

“Like I said, shared Amazon account. You forgot to archive your order like Rus does when he buys his toys, but no worries. Speaking of worries, I wanted to borrow the cop one, or at least the top. I’ll have to ditch the mini skirt with a pair of black dress slacks but I at least have those.” You touched the outside of his closet and waited. “Please, it’s for something important.”

Blue snapped back to stare at Black as if that would explain things then he looked back in your direction with a wide socket look of badly contained horror.  He whimpered your name and then rubbed at the back of his skull.  “I MEA-I mean, I meant to talk to you about it before. I’m sorry for doing this without your knowledge but please trust me I would never try to push any of my-” Blue glared sidelong at black before swallowing, “-preferences on you. This isn’t reflective of my character and-”

“Blue,” you interrupted. “It’s okay, I’m not mad or grossed out. I’d be more than happy to have this conversation with you when I get back but first I gotta take care of some business without violence, so lemme borrow the sexy cop uniform, alright?”

“…Oh, of course but it’s not a ’sexy’ cop uniform. It’s really accurate and it’s just the skirt that’s an issue if you wanted to cosplay. But I have-don’t judge me for this- but I-”

Blue rambled a bit before opening the closet for you and pulling back a rack to reveal a secondary rack of costumes, for both men and women. Some were obviously sexier than others, and you would be lying if you said you weren’t at least a little tempted to flip through the rack and see what Blue’s tastes were, but at the moment you only had eyes for one prize stuffed in the middle above a box filled with accessories for more than just one costume. Blue pulled the hanger down and passed over the outfit before opening the box for the fake holster and very real handcuffs that would complete the outfit. 

“What do you need a uniform for anyway?” Blue asked, glancing away from you to the doorway where Black still watched, eye lights dilated wide so as to not miss anything.

You turned the hanger over and grinned at the extra set of pants that would look better with the uniform than what you had in your own closet. “Black mentioned a problem he had that couldn’t be solved with violence so I’m adapting. Is it okay if I get changed here?”

Black turned quickly around and shut the door while Blue averted his eyes and turned as well, allowing you to change into the costume. It didn’t take long and you spoke as you dressed, summarizing briefly your plan to show up as a cop, claim Tron was downtown at the station and facing some serious charges she’d be legally responsible for paying off if she hadn’t already signed away her rights during the adoption process some ‘entitled pointy toothed monster’ was at the station ranting about.  If money was what she was after maybe this scare would do the trick.

“That’s a little far fetched, don’t you think?” Black worried.

“Yeah, my costume is mostly accurate but what if she doesn’t recognize it as authentic and calls your bluff?” Blue added. 

“Then I improvise and pull the whole human mage angle and if that fails too we can go back to paying her demands like you’ve been doing these past few months. But as things stand, Tron won’t ever be free if she’s not dealt with now. Okay you can turn around now, I’m done.”

Blue turned around but didn’t open his eyes while Black only glanced briefly up at you before looking down at the floor again. You approached Blue first and leaned in to whisper in his ear before passing Black to get out into the hallway.

Behind you, still stunned and stuck in the room, Blue glanced nervously up at his look alike before moving to put some of the costume back in order and close up his closet.

“Is that a guard uniform?” Black asked before Blue could roll the closet door shut.

“A cadet uniform,” Blue confirmed without meeting Black’s eyes.

“…It’s in the swap fell style then, I presume.” Blue nodded slowly, keenly eyeing Black from over his shoulder. Black coughed into his fist and pretended not to notice how hot his skull had become with the blooming flush of magic. “Might you still have the name of your tailor, if they happen to be open to commissions?”

 


 

You had already texted for Stretch to meet you downstairs so it hadn’t taken much more work on your part to short cut to a nearby location and walk the rest of the short way to the apartment building your GPS told you to head towards.  Finding the correct apartment in the entire complex wasn’t much harder.

You fiddled with the fake badge and tried to remember if the local police or just FBI agents flashed it. You weren’t sure.

“So, what percentage of success are you giving yourself for this?”

You looked up at Stretch and frowned. “It’s not zero.”

“No, but there is a reason you asked me and not Black or my brother to go with you, right?” he hummed, playing with a stick of honey in his mouth.

You heard the crinkle of plastic wrapper and he held up the stick of rock candy that had been hidden in his pocket. It had been a while since you last needed one, but it wasn’t lost on you to know he still had one ready for you, even after weeks and weeks. When you looked away from the candy to study his face all you saw was acceptance and understanding; no judgment. It was the same after that night on the roof of the bus, when you fell apart and he had been there to see it all. Stretch was the one person you felt  safest around when you hated yourself. He had seen your depths.

“I didn’t lie to Black, I really am going to try it this way first,” you said.

“But you know your chances,” Stretch finished for you. He pocketed the candy for later and stopped walking so he would remain out of sight of the many peep holes in the hallway-something he had noticed and adapted to without warning. You stopped alongside him and waited to hear what else he had to say when you caught his expression. “You know why he didn’t want to tell you this in the first place, don’t you?”

“Because he didn’t want to bother me with it, or because he thought he didn’t need to bring me into it. I know he’s more than capable of solving it his way, but for how long?” You fidgeted with the  fake holster and rolled your shoulders back to help belay the nerves you were fighting down. “Tron is my family too. I deserve a shot at this.”

“…you know he’ll forgive you if it goes south, right?”  Stretch asked with a voice that resonated with magic.

You hesitated, hating yourself for the roll of self hate you had to stamp down before you could wrestle out the words. “Do you think he believed me when I said I was…when I left?”

“Is that what you’re worried about?” What went unsaid was, ‘Are you more afraid of Black thinking you lied to him than of what you may have to do in order to free Tron?’

And the answer was: yes. You were far more terrified of losing Black’s trust than anything that might happen to you after intimidating a human. Sure, neither was a positive prospect, but Black’s trust meant so much more to you now that you knew what it felt like to come home to his arms and banter about dinner in his study or attend Wendy’s doll themed tea parties together. You didn’t want to lose any of that.

You also didn’t want to admit any of that since you felt like Stretch had seen right through you and already knew.

“Just…help me sell this farce and give me an honest shot at the deception where no one gets horribly traumatized and I can answer your question later.” 

“You got it honey, I’ll be right here.”

You straightened your back and approached the correct door before knocking. A few seconds passed before you heard someone on the other side but it was almost a full minute before someone called out, sounding tired or hungover.

“Who is it?”

“Blackberry Police, ma’am. We’re looking for a Ms. Shaw,” you called out, standing purposefully in front of the peephole so she could see the uniform.

“I’ve paid all my parking fines!” the voice on the other side of the door barked, but you heard the sound of the chain sliding into place before the deadbolt switched back. The woman who appeared in the crack was younger than you had been expecting. She was pretty, too, with long black hair that shone  meticulously. Her nails were also perfectly gelled neon blue to match her eyeliner.

“We’re looking for the direct relations of a Tron Shaw. Are you Ms. Anne Shaw?”

“What for?”

“Are you her, Ma’am,” you asked again, trying to sound as authoritative as possible.

Anne rolled her eyes but pulled back the door a little more to stand in the gap better, a single chain the only thing keeping you from reaching her. “Yes, that’s me and yes that’s my kid. What of it?”

“He’s being booked for assaulting a police officer and destruction of property as well as vandalism of public and private property.” You showed a photo on your phone of Tron with a less than clear background that made it look like he was standing for a mugshot-all thanks to a little filter magic any kid could hack.

“What the fuck, what are you talking about? No way that was him. He’s dull kid who reads too much!” Anne exclaimed. “You have the wrong kid.”

“Is Tron Shaw at home right now? When was the last time you saw him?”

Anne looked behind her and answered. “He was staying with some friends in Blackberry. I…I let him sleepover. I should call the family he was with.”

“They’re also at the station and we’ve run into an issue there.” You produced the adoption papers and put on a bored looking face, playing at being annoyed with having to say the next part. “They invited that Tron was their responsibility and offered to cover the fines and damages but are ineligible because they do not have guardianship status. We’re coming to you first to confirm their story or take Tron’s fines on yourself.”

“What fines? How much?”

You told her a number that was well over double what Black would be expected to pay up and watched with a sick sort of satisfaction as her face fell.

“But they…that other family said they would pay it. If they were watching him aren’t they the ones in trouble? You should be severing-se-serving them papers or whatever. Give them the bill!”

“As odd as it sounds, that’s what they were insisting on as well, but because they are not the boy’s legal guardian they are ineligible. They asked, more like insisted, we communicate an offer to you but if you’re the legal guardian it shouldn’t be necessary.”

You saw the spark in Anne’s eye and mentally congratulated yourself on the bullshit story that was holding water so far. You were actually selling the lie!

“What was their offer?” she asked.

You turned over the papers. “You’d have to sign over guardianship of the child to them, but that also means signing over all his debts and the responsibility of operating with a parole officer if he does not qualify for jail time.”

You watched Anne think to herself, wearing every emotion on her face. Before you could stop her she reached through the door and snatched the papers out of your hand. “Lemme see those,” she said, pulling them out and unfolding them. “I just gotta sign these and they pay for everything?”

“Yes, but don’t you want to reject their offer?” you asked, playing up the part even as Anne ran around in the background scrambling to find a pen. She returned a moment later with the ink all dried. Each of the four pages had been signed and dated. She hesitated in the doorway. “I won’t have to house an officer in my home?” she asked for clarity.

The papers were signed and in her hand and you hadn’t needed to do anything for them this time around. “That would be correct Ma’am, so long as the paperwork is approved and notarized. But in such a scenario the other family would be responsible for financial restitutions.”

“Fine with me,” Anne started to say, stuffing the papers back into the folded envelope. But then she stopped and looked up slowly. She glared through the gap in the door. “What did you say your name was again?” You answered her and waited for her response. “So…where is your partner, officer?”

You saw the way she watched you and deflated. There was no longer any belief left in her eyes. “I was hoping it wouldn’t have come to this, but Stretch, get me inside.”

From outside the doorway’s range of vision Stretch reached out his arm and grabbed for you before shortcutting into the apartment right behind Tron’s aunt. You were close enough that you could push the door closed and grab at her face to keep her from screaming at the same time. She tried to bite at your hand but you grabbed her by the jaw and held it so she couldn’t move it while Stretch slid the locks into place.

“It’s not really a good look when monsters do nasty things to humans but I don’t have to worry about any of that since I’m just flesh and blood, same as you. Why don’t you turn those papers over before I have to do something we’ll both dislike?”

When Anne only tried to shout again you turned her around and threw her onto the couch before she could flail at you. Stretch reached around you and snapped the envelope of papers out of her hand in time to save them from being shredded.

Over your hand she glared hard at you and you believed the hate she had for you. But that didn’t deter you in the slightest. No matter-some things were worth toeing this line. For the dinner table that would never be complete without Tron or Phil or Peter or Wendy at it. You weren’t going to lose those kids, not when there was something you could do about it.

“Feel free to glare, it’s not going to do you any favors here,” you said before sighing. “I think it was Mary Oliver who said something about a box of darkness being a gift or some close enough, but she was wrong. True darkness isn’t a gift at all, it’s only a humbling." You leaned down closer. "Let me show you.”

There was magic leaking out of your empty socket as you lifted a finger to your temple and extracted the memory before dropping it into Anne’s mind like a coin into an arcade game. The memory fell into place and you were forced to keep her mouth shut as she screams and cried. It brought you no pleasure but when she eventually passed out you were relieved to know the deed was done and you had what you came for.   

“Don’t ever come after my family again or I’ll make these nightmares a reality for you and your own,” you whispered before moving back off the couch.

She would remember that warning at the end of your implanted memory. On the nearby table a box had been hastily cleaned up but in the struggle it had turned over and you noticed three fine bags of white powder leaking out. You picked one up and dropped it onto Anne’s sleeping chest.

“You okay?” Stretch asked from behind.

“No, but I’m better than last time. It was…it wasn’t easier but I felt better knowing why I was doing it this time around,” you admitted in a small voice before reaching for the offered candy. “If the world really does end in a matter of weeks or days I want to spend them with my family knowing I protected them as best I could..”

Stretch watched you with a softness that made the edges of his eye lights waver. He reached down and wrapped one of his hands around yours, holding the candy in place while he pulled off the plastic with the other. “I’m only ever in awe of you and your love,” he admitted. “Never change and never doubt that you are perfect just the way you are.”

“You think I’m still a good person after what you just saw?” you scoffed.

“Nah.”

You scoffed at his simple reply but didn’t say anything more about it.

"Thinking about people like that does them a disservice in the long run. This label has hurt you more than you know."

Stretch carefully guided the rock candy to your lips and then applied enough pressure to let you know he wanted your mouth open. When you obliged he leaned in to kiss you, pulling the candy away in time so the only thing you could taste was him. You bent back into the kiss, reaching up to follow him when he pulled away in a breathless way. There was static on your lips still from the magic he lost when too excited.

“I don’t love you because of something so impossible,” said Stretch. “There are no good and no bad, there are only people and monsters with wells of both, and you’re the one I love on purpose, shadows and all.” Then he leaned down again and cupped the back of your head before kissing you deeply.

And you were in love and happy, but underneath it there was something new for you to realize. There was an echo of fear in you now. As deeply as you loved you boys and your new family, you were just as deep in fear of what life would mean for you without them.

Once upon a time you had been the bomb with legs, trained to do what needed to be done if the world ever needed it. You had never flinched at the thought of sacrificing yourself for other or for the world. That would just make you a hero. But now…the same idea felt more like a nightmare. You didn’t want to die. Life was way too good. You wanted to live, you wanted to grow old, you wanted to experience all the fun and silly things you didn’t even know how to expect. You didn’t want to lose any of them.

“I’ve got you,” Stretch promised when he noticed your shivering. “I’ve got you.”

“It’s not that,” you whispered, burying your face in his shift. “I’m fine…I’m fine with…that.”

“You don’t have to be,” Stretch said, pulling away to get a better look at your face. “But what are you trying to say?”

When you looked at his face your heart turned all the more soft. “I love you a lot. I don’t want to ever have to live without you.” You touched his face and felt the familiar texture of bone underneath your fingertips. “I love you so freaking much and I swear I’m going to do everything I can to keep us all safe. I don’t want to ever g back to a life without this happiness.”

“Of course,” he answered, taking your hand back so he could kiss it before leaning in again. “You and me both, we’ll be working to keep this paradise of ours open until the last of our days, and then some. I’m in this for the long run.”

 

Notes:

Kiss kiss fall in love~

TBH I'm not the most satisfied with this chapter but I really wanted to show a scene or scenario where the main character has to rely on a trick that previously crippled them with shame and guilt to illustrate how much they've grown. And maybe some of that 'hero' rhetoric (not all of it) was doing the kids a disservice.
Plus, I wanna believe that Rus or Stretch would be the Judge with the most insight into how people are capable of anything and there are no 'good' or 'bad' but rather monsters and humans who make choices that tilt them one way or the other. So yeah, that's my personal interpretation as it fits into this chapter.

Chapter 74: Real Ones 4

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Black looked over himself in the mirror and picked on of his uniform’s shoulder to make it crease the way he liked it. Stepping back with his hands crossed behind his back he could see what his first impression would be for humans who didn’t have a face to go with the name.

He was a striking figure on the PTO board at his children’s school, but would that same intimidation carry over into other environments? In the mirror he saw him standing in his second best suit, the one with fewer medals and a dark violet tint that helped him blend in better. If he walked into a dance club would humans and monsters still stop and turn to watch him pass? 

In the mirror he could imagine how little regard humans would pay someone like him in such a frenzied environment. It had never been his scene, even when they were all still underground, he had left those circles to his brother and stepped in only when the need arose. But, back underground monsters could sense his violent magic before they even saw him. Humans were an enterally different story.

It was frustrating sometimes how humbled their untapped magics made him feel. They were like walking nuclear reactors of magic that could never find the ‘on’ switch. His instincts warned him away but his mind belayed those fears with logic.

All that to say, Black was sure his decision to stay home while his brother took you out to the club was a wise one. The invitation had been tempting and maybe one day he’d feel secure enough to take Rus up on the offer, but not tonight. He’d…stay home and let you enjoy the night with someone who actually knew what they were doing in a club.

“Oh, you’re still here?”

Black turned to glance out of his room, remembering he left the door open to better listen for any sound or sign of the kids getting up out of bed. He didn’t flinch because there wasn’t a reason to when Stretch spotted him from the hallway.

“This is my house,” Black cooly replied.

“Huh, I guess that’s why Rus took Blue out. Weren’t you supposed to have dibs tonight?” Stretch asked, shifting weight from one foot to the next while staying outside on the other side of the bedroom threshold.

“My brother can stand to be spoiled without my interference for one night of the week.” Black reached for the door with the hanging mirror and eased it closed, pretending he hadn’t been using it to preen like a peacock and worry like one. “What are you doing without your brother for the night to still be up? You sounded like you weren’t expecting me.”

“Oh.” Stretch held up in his hands a stack of binder clipped papers while a few folders sat pinched under his arm. “Edge is coming over in a bit to help me with this. That still cool with you?”

“Of course it’s okay if you want to have a friend over,” Black answered easily, forgetting that Stretch wasn’t his younger brother.

The similarities were too striking and sometimes when Black looked at Stretch he saw what Rus used to be before the stress of their world manifested into a half dozen trauma fueled anxieties. They were the same age, but to Black he couldn’t help but think of Stretch as a younger Rus.

Black recognized his overly familiar tone and coughed into his fist before averting his eye lights. “I meant to say, you still live here so of course you should feel comfortable inviting guests over. The children are all asleep but I trust you enough to not need to remind you to keep it down. Do you need a designated space?”

“Nah…” Stretch easily answered while eyeing Black funny. He was too observant to miss such an obvious slip up. “We were just going to use the downstairs kitchen table to spread out on.”

Black nodded stiffly and then glanced at the papers again. “Is it for work? You may use the office if you need it.”

Stretch lingered awkwardly. “Not work, just…fun stuff I guess.”

Recognition made Black’s eye lights flash a stronger purple color. “Ah yes, the book you’re writing, I remember now.”

Stretch almost flushed, wrinkling the front of his skull as he made an expression of familiar exasperation. “It’s a novel draft but how did you hear about that?”

“You told the kids about it, you should have known you had better chances of keeping a secret on the internet,” Black scoffed with a wide smile. “Is Edge coming over to help you work on the romance?”

“No!”

Black cackled at the blurt response that told him all he needed to know. Stretch was truly his own skeleton but Black had already raised one baby bones papyrus so there was no way he wouldn’t be able to draw his own conclusions based on the clues in how Stretch reacted and responded. Rus was the same way once upon a time and it made him feel…lighter? Happier?

“You’ll need wine and snacks if you’re subjugating Edge to all that. I think I still have some in the  top shelf of the pantry out of reach. It might be a sangria, so you can even get away with a sip or two without getting sloshed.”

“Black, you’re not-it’s fine and Edge is just gonna be giving me notes. You’re not-”

“Invited? In my own house, Stretch, really? How inhospitable do you think I am to not ensure my guest and housemate are properly set up?” Black cackled, enjoying the expression on Stretch’s face far too much to quit. “I bet you didn’t even clean off the table yet, did you? You can’t leave such a step to your guests. You need to be prepared for these sort of things. Come along, I know what Edge likes to drink, maybe that’ll soften his harsh edges.”

Stretch’s expression of exasperation pales into one of soft horror as he realized Black was now punning with him. It was just like the early years when Blue tried to pun his way through conversations and frustrated Stretch to the point where he had to beat his older brother at his own game for the good of everyone’s sanity.

“Black, you’re not invited. It’s private. Black, Black, wait! hey!”

 

 

Fuka whistled and it sounded like the hiss of a steam escaping a kettle, something that always made you laugh in glee when you heard it. You didn’t think you deserved it, but you appreciated the howls of appreciation when you slowly turned outside the closet. A body length mirror reflected you from an angle that let you see behind you. You stopped to stare at yourself and pull at the edges of your romper while Fuka came up behind you.

“It looks great. You’re a total babe,” she cheered in a crackling laugh.

Even though Fuka spoke to you in the language of fire you responded normally. “You don’t think it’s a bit much? I’m not used to showing off this much…skin…”

“Where?” Fuka scoffed. “You’re still mostly covered. It doesn’t count.”

You twisted in the mirror and frowned at the romper that had been picked out for clubbing. It was black and glittery when the light hit it just right with long sleeves that cinched at your wrists. From shoulder to wrist the fabric was loose and mesh like to match your black nylon stockings. The romper ended where micro shorts would and it drove Fuka wild when you practiced bending over.

She was too easily excited.

Even if you were technically covered and able to hide your scars, your arms and legs were only protected by layers of see through fabric. Did that really count? Anyone who looked could see the definition of your thighs and the edges of your ankles and that left you feeling exposed. The front of the romper ended in a shallow v neck cut and Black’s ruby studded choker stood out alongside a single band of black.

“I think you still look hotter,” you coyly teased, reaching out to grab Fuka by the waist and pull her close.

In the mirror you caught it when she blushed but laughed along with her when she sputtered giggling sparks of delight. She was too much fun to tease and play around with and you were giddy too easily around your girlfriend. You loved your boys but you would never not love the time you could get with Fuka.

it had been too long.

“I do have good taste, don’t I?” Fuka purred, playfully rubbing up against you while watching herself in the mirror. Her romper was silver and sequined to look like a disco ball with a high front and plunging back and no sleeves. The romper ended a little lower than yours in a pair of shorts that were covered up by extra fabric, disguising the bottom as a skirt. Coupled with her green flames she was a dazzling vision.

“Why don’t you light it up?”

You snorted and then decided to humor her, crackling with magic before your face and hands transformed with fire. It lifted your hair up off your neck and you felt it flicker like a candle’s flame around your face. Fuka cheered and grabbed at your hands to spin around with in her room, jumping over the turned over heels and discarded clutch purses. She hopped up onto the bed and dragged you with her to bounce in good humor until a knock at the door made you both stop.

“Dad?” Fuka groaned, already knowing who it was without looking.

“The bed squeaking is…loud…” he crackled through the door.

Fuka just sighed loudly and rolled her eye lights but you felt your heart skip a beat at the implication, rushing to the door to pull it open before he could leave. Grillby was still in the doorway and saw Fuka (fully dressed) standing atop the middle of the bed and looking put out. A second later you remembered you were on fire and let that magic go, unconsciously embarrassed about being on fire around a real fire elemental.

“Sorry, we were getting carried away,” you chuckled.

“No we weren’t,” Fuka pouted, jumping off the bed and hopping over to join you at the door. “We both look good and were having fun. Don’t douse my sparks, old man.”

You wanted to laugh for how nervous you suddenly felt, caught between your best girlfriend and her father…who was also your good friend and sometimes boss. It was not a place you wanted to find yourself knowing that Grillby and Fuka had a strong, but complicated relationship during what he was calling her ‘independent’ years.

“We’ll be more reserved,” you said instead. “Sorry for the commotion.”

“It’s fine,” Grillby said with a soft, if bit tired, smile for you. “Just don’t hurt yourself.” He looked up over your head to where Fuka had climbed back to stand atop the bed with a cute pout. “Come down when you’re ready the boys are already here.”

“Already? We still need to pick out shoes!” Fuka gasped, sparking pink colored sparks out of her cheeks.

“Is there really any need to fret on that,” you laughed back at Fuka’s shocked expression. “What can compete with those?” You pointed to a box of pointed, silver stiletto heels with red bottoms. Next to the box was a pair of similarly red bottom black pumps, (that had come from Black as a gift earlier in the day after hearing about your outfit of choice).

You turned back around and smiled up at Grillby. “We’ll be down in five minutes, the boys won’t have to wait.”

“They can stand to wait a little longer,” Grillby scoffed. His eye lights flickered to where Fuka hopped down off the bed before landing back on you.

“I’ll watch her,” you whispered low enough in the language of flames, feeling heat in your mouth from each word. “She’ll be safe.”

“Not just her,” Grillby sighed, touching one of the loose curls of hair Fuka had already ironed into shape and left free.

The rest of your hair had been expertly swooped over your bad eye and then pined half up before spilling over one shoulder. For being a fire elemental monster without any hair, Fuka was a wizard with a curling iron. You wished she could do your hair every morning.

“We’ll be fine. It’s only down the street and we’re not going alone.”

Grillby chuckled darkly, looking away. “There are more dangers than just the obvious ones,” he warned without meeting your gaze. He seemed distracted before realizing his mistake. He made an effort to look your way pointedly and then leaned in to grab for the door. “Take your time and don’t worry about the boys. They have food.”

“Thank you, Grillby,” you called out through the door he pulled shut.

Fuka appeared at your side and tugged at your hips, almost causing you to stumble backwards. “I wanna see you try these on. Can you really walk in heels? I’ve never seen you wear something that wasn’t a wedge.”

“I’ll be fine,” you chuckled.

It wasn’t your favorite, but you had gel inserts and fillers that would make it bearable. The remaining discomfort was easier to ignore when you saw yourself in the killer heels. You hadn’t pegged yourself as the type of person to be superficial and fawn over silly things like shoes and shirts, but damn if you weren’t a little excited to spoil yourself and try to look the part.  You were learning more about yourself the more you explored. Those days when you were denied everything because of guilt or abuse were behind you…

Fuka left you to fall back on the bed with her shoes before slipping them on by lifting one leg up in the air and making a show of dressing up her feet with happy little squeals and chirps of delight. Fuka was such a girly girl it made you happy to see and hear her get so excited about something so simple. It made you excited. 

You stepped into your heels without the fan fare and tried them out by walking around the room. The carpet was harder to balance on but the hardwood was no problem.

“If you don’t need anything else we can go downstairs to meet up with the guys,” you said.

When you looked up you saw Fuka modeling her legs in the mirror, showing off her shoes and gasping in delight. You decided to give her another minute to enjoy the euphoria of her ‘welcome back’ gift from Grillby. You secretly suspected Black to be behind the purchase, but couldn’t figure out what Black would have to gain by bribing Grillby through Fuka with gifts.

“Fuka?” you called again.

“Hang on, I’m feeling good for a hot second and I need to ask you something first before we split.” Fuka giggled and rolled off the bed before grabbing at your arm to tug you back. You fell onto the mattress beside her.

“What about?”

You were honestly a little surprised she’d spring a question on you now. You’d already divulged your juiciest gossip to her about your romance with the boys and the poly situation you were now navigating. Fuka had lapped up every word and drowned you in questions but never judged you.

“Your boys, what else?”

You narrowed your eyes suspicious of the conversation’s direction. “Aaaaaand?”

Fuka giggled. “I just wanted to check something real quick and hear it from you. Do you think there’s a chance you’ll slip off on me with one or both of them? It’s okay if that’s what you’re feeling but I just wanna know in case I have to stick to Uncle.”

Her words settled and a heartbeat later they registered enough to make sense. You felt you jaw drop and heard your hiss of a surprised whisper. “What?”

“I don’t know how far along you’re at with each of them. It’s a valid question!”

“You-wait, what?”

Fuka rolled her eye lights but smiled wide. “Okay, maybe that’s answer enough, but now you got me curious about something else.”

“Fuka…”

“It did not escape my notice that the two escorting us tonight are probably the horniest of your pride and likely also the most experienced.”

Your brain shut off and then the restart process began to load as Fuka’s words finally registered.  The words you had been preparing to refute her with were lost and any semblance of thought was stuck in the bog of your mind. You couldn’t get past Fuka’s idea of horny. Had she really said that? Did she know what that meant, and was it the same for monsters? Was there something you weren’t getting or seeing here?

“That kinda makes sense for Rus once you get past all his social anxiety or get him properly sloshed…okay…but Blue?” you squeaked out. “We gotta be thinking of different monsters here.  No way you think he’s worse than Red.”

“Red projects too much and he’s way too loud for his own good. Yeah, he’s plenty horn dog crazy for you, but you gotta be blind to miss out on Mr. Stamina,” Fuka cackled. She seemed to think your confusion and disbelief were both hilarious entertainment. “Don’t tell me you made the same mistake everyone else who works with Blue always makes when they first meet him? You should know him better than that!”

“I do,” you protested on a reflex before you could actually think about what Fuka was saying.

You knew Blue better than most, and you knew he wasn’t a child or even childlike. He was energetic and outgoing and undaunted by most of the world, but that had never translated to sexually eager or whatever it was Fuka seemed to think. Blue had a few creative hobbies that might be... kinky, but who didn’t? Did that really make him any worse than Red or Stretch? 

The thought seed was planted in your brain, and in spite of your protests all you could think about was a horny Blue. An energetic, sexy,  horny Blue…?! What was that even supposed to look like?

And in spite of your reflex-mental-protests, it didn’t take long before the mental image manifest and you couldn’t deny the possibility of Fuka being onto something. Was it a monster thing or was it a Fuka thing? Was this something obvious you had always just missed?  Were you a bad date mate because you hadn’t guessed correctly?

“Fuka…I’m having doubts,” you whispered while reaching for her. Fuka was there in an instant to grab at your wrists and hold your hands. At the contact your hands and lower arms turned charcoal colored and then cracked with fire but you didn’t mind or seem to noticed. “You’re right about Blue and it’s almost obvious now when I think about it. What if I’m a bad date mate for all of them if I can’t tell something like this? What if I’m really not ready-I mean I wasn’t even ready for just one person but-”

“Hey!” Fuka sparked loudly and you stopped before you could say anything more. “You’re not allowed to cry and ruin your makeup and you’re not allowed to doubt their love for you like this. You’re not supposed to know everything about someone before you take their hand. You have your whole lives with your boys and it wouldn’t be an adventure if you knew everything, would it? I’m sure you also have your surprises, don’t you?”    

“I guess no I…I just…I’ve never done this before.”

“Yeah, everyone understands that, babe. The Poly thing is pretty rare for humans and dating a monster has gotta be culturally sh-”

“Not that,” you whispered cutting her off. “Just…the dating part. I’ve never dated someone-anyone before. I’ve only…it’s only ever been causal with no strings attached and disappointing before. I’ve never been in a relationship where I got to care about the other person before. Fuka this is still so new and I don’t know how to balance it with everything. What if I drop the ball or something?”

Fuka’s eyes had widened at your confusion and you felt her look at you in a new way.  She slowly nodded along as you rushed to explain more of what you meant and listened until you were done. She squeezed your hands in hers and you felt the warmth of her comfort.

“Your boys aren’t glass balls. Life might feel like juggling sometimes but those boys won’t break if you make a mistake or two. If anything they’re more rubber and will bounce right back into your hands if you ever slip up and drop one of ‘em. You know you’re not supposed to be perfect, right?”

Just a hero…

The phantom voice of a long dead creed still haunted you, but instead of flinching or cringing from it you instead blocked it out with the memory of Blue’s laughter, or Black's cackle, of Red’s rich timber, and Papyrus’ cries of frustration whenever Sans told a stupid pun. You thought of your family instead of that old damn motto and it was like a light switch had been flipped in your soul and the issue was no longer looming.

Fuka was right, and you had way more faith in your boys than this.

“I think I really need this night off,” you chuckled in exasperation. “Gosh I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I…that was a silly thing to panic over.”

“You’ve spent a lot of your life looking for someone or something to panic over, I’m not surprised you reacted like that. We all know you care.”  Fuka tugged you closer and kissed your cheek before pulling away to stand up and stretch. “But the night is still too young to get this sappy, I wanna get shit-faced on a pretty girl’s lap before sunup so lets get moving, firecracker!”

“Oh, it’s a girl tonight. What about that nice monster boy you were seeing?” you playfully teased.

Fuka rolled her eyes along with her shoulder. “Couldn’t handle the heat, obviously. Don’t tell my dad, I’m sure he has enough to worry about without thinking about how much of a screw up I already am,” she laughed.

You grabbed at Fuka’s hand before she could leave the room and gave it a squeeze. “Are you kidding me? Your dad loves you more than any other father out there. He never saw you as a screw up and never will. You’re his daughter, and you know that means something more.”

“Hey, you were the one with warped perceptions about the world. It’s not my turn for discount therapy,” Fuka pouted playfully. Underneath the teasing smirk you hoped there was a hint of understanding there. No dad loved their daughter more than Grillby, with the exception of maybe Black with Wendy.

The two of you descended the stairs and heard the chatter from the patrons out front. You followed behind Fuka through the ‘fire exit’ door into the eating establishment proper, still properly surprised when the magic that kept out anyone who wasn’t a fire elemental allowed you through. You weren't lit up but the magic still let you pass without issue.

“Damn duchess most divine,” Rus purred from the bar, spinning on his stool to face you. The lights in his sockets flashed neon purple and spun with inverted heart shapes. Seeing the obvious reaction you suddenly felt a hell of a lot more confident and couldn’t help it when you reached out to him. He purred in appreciation when you threw you arms behind his neck and pulled him close.

“Missed you, too,” you whispered against the side of his skull. “You don’t look to bad yourself. What do I have to do to get you all dressed up like this?”

“Just ask,” he purred back.

You hadn’t missed how nicely Rus had dressed up with fitted black skinny jeans, a slate gray shirt to complement underneath the newer hooded black jacket trimmed in white fur. No sauce stains this time! You were surprised with how much you loved the picture Rus made dressed up and ready to go clubbing with you. It was a new, excited, enjoyment you were more than happy to explore.

“I’m atta loss for what I should do more of from now on. Should I take you out more often or never again. I’m loving this look but damn if you’re not magnetizing half the room right now,” he purred against the side of your face before kissing your cheek and pulling away.

“If you liked the look you could have just asked. It doesn’t need to be a special occasion.” You glanced around the bar and frowned. Before Rus could respond you asked, “Where did Blue go?”

“He stepped out to make a call,” Rus chuckled. “Maybe we should head out that way, huh?” Then Rus noticed Fuka who was leaning against the counter with a smile that made her look more like the cat that got the cream and less like the fire elemental who once sported a school girl uniform five days a week for five years. “Oh, hey Fuka. You look nice too.”

“Yeah, nice,” Fuka giggled while shooting you a look. “I’ll take it, lover boy. I’m just glad I get noticed at this rate. Let’s start heading over before it gets too late. I’m excited to see how much you like the new place.”

“You’ve already been, right Rus?” you asked.

“I helped him get it set up. I was his original number 1 customer back in the day and worked as a bouncer for a spell. You know my brother-eh, well back underground you have an idea of what it was like for him right?”

“You mean how he bribed, extorted or paid nearly everyone off if straight up intimidation didn’t work?” you joked, remembering the episode with Tron’s aunt and how that had resulted in a long and late night heart to soul talk. “I can guess the rest, was Grillby one of his yes men?”

“Not really, but the relationship was there. I was still Grillby’s number one though, don’t forget that,” Rus answered while sliding one of his arms around your waist to tug you close. You didn’t miss the subtle glare he shot over your shoulder at someone you couldn’t see. When you slapped at his chest he chuckled and refocused his attention on you. “Sorry, it’s a habit.”

“Dad, we’re all heading out now,”  Fuka called from the opposite side of the bar to where Grillby stood serving drinks. She waved but didn’t make a move to get closer while saying her goodbye.

You tugged on Rus to get him to slow down and waited until Grillby finished and could come over, making Fuka wait as well. His fire crackled in appreciation.

“We just wanted to say goodnight before heading out. We should be back before it’s too late or early?” you explained before nodding to Fuka.

Grillby nodded at you before looking to his daughter and you watched as the pair crackled in almost the exact same dialect. “Be safe…but have fun too. I’ll…be here,” Grillby said with unnatural pauses in his fire speech. It was because he was hesitating, not because the language was difficult.

“I will, dad.” Fuka started to turn away but she stopped, catching your eye. She turned back around and reached over the bar with both her arms and Grillby reached down, fast to scoop her up in a hug over the counter that made your heart skip in long buried envy.

“You want a hug too?” Rus teased with his skull close to your ear. “What do you think I’m here for, my lovely?”

You snorted a short laugh and wrinkled your nose. “You’ve been drinking, haven’t you?”

Rus looked wounded at your accusation but you knew better than to believe his words when he was so lucid. “Grillby wouldn’t sell me any, honest!”

“Yeah, but I bet you had some before you left the house. You’re way too comfortable being out in public otherwise.”

“You gonna criticize me for a little liquid courage?” he laughed nervously, knowing he had been found out. Rus ducked his skull a little and tried to laugh it off. “Sorry, I wanted you to have fun and I know when I’m fun.”

“You’re always fun, Rus. You don’t need to take anything to make me happy.”

“Nah, I know, I know but a lil bit won’t hurt for the rest of the world. I like not…I like not getting distracted by all the other thoughts ya know?”

And unfortunately, you did. Rus had more than his fair share of traumas that took a long lease in his mental landscape, despite his best efforts to erase their scars. He was still a very nervous skeleton outside the house and you were naive to think that he’d be able to flip a switch and be okay because you told him he didn’t need booze to be cool. The problems were deeper than that and would take more than one night to set straight.

In a rare move of bold bravado you touched the hand he kept on your waist and moved it lower, to the swell of your hips. “I’m starting to doubt all the extra effort I put into this outfit tonight if this still isn’t enough to distract you.”   

When you heard him suck in a breath over his teeth you knew it was a smart move in the right direction. Before he could say anything though you pulled away and stepped closer to Fuka who had just finished her hug with Grillby.

“Shouldn’t we head out and meet up with Blue?” you coyly asked, almost playing at innocence when Rus made a frustrated sound to go along with his grabby hands. “I’m sure he’s all hung up by now, right?”

You didn’t wait for an answer but grabbed at Rus’ wrist and turned him around to head out while Fuka followed at your shoulder with a knowing grin. You never noticed the other patrons, not even the ones who watched your group the entire time. You also never heard their comments for Grillby once the door closed on all three of you.

On the sidewalk you saw Blue with his back to you still on his phone until he heard the door. You caught the end of his conversation, saying something to Edge before hanging up and turning around to face you all.

When his eyesights spun into a mix of different lights you almost laughed. There were stars and hearts in his eyes all at once and you were positive Blue was the only one who could manage his magic so expressively.

“I clean up pretty well, don’t I?” you teased before reaching for him with both hands, leaving Rus behind to chuckle at Blue’s stupor.

“YOU’RE SO-ah-ha, oh stars, you’re magnificent. I’m in awe,” Blue gasped reaching back for you, catching you by the arms and tugging you close. Once you were close enough to rest your head on his shoulder you heard his voice next to your ear. “I’m amazed but not surprised. You’re always stunning, my dear.”

He almost sounded like Black when he called you ‘my dear’ but there was such a obvious difference to their voices you never thought they sounded alike when it was just their voices your were comparing.

“You’re looking pretty hot yourself, sir.” You leaned back to see him better and grinned at the soft color high on his cheekbones. “But I always knew you were a smart dresser.”

“Naturally,” he purred back. “Only the best for my love.”

He was wearing his best Italian leather shoes with dress slacks and a button down, all paired with a fitted navy blazer. The pocket was a rainbow floral cutout that matched his buttons. Blue was always a smart dresser and really prided himself on looking neat, but you had to admit he really stepped up for your night out.

“We’re all just really good looking people, aren’t we?” Rus teased, coming up alongside Fuka. “Look at the four of us.”

“Fuka,” Blue exclaimed. “You look radiant as well. And your shoes, are those-?”

“Red bottoms? Hell yes they are. Aren’t they divine?” she squealed. Fuka took a step back and turned elegantly, spinning her flames out harmlessly like wild hair as she spun, laughing. It made you glad to see her having so much fun with such a simple pleasure.

You glanced out across the street and a little ways down. The Speakeasy front of Grillby’s club was already looking crowded. People who wanted to go down to the club had to wait upstairs or on the sidewalk once the capacity hit a certain number. Tough Fuka told you plenty of people preferred the ‘front’ of the club for it’s own unique atmosphere.

As you all drew closer you saw the smooth jazz band and the dimly let tables where patrons, both humans and monsters alike, dined on salads and pasta over candlelight. The booths along the back were filled with couples who had eyes for each other and little else, while plenty of the tables towards the far end were spotted with monster and humans dressed to dance somewhere a little louder. It made you curious.

“Are we really in the right place? If there was a club downstairs wouldn’t we hear it?”  you asked, looking to Rus who was probably the most involved one out of all four of you. He had installed much of the technology and set up the electrical lines early on when the storefront needed a lot of work.

The Jazz band wasn’t quiet, but there wasn’t much more you could hear over or under them. Every other club or rave you’d been to had been loud enough to find three blocks away. Things here looked too neat.

“It’s a magic thing,” Rus explained with a chuckle as he waved to someone dressed up as a server who recognized him on sight. You could set off fireworks downstairs and no one on the next level would get to hear it. It keeps the neighbors happy and Grillby in business. We ended up buying a lot of the subterranean property on this block for the club so the antique shop lady would have been pissed if we didn’t make it work for everyone, ya know.”

“You’ll love it, don’t think you’ll be disappointed,” Fuka encouraged as she grinned at the same server who started heading over their way. He was a human with neat black hair and eyes that looked like they’d stay steady in a gunfight.

“The boss has been expecting you. I’ll take you through the kitchen.”

“Oooh,” Fuka squealed. “We’re getting the VIP treatment.”

“Of course we are,” Blue laughed. “How are we not very important people?”

“Well I helped set this place up, Fuka is all but his favorite and only niece, and darlin here broke his ass outta human prison. What was it you did again?” Rus teased with a playful smirk.

“I also helped with that prison break,” Blue complained with the same playful sort of smirk that let you know everything said was all in good fun. “And I’ll have you know I’ve done plenty of work for both Grillbys. Grub-hub bothers both of them with deliveries on the regular.”

“And both of you have already been here, so quit it and let me experience the magic for myself for a first time, kay?” you joked playfully while following the human server.

You all trailed back into the kitchens where plenty of workers were busy making bread and pasta for the patrons without caring for how you passed through to the elevator behind the kitchen. It was large enough to be industrial and you wondered if that was to accommodate the later monsters who might want to visit. The human had to run a card from his pocket across a keypad before the doors could slid open and let you all in. He stepped aside and gestured for the rest of you to pass him before reaching in and pushing one of the buttons on the wall panel. The lights inside the elevator twinkled and then started to turn a shade of neon fuchsia pink.

Excitement bubbled in your chest as the human stepped back to let the doors slid closed.

“Welcome to Subterranean. Please enjoy your stay.”

The doors finally sealed and you felt the elevator lurch down.

 

 

Notes:

Part 1 of the date- the whole arc ended up being close to 14K so I split it down the middle and should be able to get the next part up next week, but fingers crossed cause there is a chance I might be delayed another week.

But yeah, I asked a couple chapters back what you thought Blue and Rus had in common and you had such good answers about shared feelings of inadequacy and while that might be the case, they're also both very horny characters in my head so this was what I gravitated towards. :D

Also, I had too much fun playing around with the idea of Black and Stretch's relationship. I ended up writing more about their meeting with Edge in the next chapter and it's low key one of my favorite things ever. If you enjoyed Blue's kink exposure, you'll enjoy Stretch's bit in the next chapter.

And side note: I'm sorry I've not been able to respond to all your wonderful comments. Time is getting away from me again but I read all of them and each one really does brighten my day, so thank you!

Chapter 75: Real Ones 5

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“Did you read the materials I sent over last week?”  Edge asked when Stretch greeted him at the door.

“Hello to you too, and no, I didn’t get around to finishing all of them yet. Just the first two.”

“You had two weeks and you only read two articles?” Edge scoffed, wiping his boots before stepping into the farmhouse.

Stretch sighed but stepped to the side to let the larger Papyrus pass. “They were long articles and I have work, ya know. I gotta pay bills and ya know…actually write.”

“You can’t become a proficient writer if you aren’t first a proficient reader. I bet you haven’t even finished the paperbacks I leant you last month.”

“Actually I did,” Stretch said with a smug look. “Those weren’t easy to put down. Each one was a real page turner.”

Edge paused and glared down at Stretch who hunched a little into his hoodie with a grin that held no regret despite being caught in the obvious pun. “Don’t be insufferable tonight or else it’ll come out in your critique, and by that I don’t mean I would ever be unfair but I will just pack up and leave without telling you what you still need to fix. If you’re too much of a smart ass you don’t need me, do you?”

“I’ll behave.”

Edge narrowed his eye lights at Stretch, scrutinizing the shorter skeleton before drawing back, satisfied with what he saw. “You should. Now, where is your mess?”

“Edge, welcome to our home. I trust the trip was uneventful?” Both Edge and Stretch turned in time to see Black in the open archway to the kitchen with a pair of wine glasses caught between the finger bones in one hand and a bottle in the other.

Stretch deflated a bit but Edge didn’t seem bothered. “As uneventful as a fifteen minute walk in the dark can be. What do you have there?”

Edge approached the shorter skeleton and bent down slightly to accept the bottle and turn it over to better read the label. He hummed in appreciation while Black shot Stretch a smug, older-brother-knows-best look beneath Edge’s elbow.

“It pairs well with meat so let’s move on, shall we? The kitchen table has already been set up but I’m still putting together the complimentary snack platter,” Black easily explained while walking away, sounding so sure of himself and in his element.

It wasn’t a stretch to imagine him in a different, darker, environment smoking over far scarier monsters in an underground where kill or be kill was the motto until someone showed you something else that made a bargain out of a bribe. Stretch was often thought of as the ‘observant one’ but no one knew how to read people and figure out what they wanted like Black.

Stretch noticed things, Black dug for them.

“Black, you don’t need to stay for this part. It’s going to be boring for you,” Stretch grumbled while following Edge into the kitchen. Black’s smug expression only grew as he heard Stretch’s words.

“I wouldn’t think of abandoning you at such a critical stage. What sort of host do you take me for? It would be the worst of manners if I were to take off now. Come and sit yourself up. The meat is nearly finished.”

“I won’t turn down a drink. It makes the whole endeavor a little easier, doesn’t it, Stretch?” Edge teased in a knowing manner. Out of all the Papyri types, Stretch was probably the worst when it came to holding his drink while Blue was the best. They were the drinking bookends of their group and a near endless source of entertainment whenever the alcohol started to flow.

“It certainly keeps these sort of endeavors honest. Come, you’ll suffer less with a bit of drink to loosen you up,” Black said.

“Don’t you think it would be best for at least one of us to keep a sober skull on our shoulders? There are kids in the house.”

Edge almost snorted a laugh as he cradled his wineglass over to the kitchen table where all of Stretch’s work had already been set out. “Please, it’s only one bottle of wine. None of us are planning on getting shit-faced with just this.”

“Additionally, everyone is sound asleep. I would know if it were otherwise.” Black offered a freshly poured glass and grinned over it at Stretch. “Be a good sport, won’t you, champ?” Black chuckled.

“Not a champ,” Stretch grumbled, accepting the glass before turning around to sit down at the table. 

Edge was bringing out his revision notes and files from the messenger bag he set down on the seat beside him. There was an additional notebook he pulled free and tossed further away before finding a few loose pens they could use.

“Are you ready to be eviscerated or should we wait for the meat?”  Edge asked.

“It-it couldn’t have been all that bad.”

“Let’s look at this together.” Edge flipped to a page with one hand and drank with the other, pulling away only enough to read aloud a highlighted passage. “Her eyes were wild and ravenous with her wanting. Like his own they were both fire and desire. More than torrid, more than molten: they two were riding the Equator. If bodies were spices hers was-”

“Okay!” Stretch pitched, voice squeaking as he tried to knock the notes out of Edge’s hands. Edge was easily taller and had better reach so it was a futile effort. “I-I get it, shit ya don’t have to say that stuff out loud.”

“You literally wrote it. If you have shame write some better erotica,” Edge barked. “People who read paperbacks have standards even if they are pretty low. Just never use the words ‘warm butter’ and I may have something to work with.”

“When did I-”

“Page 57,” Edge interrupted with a sharp tone that left no room for Stretch to complain. “I didn’t even make it a hundred pages before you made a metaphor out of biscuits, butter, and the unmentionables of a human’s sex parts. Your erotica is abysmal. The only redeeming element would be the characters when they have clothing on.”

“It’s not… it can’t be all bad though, right? You said the characters were good outside of the sex scenes. That’s gotta count for something, right?”

“Yes, but when I mentioned that last time you said you still wanted to write in the erotica for a publishing house. There’s certainly a market for human monster romance paperbacks but that’s all the more reason to hold your work up to a higher standard. I don’t want people reading badly written work and seeing it’s from a monster author and thinking, ‘that’s legit sex stuff.’”

“They shouldn’t. Isn’t human erotic super…improbable and exaggerated too?”

“Of course it is and of course humans misconstrue that too, but that’s not a good enough reason to lower the bar. We’re not doing food metaphors for sex. ABSOLUTELY not. Am I clear?”

“…But Edge…that’s…all of it. I don’t have anything else.”

The taller skeleton shut his sockets and breathed deep before taking another drink. “I know,” he said after pulling away from his wine. “That’s why I’m here and that’s why I harp so often on you reading good literature and helpful articles. It’s there to build you up and make you better. Don’t expect to be an expert right away. You’ve got plenty of time to work on this.”

“I feel like I don’t.”

“What are you in such a rush for?”

Stretch nursed his drink and then took a sip. “I dunno, I just wanna be good at it now. Why does there have to be a reason for it? Doesn’t everyone want to be successful at stuff they like?”

Edge finished his drink but over the glass’ rim his eye lights narrowed. “Hmm, and this would have nothing to do with the fact that you’re dating a human who’s also dating several other more experienced partners, would it?”

From the look on Stretch’s skull one would have assumed he never anticipated Edge being able to see through him so easily. “I’m not a-ah-”

“There’s no shame in being inexperience,” Black cut in, joining the table with a cheese and meat platter. All the salami slices had been rolled up and encircled a small dish filled with cubes of different colored cheese, including a few monster variety. He set the platter down between the two of them, careful not to trap any of their papers or work underneath it. With his opposite hand he reached over to refill Edge’s glass with more wine.

“Oh stars, please no. I don’t want to have this talk from another older brother. I couldn’t with Sa-with Blue and I’m not about to now,” Stretch moaned, drinking more of his wine in spite of his earlier reservations.

“Oh, I’m sure that went well,” Black laughed. “I failed miserably in that role myself, as you can tell. My poor brother took a long time to learn the difference between an embrace and a knife in the back. Don’t confuse this with that. You don’t have a reason to be worried if you’re thinking there’s something you need to change in order to secure your standing with my wife.”

“Please don’t,” Edge tisked, disproving of the nickname.

“I’ve received their blessing so you can’t stop me,” Black smugly responded.

Edge made a face. “It makes it sound like we’re all the mistresses here. I don’t appreciate the implied superiority your title affords. Learn to tone it down with the possessive pronouns.”

“Fine, my adored lover most divine.”

“You’re insufferable,” Edge chuckled, less interested in insulting Black and more taken with helping himself to some of the meat and cheese set out. “But not wrong. No one here has any reason to indulge in their insecurity. You’re part of my pride with our shared lover so I’ve the right to speak up on this.”

“I thought you were just gonna come over and help me write better sex scenes.”

“I’m not lessening my literary critique, so don’t confuse those two! Forget the bad breakfast sex.”

“They had sex with their breakfast?” Black gasped, momentarily distracted.

“It was a metaphor,” Stretch moaned, covering his face. “I knew this was going to be horrible.”

“And it’s about to get worse,” Edge warned. “We’re working on that fragile self confidence you like to kick around, whether you like it or not. You’re our pack brother so you’re not allowed to wallow.”

We?” Stretch groaned.

“You think I was only here for the snacks and a pretty face?” Black cackled before lifting his wine glass in an implied toast. “Hardly.”    

“You were-you have no room to criticize me. I saw you dressing up in front of the mirror to compensate for how hurt your ego was when Rus left for the club with Blue instead of you,” Stretch scrambled to accuse. 

“That was my idea, numbskull, and dressing up to improve one’s appearance, even in private, is a form of self care that I am not ashamed of. You should try it some times. I’m sure a nice set of heels would do wonders.”

Edge nodded in agreement, only half serious as his grin started to inch upwards. Stretch knew the two of them were now teasing him. The only thing that could make it worse would be his brother being a part of this gang up.

“There is not enough booze in this house to get me though this,” Stretch mumbled into the sleeves of his favorite hoodie.

Black barked a quick laugh and stood to great effect. “You would think that wouldn’t you, but I have access to all of Rus’ stash so what do you think of that, Mr.-I’ll-watch-and-observe-everyone-else-but-never-see-people-watching-me?”

Stretch dropped his head into his arms and moaned again.

 


 

“Welcome to Subterranean. Please enjoy your stay.”

The doors finally sealed and you felt the elevator lurch down.

It was more than 1 floor, but less than four when the elevator finally stopped. As soon as the doors started to roll back you could feel the pounding bass and electric force of the music. You stepped off onto what looked like an iron walkway that overlooked the open lower level where lights made the dance floor look alive.

Another elevator on the opposite side let patrons out on the lower level, but you noticed that behind you on either end of the metal walkway were both open and closed VIP booths. A spiral stairwell was guarded by a couple of mean looking humans and was in sight of a third dog bouncer to the rooms on what you assumed was the third floor, just above where you stood. If the VIP rooms were on the second floor, the same floor you walked out onto, what were the upstairs for? Offices?

All the class and elegance from the upper levels had been transformed, traded in for neon lights, dry smoke, and robotic beats that drove dancers across the floor.

“This is insane,” you gasped. “How…how long did it take you to get something like this set up? Damn it, Rus, this was not here for you to just move in.”

“Some of it was, actually. It was one of the few properties Black acquired on a ‘no questions asked’ sale. But yeah, it was a dump and we worked our asses off to get it ready the way that black match-stick wanted. He’s a real slave driver but you gotta admit he’s got vision.” Rus took your waist and turned you around to look at the other side of the room and you noticed a ‘EXIT’ sign lit up. “See that there is a ground level exit that lets everybody out on the other side of the block.”

“Neat,” you absently contemplated.

“Not neat enough to just stand there for, shouldn’t we get out there?” Fuka cheered. “Or you think we should hit up the bar first?”

“You want drinks before a dance?”  Blue laughed. He sounded almost like he was not believing what he was hearing, but you knew it was only mild teasing that made Fuka flare.

“Uncle G makes good drinks, not gonna lie and I didn’t get a head-start before setting out, unlike someone I know.”

“Fair point, but maybe just ‘ta say hello let’s head down that way first,” Rus said, guiding you with a hand on your hip towards the wide stairwell that led down to the main floor.

Behind your group a couple laughed loudly in the hallways outside the open VIP rooms. You glanced back over your shoulder and saw a reptile looking female monster on the arm of a human. Further down the hallway someone was bringing snacks into a room and with the door open the karaoke blared a little louder. 

Fuka took point and led you all down the main staircase, subverting the main dance floor to the back where the bar and lounge area was set up for people and their drinks.  Several glittery snow drake monsters scuttled in and out of the support poles, exiting via the holes cut for them to rush out and clean before retreating back to their rooms out of sight.

The bar was a huge circle, stretching almost out of sight, with several fire sprites dancing over the countertop to pass out booze and scare the humans who complained about how flammable their drinks were. A few monsters laughed whenever this happened and you smirked, knowing that monster fire burned magic, not oxygen, so it was pretty harmless even if it still tricked the smoke alarms enough to set them off.

Behind you the music pulsed aloud and invading. I'll dance, dance, dance with my hands, hands, hands above my head, head, head…

At the head of the bar looking more like the factory manager overseeing his sweatshop workers, or some gritty mob boss lord, the other Grillby stood on lookout. It seemed he didn’t make drinks for just anyone.

“Uncle G!”

Good thing you guys weren’t just anyone.

Grillby noticed your group just as Fuka approached the counter and the harness seemed to ease out of him as he leaned down to greet his ‘niece’ and her friends. Rus was at the counter next, already eyeing the back wall of mixing materials like he knew what they could do.

You snapped to attention when your recognized the crackle of Grillby greeting Fuka and asking her if she was having fun, checking to make sure she found the place alright without anyone bothering her. It was sweet and you knew it was genuine. You were almost jealous, but you were too blessed with your own family to feel envy for long.

Blue slipped his hand into yours and bumped his hip against yours to catch your attention as you approached the counter after everyone else. Grillby looked up and noticed you. His flames spluttered as he recognized you like he hadn’t known it was you when you first walked in. You did look a little different so you couldn’t blame him.

“Hey,” you greeted with your free hand before repeating the greeting in the crackling language of fire.

Hearing his native language he seemed to settle a bit and nodded back to you. “You’re looking better,” he said before his eye lights flickered back to Fuka, noticing the coordinating outfits. “I didn’t know the two of you were so close.”

“I didn’t tell you on purpose,” Fuka snickered. Even to your ears it sounded like she was laughing at some inside joke and you wondered if they had spoken of you before.

“It’s a fantastic place you got here,” you called out, “real impressive for such a little town.”

“It’s not as little as it used to be. Over two hundred new monsters moved in the last three months and humans are following. It’s getting busy,” Rus chuckled, almost sounding nervous before nodding at the drinks. His posture was relaxed and the shape of his eye lights were keen enough to make you think this setting suited him. He seemed made for neon lights and glitter smiles. It almost made you wonder how he ended up on a farmhouse so far away from the town proper.

“What do you want, Papyrus?” Grillby asked, recognizing the skeleton’s posture.

“I dunno, hows about a Midnight Muzzle for me and whatever my friends want ya can put on my tab?”

“You haven’t paid your tab in years,” Grillby said.

Rus shrugged good naturally. “You’ve never called to collect. Plus didn’t I help out here?”

Grillby rolled his eye lights but then looked to Blue and you. “Nothing for me, thank you. Unfortunately, even the monster stuff doesn’t do much for me,” Blue said.

You glanced over at Fuka when you felt her touch your arm. “We should both get fireballs,” she gasped once she saw she had your attention.

“The whiskey?”

“No, silly, the drink. Uncle G makes a mean one and you’ll appreciate it.” But before you could say no Fuka was already asking her ‘uncle’ for a couple of his famous fireballs.

He nodded and started to pull down what he needed to mix the drinks for each of you, starting with whatever it was that Rus ordered. It came in a short clear glass to show off the glittery black liquid that reflected every stray color or light that came its way. Rus took a sip and you saw him flinch from it and it was a long moment later before he said anything, unsticking his magical tongue from the roof of his mouth.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he hissed.

You stepped closer to Fuka, watching as Grillby began to personally prepare a pair of tall glasses that he held between his knuckles. He filled one than the other with a white liquid that turned blue and then orange red with flickering shards of yellow that peeked through. Then he added a second layer of some orange drink that he watched to make sure it stopped and stilled on the surface. When he was satisfied he set both drinks down in front of you and Fuka was a quiet, ‘careful’ before cleaning up his area.

You saw that the top most layer was semi solid and looked like a shell that would break if it was disturbed. Fuka giggled and you turned her just in time to see her tip it back and pound it. As the drink turned upside down and pushed back against the top layer it erupted into flames just in time for her to swallow it down.

“Yum!” she cheered, sounding way too delighted.

From across the bar there was a wide eyed human watching, having noticed the flames. Before you made an attempt, least someone get the wrong idea, you made your skin crackle to life first before following Fuka’s example and pounding the drink. It was a rush, just as you expected it to be, but you didn’t expect the penetrating heat that sank low into your stomach, different from the heat you normally felt.

“Oh wow, that was something fun,” you laughed with a hand over your mouth. It took a second to get your flames to turn down again but when you did you noticed a couple of the fire spite monsters were staring-likely not having expected to see a human erupt into flames.

Breaking my back just to know your name. Seventeen tracks and I've had it with this game.

Blue jostled behind you and you turned to see what it was he had noticed, but he was tugging you by the hand back out towards the dance floor. “Oh, this song, I like it. Dance with me.”

I'm breaking my back just to know your name, but heaven ain't close in a place like this.

You set you shot down on the counter and touched Rus’ shoulder, noticing he still had most of his drink left and a set of shoulders that were pointed like he intended to finish. He reacted to the touch but didn’t make a move to stop you or hold you back. His expression for you was only encouraging. “I’ll be back,” you said before Blue had you at his side again.

     Anything goes but don't blink you might miss, cause heaven ain't close in a place like this, I said heaven ain't close in a place like this

You tripped onto the dance floor and Blue righted you before you could even laugh at yourself. The music wasn’t what you’d consider modern, but the monsters had a fierce love for early 2000’s and late 90’s pop, so Brittney Spears was akin to a saint in their eyes and The Killers made their way onto enough ‘top ten’ favorite lists of artists.  Blue was no exception as you noticed him eagerly moving along to the music along with a myriad of different monsters who stepped up to the dance floor.

“Bring it back down, bring it back down tonight. Never thought I'd let a rumor ruin my moonlight,” you crooned along with the music, surprising Blue with your perfect lip sync. “What?” you joked. “You thought you were the only one with taste in this relationship?”

“Obviously not since you settled on me,” he joked back, settling his hands lower on your waist, sliding them down from your hips to places more intimate.

He pushed gently and you followed, cantering back and then forth along with the music and his hands, resting your wrists on his shoulders. You rolled your shoulders and scratched absently at his neck bones when the music crooned to ‘pace yourself on me’ in a lower octave before the energy ramped up again and you nearly broke free from Blue’s hold to dance the way you wanted.

It's not confidential I've got potential A rushin', a rushin' around!

You laughed when the song ended and stepped backwards only to stop when you heard the next song come on. Less for the monsters and more for the humans, you figured. Blue laughed when you took another step backwards, just out of his reach, teasing him with a smile as the lights flashed in time with the music and began to shift their colors to gold and white. You spun on your heel and turned your wrists over, hands above your head, hair free and bouncing over your shoulders as you danced just as free.

Blue laughed and fell into step easily, complementing your moves with his own, leaving nothing back as he moved without reservation. You were a little envious how it appeared like he never seemed to slow. There was no end to his energies and the longer he stayed on the dance floor the more you suspected this wasn’t his first club adventure.

You couldn’t help but laugh more than once when you caught him singing along with the different songs that came on. Some were catchy enough to entice you to do the same, especially the ones you enjoyed or remembered.

You realized after what must have been the forth or fifth song, you also had a lot of energy. You were having way too much fun with blue, dancing and moving and singing along like that was all that mattered in the world. The rest of your worries fell away and you danced on top of them.

A new song came on and the crowd clapped along with it at the right beats. Then the music turned down, thanks to the DJ, and you heard the next part like a whisper. Along with Blue, the two of you crouched with the crowd and whisper sang to each other before the next verse brought the volume and the energy back.

I live for the applause, applause, applause I live for the applause-plause-

You weren’t sure when it happened first, but you noticed the cracks in your skin as more of your magic filtered free. Instead of worrying over it you let it go, deciding not to care what you looked like for once. Who cared? Not you, not Blue, not Rus, not any of your friends or family.

Put your hands up, make 'em touch, touch (make it real loud)

Blue touched his hands to yours and leaned in, skull so close your breath hit his face and fanned back on you but he didn’t seem to mind. His eye lights were inverted hearts, looking more like spades that spun in his sockets as he watched you. “You’re gorgeous,” he exhaled, touching his forehead to yours. His hand grabbed yours and you curled your fingers into the gaps made for you.  “I can’t take my eye lights off you.”

“You’re pretty fine all on your own, bone boy,” you purred, a little slap happy from all the dancing and maybe a bit of that fireball.

His eye lights sparked with neon shades of blue and you could have sworn you saw more than one light in each socket before he closed them to slid his head onto your shoulder. “Ah, I wish this was already the third date.”

“What’s significant about the third date?” you asked. You and Blue had gone out on your own plenty of times before, even before officially dating. If he wanted to he could easily justify this as a sixth or seventh date.

Blue groaned on your shoulder. “It’s uncouth to make any bedroom advances at least until the third date. I may be a monster but I’m not a beast. I’ve got standards.”

You squeaked a delighted gasp when you realized what he meant. “You mean no funny business until after three dates! You have-oh that’s cute Blue.”

“You think that’s conservative?” he laughed into your shoulder as the pair of you drifted to the edges of the dance floor, ignoring the energy of the humans and monsters getting into a fun Backstreet Boys classic. His expression was wry and it made you giggle. “Don’t forget I didn’t come from one of those kill or be killed worlds. It was all pretty boring and mundane where I came from so three dates was pretty risqué.”

“Don’t worry about that here. Humans are pretty much all over the map when it comes to standards.”

“I think that’s better. It should vary depending on the people in question, what they feel comfortable with and how secure they feel making that next advance.” Blue inhaled deeply and then leaned away, grinning sloppy as his voice pitched down, deeper than you were used to. “What about you? When do you think you’ll be ready?”   

Oh shit.

“Me?” you squeaked out.

“You ever… consider it?” he asked, watching you like he didn’t want to miss a detail.

You’d be lying if you said no.

“Maybe.”

Blue’s eye lights flickered down to your lips and with no room left between the two of you, his attention felt like a closer presence. “If your thoughts ever happen to wander that way…think of me.”

You tilted up and closed the distance and he moaned in relief, like he had been waiting for your kiss. You were surprised by your own urgency, throwing yourself into the act of affection with far more effort than you had with any of your old lovers. Why? Because it was Blue, because it was him and he mattered to you more than any of the others ever had. Kissing was not new but with Blue it felt brand new.

When you parted it was because you needed to, not because you wanted to. Pulling back you took your breath and saw the smug expression of a lover who knew he had done well. He seemed satisfied with your fluster and that only made you feel even more unsteady on your own two feet. Fuka was right; You had certainly underestimated Blue. 

“Cassanova,” you childishly pouted. “You’re better at this than you let on.”

“Only because it’s you,” he purred, nuzzling against the side of your face. “Only because I never cared so much with anyone else before. Can I kiss you again?”

You didn’t answer with words but touched his chin and guided his face back to yours. He stepped closer and guided you off the dance floor towards the shadows where other couples had escaped to during slow songs. You felt your back hit the wall and didn’t care as Blue lifted you up, hands on your waist, guiding your hips to settle over his as he held you aloft. He rumbled low in appreciation when he felt your legs cross behind his back and it did things to you.

How did you get this lucky?

A year ago what had your life been like? (Nothing nearly as fun or hopeful as this.) You were loved and in love and now there were so many things that mattered. Even for all the shit that came with it, the blood and the danger, you wouldn’t trade this new year and new life for anything else.

You hesitated when Blue called your name and bowed your head to his, listening as he laughed close to your eardrum. “Not bad for a first date, right?”

“Speaking of dates…”

Both of you turned to see Rus there, leaning against the wall with a smug look on his face, watching the both of you pant. He had a nearly empty glass in his hand and lifted it to the both of you before throwing it back to finish off the black glittering alcohol inside.

“I gots something to show you, darlin,” Rus said, nodding back over his shoulder to the opposite direction. “You wanna check it out or stay settled?”

You and Blue giggled together, realizing the public venue you were stuck in and how carried away you had actually gotten. Sure, you were off the dance floor and tucked away, but it was still a little bit too fast and too far.

“I think I need a drink myself before I check in with Fuka,” Blue said, leaning in to kiss the side of your neck before pulling away, settling you back onto your own two feet with only a modest blush compared to your raging flush.

“Okay,” you agreed, rubbing at Blue’s face with your thumb, hoping to brush off some of the magical color on his cheekbones. “Let’s go exploring Rus.”

“Less exploring more touring for me, darlin,” he laughed before accepting you under his arm to lead you out.

He leaned against his side and stepped carefully, watching the dance floor for straying eyes or disapproving stares. No one seemed to notice you as you passed. At the bar Fuka sat talking with her uncle while Blue pulled up a stool. She seemed happy for the company but you couldn’t help but feel like she had been venting a lot to her ‘uncle’ all on her own. You’d have to check in with her before much more of the night got away from you.

“Do you like fish?” Rus asked, startling you.

“What do you mean, like sushi?” you asked, trying to remember if the club even sold such full meals.

Your question got Rus to laugh. He waved to the bouncer by the stairs and guided you up to the VIP floors with ease. “Nah, not to eat, to look at.”

“Like an aquarium you mean, oh sure, I love those. I haven’t been in a while though. Why ask?”

“Grillby is like that too, even though he’s a fire type, likes watching stuff that’s hypnotic and simple. HIs favorite is a good fireplace but enjoys the fish well enough too and I hoped you were the same even though you’re far friendlier with fireplaces.”

There was a long hallway with few doors, each separated by the next by a wide stretch of hallway and you wondered if they were rooms to rent or were they for entertainment of a different sort. Rus stopped in front of one of them and waved a card out of his sleeve and the mechanical locks on the doors clicked free.

“Check this room out then,” he said before pushing the door open and stepping inside.

None of the room lights were on but the back wall was a floor to ceiling aquarium that was lit from inside. It made you stop and gasp when a smack of jellyfish billowed up and then moved out of sight, followed by the gentle wings of a stingray chasing his own desires. There were several huge beanbag like chairs set up around the room that could be pulled up as desired. Rus took a couple t put right in front of the glass and waved you down. You were surprised when you realized the beanbags were long enough to fully recline on. You stared up into illuminated blue and felt dozy with calm.

Rus tugged himself closer on his own recline, managing to get an arm snaked under your back. It was enough to pull you both hip to hip as the lights painted you both in aquatic tones.

“I’ll be honest, I thought you were planing on bringing me up for something a little naughtier but I’m not disappointed. This is gorgeous.”

“Nah, still have naughty plans but I wanted you to see something nice too,” he answered with a deep rumbling chuckle before lowering his mouth to your neck.

He started there, but didn’t last long before dipping lower, following the edge of your outfit’s outline, chasing the boundary of skin with his teeth. At your collarbone he rumbled something about how soft you were, then lower he whispered about how warm you were, how your magic made him tingle in the best possible way. At the base of the v neck he settled and felt up your sides, one hand still holding onto your hip from where it had snaked underneath while the other traced down your thigh, wrapping around to pull you leg out and hinder him less in his efforts to crawl closer.

“Just… lemme take care of ya a lil, darlin.” His hands were in dangerous places.

Your sight was hazy but you forced yourself to look down and see where Russ settled and traced the shape of his skull with the back of your knuckles, gentle and soft enough to hopefully convey your love for your skeleton lover.

“I love you,” you said out loud and it was such a simple and honest thing you weren’t sure why he stilled but he glanced up and you saw how his violet colored eye lights went hazy and wide in the dark aqua colored room. You cupped the side of his skull and forced his face up. “You know that right? I love you. I’ve loved you and I will love you.”

“yeah…” he said in a moment of forgetfulness, sounding almost distracted as he saw past you and confirmed your honest for himself.

He had given up his ability to zip in and out of the void to his brother but he was still the Judge from his world’s timeline and you knew what that mean. You weren’t sure exactly what he saw when he looked at you, but if it was what was in your heart, the brutal honesty was that you loved him without reservation. You loved him in his cowardice and indifference, you loved him in his weakness, in his strength, you loved him in his cunning and in his slothfulness. You loved the best and the worst of him and it was part pull part choice. The attraction had been there but you followed that attraction on your own with your own choices.

“Rus, talk to me, kay?” you softly encouraged when he held you there in silence. The jellyfish billowed past in their cluster and the fish swam in their own designs, making patters in the waters while you watched your lover.

“…wouldn’t you rather watch the fish?” he quietly joked, finding a longer strand of hair that fell over the cushion close to his hand.

“Nope. They’re nice but I don’t want to date them. This is your date, remember? You and Blue picked this out.” When he looked away again you touched his skull once more and guided it back so that he saw you. “Hey, what are you thinking right now?”

“nothing much, darlin, just thinking about how lucky i am and damn if i wake up tomorrow to have this all be just a dream.” He sounded a little distracted even as he made eye contact and you wondered what he was seeing.

“It’s not a dream. If it was the world would probably be in a lot better status than it is. If it was don’t you think it’d be perfect?" His words got you to wondering. "What about sharing your mate? Was that the perfect scenario in your dreams?” you absently rubbed at the side of his skull.

“Having a pride is preferable to being on my own in all of this. I was never able to keep anyone I wanted for more than a night, and sometimes I failed at even that. I’m a mess, you know that right? You think I’d do you any good all on my own? I’m glad you have so many who can give you everything you deserve.”

“That’s not the best outlook to have there, love. A relationship isn’t all about the checks and balances. I’m glad you’re okay with sharing your affections with your brothers but that’s…” you struggled to put it into words what you wanted to say. Rus didn’t have a high opinion of himself and he didn’t believe in the love you had for him as strongly as you wished he would. “The point of a pride for me…isn’t about diversifying my lovers like resources. It’s because I love all of you. I love you and I love Black, and I love Blue and everyone else who is a part of my pride. Maybe that isn’t how it was back in your world but as far as my will goes, these are my intentions.”

You felt him shivering from where his body touched yours. You knew it wasn’t because he was cold but you warmed yourself slightly with harmless flames and pulled him closer, tucking his skull under your chin. His arms wrapped around you all on their own.    

“Rus, I’m going to say it as many times as I need to,” you quietly threatened with love.

“you sure you wouldn’t rather me take care of you here?”

“Nah, it’s more important we have this groundwork before going any further. I’m not with you because you’re, no doubt, fantastically skilled at sexual favors but because I’m really in love with who you are as a person. Other things can come later.”

Rus snickered into the front of your romper. “like you?”

The unintentional pun made you laugh outright. “Yeah, me, that’ll be me later. Promise, just shut up for now you dork and let me hold you.”

Rus snickered into the fabric a little more and you felt him shift into his own comfort, keeping one arm under you while the other rested beside your free arm where chunks of curls splayed out within reach his wandering phalanges.

That’s how Blue found you a few minutes later, letting himself in with a keycard of his own. He smiled at the wall of wandering blue waters before his smile grew wide for the scene you and Rus made, cuddled up on the pillows.

“I expected a different sort of aftercare,” Blue teased, settling down on one of the cushions before propping his head up with a hand. “Was I wrong?”

“Mmm, shudup,” Rus lazily backtracked, sounding tired and content.

You met Blue’s eye lights over Rus’ skull and smiled wide. “I’d really love to come back next time. Thanks for a fantastic date, guys.”

“As long as you’re happy then I’m delighted,” Blue chirped before reaching over to kiss the side of your face with a quick peck.

“Same,” Rus said before pulling back.

He untangled himself enough so that he could push up off the pillows and crawl over you. Once he was overhead he leaned down and fit his mouth over yours, fitting perfectly as a stray hand grabbed for one of your to hike up over his hip and encourage with sensual kneading as his kiss pushed you deeper into the pillows.

There was magic in your mouth as he pushed his tongue against yours and you felt full with the static of his taste. It wasn’t something you could put into words, and you had no desire to, as his kiss sank you into a dozy sort of breathlessness. When he pulled back your brain felt fuzzy all the way through.

When you looked up he was smirking down at you before pulling back.

“Show off,” Blue tisked.

“Don’t tempt me,” Rus almost scoffed sounding too playful to be honestly baited.

This was nice and you could get used to more of this. This was the reason you cared so much more about the world being in danger, because you were so much more full of love than you were a year ago. You’d protect this with all you had.

But for now…tonight was meant to be enjoyed.

 

 

Notes:

And the rest of the night is up to your imaginations, dear reader. Who's to say how it goes? ~
Sha la la~

Personally, I was hardcore vibing with the first part where Stretch gets 'help' from Edge and Black about his 'writing,' lol. I had a lot of fun with that dynamic. For a skeleton who prides himself on being observant enough to miss nothing, he really does have a blindspot when it comes to other people reading him, doesn't he? I love these guys.

This is probably the spice boundary for this fic. Anything more would be put into a separate side-fic. But yeah, Rus and Blue are a fun pair to write for. I enjoyed it but I'm still super nervous about this chapter in particular since it's a little different from the others. Is it not enough-is it too much? WHo knows?

I'll be updating the last part of this story every two weeks now, or every other Saturday. It'll give me more time to work on the chapters and get them ready. I'm used to having a lot of pre written stuff but right now my stock is low and I'm feeling really drained so I'll be pacing myself for this last lap. Thank you for your consideration.

Chapter 76: Real Ones 6

Summary:

A date with Black

Chapter Text

It started out innocently enough. Stretch wasn’t getting out of bed and you weren’t willing to climb back in and join him since you had already run yourself into wakefulness with Papyrus in the early hours. It was nice since Blue had joined you and three of you managed to watch the sunrise together as it crested the hills, chasing away the last dregs of morning gloom. The world was warming as the seasons shifted again.

“You didn’t even stay up that late, what’s with you, lazy bones?” you teased, tracing patterns down his spine until he covers kept your fingers from straying any further. You grinned when you saw Stretch shiver but moved out of the way in time to avoid his swiping arm, aiming to drag you back into bed with him. “Nope, honey, I’m all gross from this morning and I still need a shower. I’m not bringing that back into the bed.”

Stretch murmured into the covers something about not caring how gross a human could get but you didn’t give in.  Instead you pinned his reaching arm down by the wrist to lean over and kiss the side of his skull and leave for the shower.

There were already clean things for you folded up on top of the side table -the one next to the sink and a handwritten note from Blue about how much he loved you and couldn’t wait until he got off from work and could see you again. You held onto the note a little longer than it took to read it all, feeling the paper between your fingertips like the proof it was. Sometimes you still couldn’t believe your luck but what you held in your hand was indisputable. You were loved. You were-

Like a bad habit you snapped out of the happy thoughts and spread your mental map wide, searching far and long before it snapped back like an overstretched rubber band and smacked your brain.

Nothing….

Again…

When were you going to quit worrying about Hightower and his plans? The more you thought about it and talked to Raven about it, the more you both agreed that there were a lot of other things that needed to happen before Hightower could pull a ‘Doom’s Day’ event. He’d need access to the huge void well for starters, and multiple eyes were watching to make sure the government didn’t turn over their occupation of the site to Hightower’s rogue agents.

Speaking of those kids…you hadn’t been able to find any of them. Hightower surviving in the void long term made sense and didn’t concern you, but the other kids were different. None of them would be able to survive extended periods of exposure to the void. But as hard and far as you searched none of them turned up on any of your maps.

You almost felt guilty for worrying about the others, the kids like Thrive and her brother, even Hightower’s right hand Everest…in spite of your status as advisors, you couldn’t find it in yourself to hate them. You’d kick their asses if you ever met, but the anger and emotion you burned with when thinking about Hightower wasn’t there for Thrive. They were victims, caught in the thrall of a pied piper who was playing his song of deception up to the edge of a cliff. You pitied them-you couldn’t hate them though.

There was no more point to your worry so you began to peel back your layers and drop them into the hamper, noticing it was almost full with Stretch and Blue’s things. Blue might yell at you later but you figured you could do their laundry for them since you were helping yourself to their shower.

You didn’t take long but it felt longer now that your hair was the length it was. Magic made it look like you had been growing it out for years when in reality you had been buzzed short a year ago.

A year ago?

You stepped out, turning off the water and padding yourself dry before lightly cleaning the inside of the shower, hating how long hair came with so many new issues.

Hair wrapped up in a bun you left the warm bathroom to the bedroom and flared with magical fire to help brace against the chill. To no one’s surprise, Stretch was still stretched out across the bed, lazy as ever and nearly half asleep again. What had he gotten himself into last night?

You traced your fingers across the back of his skull and beast closer. “You’ve not had breakfast yet, have you?” 

“Lean a little closer and I’ll grab a bite,” he teased, lamely reaching for you with half the effort.

“Food time, mister,” you sighed in resignation before grabbing at your hip to flip him over. Before he could protest or even make sense of what was going on you had tugged him up onto your shoulder and stood with him draped like a sack of potatoes. He coughed, almost choking on a laugh as you carried him out into the hallway.

His room was on the first floor in one of the back wings of the house, originally meant to be a guest suite for visitors, and a little removed from the second and third floors where the kids slept along with Black. Rus owned the basement but Blue and Stretch both had their own spaces behind the stairs in a corner of the house all theirs.

They had mentioned saving up to move out but you hated to admit you liked it better where they were. In your heart of hearts you almost wished you all lived in a huge five story mansion or converted ski lodge so that you’d get to see everyone every morning. But stars did that sound like a bad idea in practice. They were all adults with their own lives and as close as they were, having their own space was beneficial. You could attest to that with your own piece of property.

You came into the kitchen with Stretch still folded over your shoulder and the audience there was nothing short of utterly delighted with the scene. Peter was still eating next to Wendy with Blue at the counter making breakfast burritos. You didn’t see Tron or Rus but noticed Black was at the head of the table with Phil half asleep on his lap behind the morning paper.

“Special delivery,” you joked before patting the side of Stretch’s ribcage. You thought better about smacking his butt in front of the kids.

“Mom is so strong!” Peter cheered while Blue watched you with a fuzzy look to his eye lights and an absent tilt to his head. You recognized the look and it only made you mentally preen for the attention. You liked impressing your lovers.

“It’s not as impressive as all that when Uncle Stretch weighs less than me,” you laughed.

“Can I pick up Uncle Stretch?” Wendy asked, jumping from her seat to try while you set Stretch down on his feet. Playfully, he pretended to collapse on top of Wendy who was trying the hold up the skeleton who was three and a half times her size. All that magic made them dense, but not as dense as a human of equivalent size- still too much for a five year old.

“Don’t crush my kid,” you warned before walking over to join Blue at the stove and help him with the ground beef for his breakfast burritos.

Blue’s magic flared with your proximity and it drew out a tangle of your own to tease before you hit your hip against his. Blue leaned closer to you and when you recognized the gesture you bent your head to hear his whispers.

“I’ve not been more turned on at any point in my life,” he whispered lowly while you noticed his tense grip on the handle of his skillet.

“Was it cause I carried your lazy brother out of bed on my back?” you snickered, keeping your voice low too.

“Don’t torment me so early in the morning, I already finished my cold shower,” Blue teased back with a faint blush of blue color high on his cheekbones. 

You turned away and grabbed for the coffee pot to carry with you back to the table. You leaned over Black’s chair and he held out his mug for you to top off.  Without prompting he kissed at the side of your face and murmured a quiet thank you as you pulled back.

“You’re not otherwise engaged today, are you?” Black asked before you could finish pulling away fully.

“Me, not after twelve when the kids and I come back from the farmer’s market. What did you have in mind?” you answered, knowing full well that Black knew your schedule better than you did.

He was the one who still paid you a salary to help out with the kids, even after you insisted it wasn’t necessary. There wasn’t a monster more stubborn about giving people gifts and bribes than Black was, and he was especially adamant about it with you.

At one point he had to show you one of the bank books for an account he had open under his name to get you to quit protesting. He had several accounts in different banks, all well stocked and loaded with gold and liquidated assets. He had stopped short of showing off what Rus had in his accounts but assured you that his brother was just as well off in spite of his ‘ slovenly ’ appearance.

But Black knew you were free today. His asking was nothing more than a courtesy.

“Very well, then I would like to request your presence for this afternoon. I’d like to take you out between 3 and 10 for some shopping and a nice dinner,” he said.

You felt the smile curl itself across your face, turning your lips up in spite of your efforts to appear neutral. “Oh, are you asking me out on a date?”

“Quite right my pearl,” he teased, neon purple eye lights flashing with mirth. “Do you object?”

“Not at all, but I don’t know how to dress if I don’t know where we are going.”

“You needn’t worry about that. I said we would go shopping first, didn’t I?” He shot you a sly look before hiding his grin behind the rim of his coffee and sipping silently.

“I’ll try to not be consumed with anticipation in the meanwhile,” you joked before stepping away to get your own breakfast from Blue.

You paused over the plate he offered and examined his absent gaze that wouldn’t meet yours. Something told you he had a hand in Black’s plan. If for nothing else, you were willing to bet that Blue had helped make sure your day stayed open and free from conflicting appointments.

“Thank you,” you said over the breakfast plate, meaning it in more than one way before.

After eating you had to hurry with the kids, getting them ready to make it to the Farmer’s Market before it got too much later. The best deals were always the ones at the crack of dawn, but you had to compromise with the adolescents in your care who loved to sleep almost as much as Stretch.

The world was still cold, but winter was losing its grip on the world and soon you’d be able to trade in your jackets and scarves for spring trappings once more, reminding you that you’d been with the boys almost a full year now. It was in the budding spring time you got that pager call to come in and work with Sans, Blue, Stretch, and the monster mascot himself.

How was that only a year ago? It felt like a lifetime. When you had been depressed and independent for four years felt like four month, the days passed you by too fast yet seemed to drag on without detail. Nothing from those four years stood out as memorable. But this past year… everything was memorable. You wouldn’t have traded this new life for anything.

“Are you going out on a date with dad?” Wendy asked, interrupting your thoughts once you pulled into the parking lot outside the enormous refurbished barn that had been converted for open air market.

The question made you hesitate, noticing the attention of Peter and Phil while Tron tried to look like he wasn’t also listening.

“I think that’s the plan. Why, are you curious?”

Wendy’s face wide smile made your danger sense tingle, but you ignored it, knowing better. “Nope,” she cooed playfully. “Just hope you have fun.”

You glanced suspiciously back. “You’re not going to ask me a ton of questions?”

“Nope!” She popped the ‘p’ playfully.

“You’re not going to ask me what I’m wearing and give me suggestions?”

“Nuh uh.”

“You’re not going to get one of your uncles to tell you things about it?”

“Noooooooo,” she laughed.

Yeah, that wasn’t suspicious at all.

“Okay you goobers, seatbelts off, we’re here. Stay away from the candy stalls until after we’ve bought what we need. You have five dollars each for a treat, budget wisely.”

You took the car keys with you and helped Phil out of his booster while Tron assisted with Wendy and Peter. In short order the five of you were out and moving on with the errands of the day. Occasionally you hear Peter and Wendy whispering loudly to themselves, sounding excited, only for Tron to interject and shush them.

You tugged Tron aside while the others were playing with one of the seller’s mascot dog, just barely within earshot. “What are they really going on about?”

Tron didn’t even try to lie. “Black asked them for help planning the date so they think they’re responsible for it going well if you end up liking it.”

“I should have expected this,” you muttered before noticing Phil stomping back over. His hands were fists and he was waving them wildly.

“I want a doggy with my five dollars!”

Wendy and Peter were quick to echo the desire and for the rest of your time out, you kept hearing about how good it would be to have a dog, how fun it would be, how it would help them be responsible, and so on.

You’d have to talk to Black and Rus about the possibility of purchasing a pet for the kids. Blue and Stretch would have to weigh in too since they would share the house.

You ended up treating them to McDonald’s if they agreed to let the matter drop until you could talk to ‘daddy’ and ‘Uncle Rus.’ 

When you got home after 1 you had almost forgotten about the date, until you saw Rus with his ‘morning coffee’ standing out on the back porch, watching you all drive up. His expression was cheeky even without cheeks.

“Uncle Rus we want a dog!” Wendy screamed before anyone else could say anything.

Peter’s words started rolling out a mile a minute and even Tron interjected a few times. Rus took it all in stride and seemed only fondly entertained by how passionate they were about this new obsession.  When you amended the steps he caught your wrist and tugged you close for a quick kiss, leaving his mouth by your ear for whispers.

“I hear my brother asked you out?”

“I have a couple of hours before I need to leave, why?”

“Oh, I can get creative with a couple of hours but I already promised not to do anything to steal his thunder. He’s been preoccupied with making this a nice treat for you for too long for even me to mess up. I’ll help with the kids, you get ready.”

You were flattered but didn’t want to accept his easy kindness just like that. “I don’t need to get ready and I already said I got this. I can watch the kids after lunch.”

“Did you eat?”

“No, but I bought them fast food and stole a few french fries. Plus, there were plenty of snacks to sample at the market.”

Rus shot you a look of disbelief. “You must be starving then, you never turn down an opportunity to eat. Go in and get something substantial, you look like you’re wasting away on me.”

“I haven’t had a reason to need my magic so I’m fine, but I will go eat,” you said before walking in beside him enjoying the way his hand fit so naturally in yours. You remembered aquariums and pillows but didn’t let your thoughts wander any more than that.

Indoors the television was on, switched to the news which featured the newest monster mascot, Pink Lily, officially receiving her endorsement from the king. It was a big deal and you absently remembered that Papyrus was there for the ceremony-one of his last public appearances post retirement. You paused to watch for a few seconds but once the ceremony was over Papyrus bowed out and the focus switched sharply to the newer, pink and bubbly monster who thanked all of her instagram followers for believing in her.

“Being a monster mascot has been something of a dream since before I could even sing. Thank you Mettaton and thank you Papyrus for being such huge role models to me. I’ll balance this popularity with responsibility to keep our people safe!”

There was a short segment about the former monster mascot, and a few gossip hounds feeding the anchors their theories on why Papyrus had really stepped down, but the media host calmly pulled up the fact that Papyrus was already enrolled in a college and was studying faithfully to better himself for his community and family.  You were worried they’d dig even deeper and reveal where Papyrus was going to school or what classes he was taking, but they didn’t- they toed that line but didn’t overstep it.

Thankfully they skipped over to a segment about Mettaton and the third world tour he was on, updating the audience on his fifth studio album and the collaborations he was planning with other monsters and humans alike. His social media accounts were far more active and updated so there was more there for the news to dig into.

Stretch was in the kitchen on his phone and the two of you made lunch together, and by that you mean he hung out on his phone and talked to you while you cleaned, prepped, and cooked the food for the both of you. He had the good grace to look guilty when you served him his plate and he kissed your brow in thanks the way only skeletons could, with the skin of their teeth and the tingle of their magic.

At Rus’ behest, you left the main house to your barn to finish getting ready for this date you had no idea about. You changed out of your baggy jeans and boots, opting for something a little nicer with skinny black leggings and an oversized sweater that was long enough to keep your curves to yourself and whoever you desired to share them with.

Three in the afternoon came sooner than expected with the sharp knocking at your door and the tense silence thereafter. 

At the door he was there on the doorstep with a blooming bouquet of soft pink and white peonies that were in all stages of openness, some tight fisted bulbs decorated the edges while others in the center were open wide and spread. They reminded you of the near invisible tattoos on your arms that meant something else from another lifetime ago.

“They’re gorgeous,” you gasped before you could stop yourself. You should have greeted him first or complemented how nicely he had dressed up, but you had been too easily distracted.

Thankfully, your reaction only delighted your partner. “Good, then maybe they can do their new owner some justice. Do you mind if I set these in the sink, my love?”

You stepped aside and let him in, answering without words. Black helped himself to the farm sink basin and filled it with water to set the flowers in before producing a crystal vase he knew would be waiting for him in one of the previously empty cabinets. Humming in contentment he cut at the stems and filled the vase before arranging the flowers with practiced hands. While he worked you took the time to observe him from behind, realizing what was different this time around. He wasn’t in a uniform, but he was wearing nice dress slacks that complemented his expensive leather wing tipped shoes. When he turned to the side you recognized the three piece suit for what it was and instantly felt underdressed.

“I should go get changed real quick. Sorry to make you wait but-”

“No need,” he gently interrupted, eye lights and hands still focused on his work instead of you. “I already set aside time before the highlight of our evening to spoil you with clothing. We can find something nice for you to wear at the boutique of a friend of mine. I promised him some business so you’re actually doing me a favor this way. Besides,” his eye lights flickered up to meet your face and you caught the way they flashed in neon shades with emotion. “I’ve planned to thoroughly spoil you in every way imaginable this evening. Please don’t deny me this.”

“You’re making it sound like I’m doing you the favor.”

“Aren’t you? Where else would I have the opportunity to revel in the joys of watching my lover glow with her due desserts? Don’t minimize the truth of my happiness, nothing brings me more delight than your pleasure.”

“Damn, Black,” you sighed, needing to catch your breath before figuring out what to say in response. “Were you always this smooth?”

“I’m surprising myself,” he chuckled, almost flushing as he turned his eye lights back down to the word of his hands. “But it is a good surprise. I was worried I would not be soft enough to suite the life I envied.”

You remembered the world he came from, his fragment of the universe was one of the darker shards. His underground was another kill or be killed ones, but with more backstabbing and subterfuge. Black and Edge had spoken on it once in front of you, how in Black’s world the murder was done in shadows and silence, leaving enough carnage to send a loud enough message while in Edge’s world the violence was as loud or louder than the message it was meant to convey.

As if he could hear your thoughts Black looked up from his work and moved away from the sink to reach for you. He took your elbows first and then ran his hands down your arms to your wrists and then your hands, catching the edges of your fingers on a curve he bent towards his mouth in a chaste kiss of reverence. “You are stunning, have I told you that recently?”

“I’m in a sweater dress.”

“Nothing greater or less could hind this radiance. It’s blinding and I am humbled.”

The absolute sincerity of his words almost made you laugh as you recognized the manic nervousness twittering in your throat. You ducked your head down into your hands, still caught in his, and smothered your sounds of embarrassment as best you could. “Shut up. I’m serious, you’re way too smooth. What the hell do you want me to do, melt?”

“I’d gladly caught you up and drink you into my soul if that were the case, but for tonight I do require you in your physical form so I shall refrain from wooing you further for the sake of my grander goals.” He tugged your hands down, away from your face and stared up from underneath, crouching so he could see your face even when you ducked it. It was impossible to miss the coy mirth of his expression. “Be at ease, my love.”

“Easier said than done.”

He kissed your hands and then let you go, stepping back to the sink to quickly finish with your flowers, sliding them into the vase with water before setting it out on your counter under the window where sunlight made the edges transparent.

“Then I think we can vacate for the first of our stops. Do you have your phone?”

You picked up the small shoulder bag and checked to make sure you had everything you might need. He took you by the arm, guiding you like a gentleman would and behind you the front door closed on a click thanks to his purple tinged magic.

You weren’t surprised to see Black had rented a car for the evening that was too old and stylized for you to name, but when he walked you to the passenger’s side you saw the Rolls Royce hood ornament and knew it was as expensive as you feared.

“It’s a bit of a drive, so I apologize for the timing of it all,” Black began before sliding into the driver’s seat after making sure you were buckled up.

“Oh no, whatever shall I do, having to ride in a fancy car with my skeleton husband is such a punishment,” you sarcastically cooed, batting your lashes in his general direction.

Black choked on a laugh and you were delighted with the violet tinge that colored his cheekbones after calling him ‘husband’ the way you had.

The car ride was comfortable if not a bit longer than you were used to, but forty five minutes wasn’t really that bad when you considered what it took to get back to Ebott. You were just a bit too spoiled with everything being so close. Conversation with Black wasn’t unpleasant and for as nervous as you were to not know where you were going or doing past the ‘dress up’ portion of your date, you found yourself relaxing in his company.

The sun dipped a little lower in the sky and the clouds began to color when he pulled off the main road and you recognized the downtown part of the neighboring city that always ran a little faster than Blackberry. He found where he needed to turn off and as soon as the traffic parted he pulled into a neat and tidy parking lot behind some buildings.

There was a huge, upper end type, mall nearby that you took a quick walk to, hand in hand. You were a little gobsmacked, stunned into silence when you saw the crystal cendewiers and glass covered fountains. There were wide open walkways with a few shoppers, but you were captivated by the casual displays of art that were set up to decorate the walkways in between boutiques.

“This is where my friend is set up, let’s not keep him waiting,” Black chuckled, tugging you along with a coy sort of smile.

The boutique was just as fancy as the rest of the mall, and you weren’t surprised but you were still a little stunned when Black tugged you along. There were wide open spaces between the display pieces and circular couches for shoppers to lounge. You saw a pair of human girls with flutes of something bubbly, watching their monster friend model an evening gown. You took notice of the tailoring corners where monsters could get custom measurements and designs ordered alongside other humans.

You were brought back to attention when you heard a squeaky giggle as a new lady monster spotted you and Black from where she had been talking to a male tailor. Her speech was almost all bubbles by the sound of it, before she calmed down enough to say Black’s name and hug his shoulders before kissing in the air on the other side of his skull.

“You’ve come,” the white aquatic looking monster cheered. When she moved her hair floated out behind her head, ending in tendrils not unlike the veil of a jellyfish. Her skin as well was almost translucent like a jellyfish too. Only her eyes were wide and black, filled from edge to edge with the dark color. Everything else about her was bubbly and bright. “Happy days, now show me your lady!”

“Akiko, this is my love,” Black said smoothly, introducing you next. “Please take care of her for what we discussed. I’d love to pamper her with something nice.”

“Of course, nothing but the best for my startup investor. You can trust Akiko,” the jellyfish master cheered before waving to another two male tailors to ‘get the VIP room ready.’ Akiko then waved Black on and reached for your hand. “No need to be nervous, Bubbly, I’m an expert who knows how to make something you’ll like. You won’t be uncomfortable here, no one ever is when I take care of them personally.”

Before you could protest you were swept up and ushered into a back room that was twice as plush as the ones you saw out front. Black took a seat on one of the lounging couches and gave his wine order to one of the male tailors before a pair of younger looking frog girls hopped into the room to open the changing room doors to the back.  Akiko led you personally down the hall into a smaller changing room with a couch and several dresses already set up on the walls in plastic sleeves.

“Do you know what you’re even dressing me for?” you asked, almost too nervous to form words as you mentally calculated what all this would cost a normal person. Sure, Black was loaded and could afford anything he wanted, but you still wore your jeans with the holes in them so there was a bit of cultural difference between the both of you. You weren’t sure how comfortable you could make yourself for this. 

Akiko paused and then blinked. You noticed how when she blinked a silver lid slid sideways across her eyes instead of vertically. She softened and reached for your hands. The room turned hazy and you felt warm and soft as her magic washed out over you. On reflex you touched her magic back, ready to defend yourself and that must have surprised her since Akiko flushed and giggled before easing her magic back.

“Akiko is sorry if this overwhelms you. Many who come to Kurage, my boutique, aren’t used to being pampered but it’s nothing to be worried over. Will you try to steady your human heart?”

Her voice was pleasant and her magic was calming. It went a long way towards quelling your nerves until you saw the robe up on the wall. “I have scars I’m-there are some things I can’t wear because of my body, I…if possible I’d rather not…um.”

“No worries, no frowns,” she sang. “We can work with anyone, that’s our mission here. No matter your size or shape or species, you can find a fit here. Let Akiko help your lover express his adoration for a pretty human mate.”

Hesitantly, you nodded and sat back down on the couch while Akiko handed you the robe. She returned a few minutes later with two new dresses in plastic sleeves to take the place of some that wouldn’t suit you.

She helped you into the first one and pulled the back of the dress closed while you watched her work in one of the long mirrors, a bit surprised by the transformation. And it was almost like a light switch had gone off inside your heart, but the reservations from earlier fell away.

“Oh, that’s nice,” you sighed before turning to see the back. You felt a bubble of giddiness when you thought of showing off to Black, someone who you wanted to ‘wow’ because you loved him.

“There are two more you might like, look to the wall, you see them. We’ll fit you in those next and you can pick them one that makes your lover the most bedazzled,” Akiko giggled, almost more excited for you than you were. You followed her out, reaching up to tug the front of your collar closer. When you walked there was a nice long slit that cut up almost to your thigh and you had to borrow a pair of heels to match the dress.

You stepped out after her into the room and saw the moment Black saw you. His eye lights going fuzzy and wide made your ego swell to new heights as you picked up your chin and stepped onto the dais where a trio of mirrors showed you off from different angles.

“How do you like it?”

Black’s smile stretched wide across his face as he watched you watch him. “It’s such a shame there aren’t more opportunities to show you off. This world is deprived of true art.”

“You’re not a blubbering mess so we’re going back,” Akiko interrupted, puffing slightly at Black’s lackluster amazement.

“That was still a huge compliment from him,” you laughed.

“Pah, that’s the floor, to the ceiling; you want him a blubbering mess.” She then closed the door behind you and with her help you tried on the second dress.

Black’s awe was palpable when you walked in the second time but you could feel Akiko’s withdrawn irritation when Black was still able to roll off lavish compliments that were too polished for a monster that should be ‘begging on his knees.’

Akiko had a pair of dresses left but she put one of them back with a confident grin as she helped you into the darker of the two. You loved the color right away, as well as the feel of the fabric when it clung to your body. Before heading out Akiko caught you and made you stay still while she did you hair up into an elaborate bun that should have been impossible for how quick her hands worked. She then dressed you in earrings that dangled to match the rubies around your neck before finally she seemed satisfied with the look. 

“Now this is truly celestial,” she cheered to herself when she looked you over.

It was probably the most intricate of the dresses you had tried on so far with elaborate detailing and beadwork, but not an ounce of comfort had been sacrificed. When you moved even more of your legs peaked through and you hoped Black noticed. You hope he cared. You hope it was like what Akiko said. You wanted to give him something to fall apart for.

This time you emerged first, ahead of Akiko so there could be nothing that separated you from him. Black had the wine glass close to his mouth but hesitated when he saw you, going silent as you climbed to the familiar setting without breaking your eye contact with him. You refused to look away, you refused to blush. In the space between you only silence grew. When Black’s neon purple eye lights shrank to pin pricks, you recognized the spade shape of a monster’s soul.

“You can speak,” you said instead of asking him how he felt once enough time had passed between you both. You ignored Akiko in the background giving high fives to the frog girls who were hopping up and down in delight.

When Black didn’t answer you didn’t repeat yourself, you just stepped down off the dais and stopped in front of where he sat. You touched the side of his head, tilting his face up and leaning down, bracing with one knee on the couch beside his leg, brushing just enough that he could feel what wasn’t bound by fabric.  The hearts in his eyes still spun but he touched the side of your elbow, squeezing it for strength before finding his voice.

“It’s my loss, I don’t have words,” he whispered. “Give me your mouth.”

You happily obliged.

With your dress being a winner Akiko insisted on decorating your hair with some ornaments to help the bun stay in place, and while she was at it she painted your eyes a touch, sounding far too happy to be working on you after Black’s reaction. She finished just as Black finished bullying one of the frog girls into paying for your dress, insisting on no discount. In the end the frog girl retaliated by throwing in the accessories for free.

“It’s good to be able to fluster the ones who make our souls beat, yes?” Akiko asked, sounding like she knew more than she let on before giggling.

You stepped up alongside Black and slid your arm through his, making him stiffen and then soften when he recognized you. When you leaned close he tilted his skull for better access. “Will you tell me where we’re going next?”

“Not far,” he posed before accepting a long wall coat in the same color as your dress to drop across your shoulders. You took his hand again and followed him out into the mall and then into the parking lot.

By this time in the day it was already evening and the sky was flirting with twilights, still streaked with the last blushes of sunset pink and purple before the looming blue swallowed that too. Some of the stars were starting to twinkle into view.

Black held your hand as you settled into the car seat but before you could reach for your belt he tugged it out and insisted on crossing it over your body, leaning closer than he needed to as the metal end clicked into place. When he didn’t pull back immediately you gently called his name. 

“It’s…not a difficult dress to slip on, is it?” he asked in a voice you didn’t recognize as his. There was color back on his cheekbones again.

“Maybe you’ll have the pleasure of finding that out for yourself sometime later,” you teased in a rare move of boldness on your part. You held onto the hand that was still resting on your seatbelt and kissed the corner of his mouth.

He turned into the kiss and his body followed a half second later, with one knee bracing against the car seat as he tried to erase the distance between you. The magic in his mouth tasted like wine and you drank hungrily.

You wanted this. You wanted this badly and you didn’t want to hold back like you had before. You wanted him to know how you felt and feel the proof of it. A year later you wanted this new life with him in it.

“Please,” he whispered against your lips. “I…” the words failed him as he wavered in front of your face, null sagging against your temple. You didn’t know what he was asking for but you felt his fraying self control for what it was and deduced the rest.

“Later,” you promised before pushing him back. Black almost staggered but that was too out of character. He caught himself on the still open for and glanced upwards, scanning the private parking lot for prying eyes before clearing his throat and moving to close your passenger side door.

He rounded the back of the car, taking his time before settling into the driver’s side and finding the key to start up the engine. “Thank you,” he admitted before the engine turned over and rounded out the softest of his words.

You smiled to yourself, satisfied with how he acted around you.

“Does that mean you’re telling me where we’re going next?”

“Just to dinner my love,” he quipped, recovering his candor as the light turned green and allowed them back onto the main road.

It didn’t take long, and before the sky was swallowed by the evening lull of dark blue, you saw the theater for what it was. Black pulled in and followed the driveway to the main entrance where a valet came out to take the car and park it for them. Black didn’t even bother walking around the car but blinked over to your door and helped you out before anyone else could dare.

“I thought you said dinner,” you gasped, marveling at the historic theater.

“What’s dinner without a little entertainment?” he laughed before tugging you closer. “Besides, we still have time before the production starts so let's freely enjoy ourselves. I have box seats.”

“Fun, so what are we watching?”

“Wouldn’t you rather be surprised?”    

You weren’t surprised when half an hour later you saw the pamphlet as the first actors took to the stage and introduced ‘The Scottish Play’ to the audience. For Black, you couldn’t imagine something more fitting.

The curtains rolled back and the world went dim. Only the petite lights on your table showed off the meal you were still finishing as the actors took to the stage in perfect costume. You found yourself more enthralled with the play than you thought you would be, admittedly getting lost at a few points only to figure out later on with hints what the hell was going on with the characters. Lady McBeth was metal though.

“Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood, stop up th’ access and passage to remorse; That no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between th’ effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers, wherever in your sightless substances you wait on nature’s mischief.” The actress dramatically swept her arms and the long sleeves billowed with the wind effects as something deeper echoes in your empty eye socket. “ Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry ‘Hold, hold!’ ” the actress moaned out on a long, stressed out sound that fell into your head light a burning weight.

For a moment the world fell away and you were back there-back in the void and something straight out of hell was there too, reaching for you.

 

T̸͕̣͔̃͋̌̚͠ḩ̸̦̞̰̞̻͉̱͔͈͌̄̾̄͊̕̚͝͝e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚r̸̬͔͇̆͂̈́͂e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚  w̵̧̛͆͆a̴͈͋̈́̓̕̚s̶̜͎̘̼͕̈́̈́͌̐͆͑̉͌ a̴͈͋̈́̓̕̚ d̶̨͇̹̥̦̥̖̠̙̍̋̽͌̾ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘r̸̬͔͇̆͂̈́͂

 

When your vision came into focus again the actors on the stage were different and you recognized the time that passed. It hadn’t been long and you doubted Black even noticed, but you put a little extra effort into watching the rest of the play to make up for what you missed. You were on a date, after all. What a shame it would be if you didn’t give it the attention it was due- after everything Black had done for you the least you could do was not ruin the evening he planned so painstakingly.

Somewhere in the middle you hand found his and you felt the tingle of his magic mixing with yours. He wasn’t watching the play when you glanced back his way. There was a question there, in the way he watched you but it didn’t come out until intermission when the lights came back on. You left for a bathroom break but when you returned Black gestured for you to come to his side as he stood looking down from the balcony.

“I had something I wanted to ask you after speaking with Stretch,” he began. You waited, nodding when he glanced back at you. “It’s about Tron’s aunt.”

He felt it through the places where your hands were joined when you flinched. You didn’t pull away though. “Did he tell you everything or do you still have questions?”

“Apart from how you feel about it?” Black glanced down at your hand in his. “I know enough of the specifics, but I wanted to hear from your own two lips how you were faring. Stretch…encouraged me to address it with you.”

“I’m not ashamed of what I did,” you hurried to blurt out. “I know you might think it was excessive or not the sort of thing a hero-a good person might do, but it wasn’t my first choice. I just…I did what I could to keep my family safe. I’m not sorry, not anymore.”

Black stepped closer and pulled your face towards his to meet in one more kiss, this one gentle and coating without the unrestrained hunger from earlier in the car. Black guided your response and you pulled back, dazed.

“You are my perfect mate, my soul’s song, the person I want to bind myself to for the rest of these days. Listen,” he coaxed your face so that you were looking into his eye lights when he spoke next. “Listen to me… I see nothing but perfection when I see you. You own me no apologies.”

“You’re too good to me.” You dropped your head onto his shoulder and he gathered you up into his arms, tugging close.

“Not nearly,” he chuckled, running a hand up and down your back, tickling your spine in comforting patterns. “I’ll never be good enough but I think I want to try, so let me. Let me hold you, let me carry you through whatever pains you and let me tend to you in the morning too.”

Your chest pinched tight and you couldn’t breath for a split second as the emotion passed through you like an arrow. “Black,” you whispered his name before closing your eyes and dropping your head onto his shoulder. “I…thank you. I’m sorry I’m so fucked up but thank you for loving me anyway. I love you too.”

“Don’t disparage yourself. I know you are used to it and I know the nightmares still haunt you but that’s not a reason to think less of yourself.” He pulled your face away, gently guiding it with a knuckle under your chin. Behind him the play began again as the lights turned low, leaving his eye lights like twin embers in the dark. “I wish there was some soft way to lower you into this tragedy but there is nothing soft about this world with all its gnashing teeth, so just rest in me for now. The morning will come on its own.”

You were speechless and tired in his arms, but when you reached for another kiss he was happy to oblige.

 

 

 

Chapter 77: Real Ones 7

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, To cry ‘Hold, hold!’

A moaning in your brain forced you awake. You heard the loud, long, drawn out note of a mad queen praying for regicide but underneath it there was something else, a sinister and damning darkness that waited for your weakening.

“peaches?”

In the dark you could make out the floating red light that focused in on your face, growing a little brighter as Dusk woke up even more. You felt terrible to know you had disturbed his sleep even a little.

When he started to sit up you gently pushed him back down onto the bed but ended up falling on top of him when he caught you by the elbows and tugged you down. Before you could move back up his arms were around you, pinning you close. You felt the rumble of his satisfied exhale through where your bodies were connected and didn’t mind when he nuzzled his chin against the top of your head.

“I’m sorry I woke you up, go back to sleep.” You reached up enough to run the pad of your thumb along the edge of his jaw with affection. When he shivered, secretly ticklish in a way only you knew, it made you smile.

“if yeh wanted me ta sleep…don’t ….tease me,” he mumbled, closing his one good socket to better settle in for the night’s sleep. “…and don’t…stray too far from me.”

You glanced back over your shoulder and noticed that Pap-Jack wasn’t in bed anymore. It wasn’t early enough for a morning run but you remembered that sometimes he woke restless in the middle of the night and needed to walk some laps to help him calm down enough to sleep.

Gaining a steady and faithful sleep schedule was more challenging than it sounded considering all the trauma both brothers had to work to overcome. Neither was used to having full and restful sleeps. In such a harsh underground, there were plenty of enemies who would wait for their fellow monsters to fall asleep before cowardly dusting their neighbors for food.

Dusk usually kept to his side and so when Jack left you had likely felt alone in your sleep-even though that really wasn’t the case at all- thus leading to the impromptu nightmare.

“…are ya nervous about something?” Dusk asked, sockets closed. One of his hands moved to your back and you felt a soft crackle of static from his magic. “…its all…manic right…right here…huh….”

“Just a nightmare.” You pushed back with your magic and when the two energies made contact there was a pleasant waking crackle that made Dusk almost sigh. You heard him inhale deeply and curl up a little more around you.

“…tease.”

“Sorry, I’ll let you sleep this time.”

“that wasn’t me complaining, peaches.”

You closed your own eye, feeling the phantom pain behind the other socket, and nuzzled closer. Dusk made a happy sort of sound and gladly accommodated your nuzzling with a guiding hand to the back of your skull, cradling it even after you were properly nuzzled in.

“You’re tired, you need your rest. Forget I’m here if it’s keeping you awake,” you whispered.

“…what if i wanna ask ya something?”

You cracked your good eye open. So close to his chest, right under his chin, you couldn’t see his face but the glow of his lone eye colored most of the things you could see in a shade of red. He sounded more awake now.

“What is it?”

“…it still hurt?”

You didn’t ask him to elaborate, there wasn’t enough room between the two of you for a lie or deception and there was even less desire for dishonesty on your part. You just… didn’t want to be honest about something you couldn’t help.

“It’s been bothering me a little, but nothing major. What gave it away?”

You felt more than heard his chuckle. “…you know…you’re talking ta someone with their own chronic pain, right? i know a thing ‘er two bout that…an… you...mmmh,” his voice garbled towards the end as he struggled to find the words. You felt him around you readjust himself and then his voice was closer, lower with his mouth hovering above your ear. “…its getting worse.”

“Were you watching for it?”

“picked up on it, yeah.”

You were afraid of that but not surprised. Before when you lived on your own and even during the first month of working with the boys on that bus you had been fine sleeping thanks to the suppressant in your false eye. After its removal the nightmares started flirting with your subconscious again and it was the whole crux behind their decision to take turns sleeping next to you at night.

Without them… well, you weren’t sure what it was like without them. You weren’t sure you wanted to find out what it was like sleeping a whole night without someone next to you to act like an anchor to reality. Would you sleepwalk yourself into the pond again, or just keep sleep treeing until your toes bled raw, enthralled by something your human brain couldn’t even begin to comprehend?

“I was afraid it was getting worse ever since visiting my brother, before Gyftmas. I thought I was fine since so much time has passed since then and now but it just…it’s like the trauma is waiting for me no matter what I do when I’m awake.”

“…you’re not talking to someone about it, are you?” he asked, sounding more like he was accusing than honestly asking. You squirmed, knowing the answer.

“It’s not something I’ve done in a long time. I don’t feel like its something I can even begin to unravel with words.”

“…i…can understand that feeling but…since talking…to someone…been better for me and the bro ‘ere in more than one way. you said the same, didn’t ya?”

It was true. You had expressed only joy and excitement when you realized that Dusk and Jack were both now seeing a therapist and someone who could help them not just adjust to the new above ground world, but also someone who could help them with their severe trauma and even their physical needs. Dusk still walked with a bit of a tilt, but now that it was being corrected you could see how much better his movements had become.

Dusk started to sit up and you made a sad sound, disappointed with the loss of comfort as his arm moved away from underneath you to help him stay upright as he sat. He didn’t stay apart for long since he reached to tug you into his lap and fold up like you were some old stuffed animal he had to squeeze.

“Dusk?”

“…tomorrow…you’re…who are you going to see?”

“You mean the prime brothers?” you clarified, referring to their nicknames. You weren’t sure if Dusk was having a hard time remembering or if he was just checking with you to clarify something he barely knew.

“yeah them, talk to tiny and he might have better luck helping you than me…’he got me my monster therapist and even found…Diana…” You remembered Diana was his physical therapist. “maybe talking to him about it…can help…tiny likes helping.”

“Does he know you call him Tiny?”

Dusk huffed like the answer was obvious and you were sure it was. “of course, I  call him tiny to his face.”

You nuzzled closer and tired to hunch your shoulders to get as close as possible. “I’ll talk to him about it in the morning and see if there is something he can help me with. I had someone I talked to after living the Embassy and she’s…familiar with my history. I’d like to see if I can meet with her again but we’re so far away now. It would take all day just to drive back. So, maybe there are some alternatives.”

“…aren’t there always?”

You made a sound of agreement but didn’t bother to answer with words. You felt he understood you well enough as it was. You were in his arms and you were safe so everything was going to be fine. You were going to be okay.

“Dusk?”

“mmm?”

“Wanna go get some midnight snacks before trying to get back to sleep?”

He shifted and you could almost hear the happy thump in his soul. “…lets save some for bro.”

 


 

Papyrus was looking forward to the end of class for what was possibly the first time in his short career as a full time student, but that was all with good reason. He only had the one class in the morning but all his projects and all his assignments were either finished or due far out enough that he could save it for another weekend without having to spend any mental energy on it. His classmates all knew that he would be unavailable for the rest of the day if they had questions.

Tonight!

-Actually this afternoon

This afternoon! He. Had. A. DATE!

“And that should conclude the last part of today’s lecture. I’ll remind you to sign up for mid semester conferences, so far I’ve only had seven of you select a time slot and while I have more than enough room for all of you, please do not put this off until the last minute. Thank you.”

Papyrus almost stood up so fast it startled the younger classmates in his row and he had to apologize through his giggles. They waved him off and the students in the row behind him laughed in the familiar way he was used to hearing when he walked out on stage as a monster mascot. It was nice to hear something familiar without the pressure of suits that didn’t suit him and gossip hungry show hosts asking him about topics he had to dodge.

Yes, there was more than one way he could bring smiles to people. He was excited to see how many different ways he could better the world without being a celebrity. And tonight he got to make you smile; maybe his favorite smile of all.

“Big plans tonight?” a monster girl he knew as Lacy asked while smiling over her coffee.

“The biggest,” Papyrus laughed. “I have a date.”

Lacy’s human girlfriend whistled low and clapped in approval. “Show them a good time, bone guy, that shouldn’t be hard.”

“I relish the opportunity,” Papyrus laughed.

“You would. Best of luck,” Lacy said over her shoulder while walking her girlfriend out their row. Papyrus waved goodby and then turned to leave the opposite way. He couldn’t help but skip down a few of the steps or bounce in place as he waited for Kevin to exit in his wheelchair through the doors that never seemed big enough for him.

“Here,” Papyrus offered using his blue magic to keep the doors open from a distance.

Keven flicked a pair of fingers in a V formation and wheeled himself out ahead of his friends. Papyrus was just about to follow when he heard his name. The voice was easily one he recognized as well. His respect for his professor kept him in place until he could hear what it was the professor needed.

“Papyrus, thank you for signing up so soon. I wanted to see if you would be fine if I invited an alumni for your mid semester review. They’re someone who I think would be fantastic to network with.”

“Network?”

“You’ve got a bright future ahead of you sir, I would be pleased to have someone who has swam in the same water there to give you some swimming lessons. Human law can be baffling and confusing but if you stick it out you’ll be in a good place to help a lot of people.” The professor paused and then smiled down at her notes. At the top of the stack was Papyrus’ essay.

“Oh, t-thank you. Of course, please let them know I’m  wiling to receive any help they may be willing to offer.”

“That’s all I needed to hear, have fun on your date. I’ll see you next week.”

Papyrus blushed but then chuckled nervously before nodding and bowing out. He might have been a bit loud when he brag- when he talked about his exciting afternoon plans to his classmates. It was just…he was really excited. 

Driving back was  normally a fun treat but today he was envious of his brother and his ability to take a shortcut to anywhere he wanted to be in the blink of an eye. If he could do something like that he would abuse the privilege to show up at your elbow far too frequently.

Yeah, he was just really looking forward to this date.

When he got home the express delivery flowers were waiting for him on the porch and his date outfit was hanging up on the back of the door. There was a note on the fridge about how Sans had gone out to see you earlier that he considered ‘interesting’ but not unusual.

There was one last mirror in the entry way he paused at. He had the flowers, he had the casual blazer, he had the smile. He had this. He was gonna do such a great job they would be writing books about his skills instead of the other way around.

Oh gosh, this felt so much more intense than any of the other dates he had practiced going on. He felt-he felt- he felt something and it wasn’t just excitement. There was something else there. Something similar to worry but not quite.

Papyrus paused in the mirror and stared at himself, searching for the thing he needed to fix. There had to be something out of place, something he needed to fix in order to feel ready. That’s why he was feeling a little odd-a little off.

Oh, no wait-he recognized the feeling. This was anxiety. That apprehension that soured on his bones and made his magic feel all tingly instead of smooth. In the past dates always felt off, but now that he was with you he thought everything would be perfect. You were perfect and he was trying his best to be the perfect that matched your perfect.

Oh he was being silly! Hadn’t he gone over this with his brother the weekend before? The two of them had stayed up late and talked about something similar to this. Papyrus had brought the topic first and then the two of them ended up at the kitchen table past midnight with more conversation between them than was typical for the most elusive older brother. It was funny to hear what Papyrus looked like in Sans eyes, as a brother who was unfailingly bright and positive with no hesitation or fears.

‘Maybe I don’t look like I hesitate or have fears, but they’re there. I’m afraid of plenty.’

‘I don’t doubt it, but it never felt real to think like that. You were always so much stronger than me. Again and again, as dark as the world got or as bad as our situation turned, you never wavered from that…strong, integrity that I’ll always associate you with,’ Sans admitted over another shot glass of chunky ketchup from the farmer’s market.

‘Sans, you were always the strong one in my eyes.’

‘Really, then take that and reverse it for yourself, cause that’s how I see you.’

Where was that Papyrus now?

“It’s a blue soul, it means integrity, right?” you voice echoed in his mind, bringing him back to that moment when his soul was seen by you for the first time.

He stayed stuck in front of the mirror and brought himself back, mentally, to the moment. He didn’t need to breath, but it was helpful to mimic it for times like these. He had fears and he had anxieties, that much was true. But he didn’t have to let those stop him or hold him back. He wasn’t going to let the fear of falling short keep him from trying his best.

He had this!

Two minutes later he was back on track and back in his convertible with a destination in mind. The excitement made his skull pull tight from all his extra grinning.

He pulled into the driveway and didn’t even bother with the door but vaulted out of his convertible with the flowers in hand, back to being frazzled in happy excitement. The hiccup from earlier was all but forgotten and he was ready for anything!

You answered the door looking beautiful, dressed up and looking the part of a pampered date mate who was ready to be spoiled-except for the puffy red eyes. Like metal on a magnet that’s where his attention went first.

“Were you crying?” Papyrus asked instead of greeting you the way he had practiced. He didn’t drop the flowers but he all but forgot about them as he reached out to cradle your shoulders and tug himself closer to your face, searching it for answers.

“I- sorry Papyrus, I made a mess of things. No, not I-it’s nothing. I’m not, it’s a good thing. I’m sorry you had to see me like this. I wanted to do a better job of…” you stumbled on your words and ended up laughing over the parts you couldn’t say out loud. "You brought flowers?"

Papyrus silently guided you inside before you could start leaking any more tears and saw his brother in front of the couch, looking guilty. Worry made him doubt, but then he remembered you saying ‘it’s a good thing’ and decided to wait until you could explain yourself. He didn’t want to make any snap judgments so he set the flowers in the sink, keeping the stems in water until he could prune them later.

“Are you okay?” he asked first, scanning your body for anything he could see that would make him believe you were hurt.

“I’m not hurt and I’m fine, I’m fine, just a little vulnerable right now. I…oh it’s silly, but your brother helped me get in touch with my old therapist and I’m…we set up a call session for next week and it was just a little emotional to hear and think about her again. It’s been a while since I-since we last spoke.” You rubbed under your eye, careful not to smudge the brown coloring of eye liner detail. “I didn’t mean to show you this when you came here looking so nice for our date.”

“You’re perfect,” Papyrus gently encourage, kissing at the side of your face before pressing his flowers into your hands. Something felt familiar about the way you looked at him, all nervous and sweet. He could have sworn he saw something similar in the mirror a little earlier. “You couldn’t have disappointed me if you tried. Do you need a little bit of time before our date?”

“Oh gosh, no, I’m fine, I got this,” you laughed. Then you glanced over at Sans and he nodded your way, encouragingly.

“I’ll hold down the fort here, princess, come on back when you’re tired and we can Netflix and Chill or whatever it is the kids are calling it these days,” Sans explained while waving the two of you off. 

“I’m not gonna tell you what Netflix and chill really means because that was actually kinda funny,” you said after snorting.   

“Bold of you to assume I don’t already know.” San’s look was one Papyrus could only call sly but thankfully you didn’t appear too put off. Still-

“Enough of that, I’m the one wooing our date mate for the evening. You can wait until nightfall, dear brother,” Papyrus laughed loudly, pulling you closer to shield your expression. He tapped the underside of your chin and you looked up to see him staring fondly down at you. “I had some fantastic plans but I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind us altering them?”

“Of course not.”

“Excellent, then please procure some comfortable shoes and something easy to have fun in. I decided to be adaptable.”

You glanced at his nicer outfit and then down at the shirt and skirt you had put together before hesitantly drawing away to change into something you could run in. With the absence, Papyrus moved over to stand next to his brother.

“So, this was the emergency you had to run out for?” Papyrus guessed.

“Got a heads up from Dusk about it. The nightmares have been getting worse and…” Sans glanced upwards towards the loft area where your room was before lowering his voice. “And honestly as helpful as therapy can be, I’m a little worried it might not be whats needed right now. We really don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

“You think it’s more than just trauma?” Papyrus whispered back.

“I’m afraid of it, but I don’t know what to expect. At this point all the cards are on the table. It isn’t good to rule anything out.” Sans shrugged and this his lazy grin retired, along with his regular volume. “So what’s the change of plans for?”

“When you’re worried or emotionally raw, sometimes a good playdate is what is needed.”

“Bro, neither of you are baby bones, what do you mean a playdate?”

“That’s my secret to share, dear brother. A good dater never reveals all his secrets until he’s ready to publish them in a best seller.”

“How swell of you. So, whats that mean for you?”

Papyrus just smirked.

San’s easy going smile seemed to drop a bit as he realized his brother wasn’t about to divulge all his secrets. “Oh, come on bro, you’re not gonna hold out on me, are you? You know I’m just gonna hear about it in a few hours.”

“I told you a good dater never reveals all his secrets and I meant it.”

“It can’t be that hard to guess. What’s it gonna be, workout at a gym is too intense for a date and you’re asking ‘em to dress down so a fancy restaurant is also out.”

“Fancy restaurant is postponed, not out,” Papyrus playfully corrected his older brother, enjoying the reversal of roles a bit too much. “I’m looking forward to a number of entertaining date opportunities in the future. The possibilities are virtually endless.”

“With you I have no doubt,” Sans easily answered and that only caused Papyrus to squint in suspicion, smelling the build up to a pun coming. 

Before long you were coming back down the stairs, taking them two at a time and reaching for his hand, saying you were ready. Sans waved the both of you off and Papyrus escorted you to his car in the driveway, ready to start this ‘remix’ of a date right.

Papyrus loved the feel of your hand in his. He was a fan of human hands to begin with since they were a part of the body that was more skeletal feeling than others, but yours were by far his favorite to hold. Letting go was harder than it had been months ago, before the conversation and the shift from friends to ‘friends who could also kiss.’

With the change in relationship came a change in Papyrus himself that he was still coming to terms with. Things just felt different now that he was looking at the world with the mindset of someone who was bonded, metaphorically, to another person. He wasn’t sure if he could even properly explain it, but his soul felt closer to the surface, like it was about to rise up out of him at  a moment’s notice for the simplest thing. When you looked at him -thump- when you called his name -thump- when you reached for him -thump- when you stretched up to lace fingers behind his neck and pull him down -thumpthump-

“You okay there?”

“OF COurse,” he laughed, forgetting to pull back his magic as his voice slipped.

He coughed once into his fist and then reached out to open the car door, realizing his daze had been noticed. As you climbed in you paused with your upper half still out of the car, close to where he held the door open. You grinned up at him with a knowing expression that had him deflating.

“You’re far too distracting for my well being, it’s no new thing,” he admitted. “But! A worthy date mate wouldn’t be dishearten by such a thing. If anything I am only more eager to show you a good time and provide you with the date night you need, mate.”

“Don’t blame me for getting a little excited when it looks like I got you off balance. I know how hard it is to shake a star like yourself.”

“Between the two of us,” and he leaned down to nuzzle his face against yours. “You’re the one who radiates starlight.”

You kissed the side of his skull and he flushed with magic, rattling in delight as he pulled away. Your smile was one-half doting, one-half sly.

“So where are we going now? You had me change into pants and shoes and I noticed your nixed the blazer. Does that mean something active.”

“Something fun,” he confirmed. “And yes, it’s physical. Don’t be weary.”

“If you were your brother I would have taken that as a pun.”

Papyrus grimaced at his verbal blunder but slid into the driver’s seat without issue. “You’ll see what I mean soon enough. Here, your seat belt.” He reached over to take the belt out of your hand and click it into place, leaning over you a little longer and pressing closer than what was strictly necessary.  You didn’t seem to mind.

The radio was too soft to be anything more than ambiance as he drove you the short way into and out of town. He didn’t speed, being the paragon of a safe, law abiding driver, but it seemed to take no time to get out of Blackberry and into the neighboring city where there was a facility he knew of that would be perfect for what he wanted.

“It’s…is this rock climbing?” you asked, recognizing the sign and what it stood for.

“Surprise. Have you ever been to such a place for recreation?” he asked, parking the car nearby.

“Never, but I mean…I’ve practiced rock climbing just not for fun. It was a part of training back when I was younger. I bet this is way more fun though. I’m glad I put on something I could sweat in.” Something about your smile was tight when you mentioned your past, but Papyrus was glad to see it smooth out when you moved past that topic.

“It’s fun and enough exercise to help get your mind off of things, but not so stressful that you’re sore at the end. I’m not sure my brother would appreciate it if I took you back, sore and bruised form something like sparing or boxing.”

You almost snorted. 

“You’re really good at this Papyrus. I but you had something way different in mind for our first date. I’m sorry you felt like you-”

Papyrus stopped your words with a phalange against your lips. “Don’t, you don’t need to ever apologize for something like that. I’m here next to you because I love you and I want to see you happy and healthy. Only the best for my date mate, and the best doesn’t always mean fanciest!”

You turned your face against his finger, leaning down to press your lips against his palm and he shivered at the contact. You had grown more bold in recent weeks with shows of affection and Papyrus wasn’t displeased with any of them. He loved your kisses, your touches, your looks. Even if he did have a different disposition on how far he wanted to take things, the touches and kisses only made his soul happy.

A long time ago he had tried this with other humans-other monsters, and while their attention was enjoyable in its own way, he had never felt safe enough to be so vulnerable with his true self before you. He knew he could be himself with you, the version of himself that wasn’t always media ready or talk show host worthy.

He pulled away first, only so that he could get out and circle the car to the passenger’s side and open that for you, ushering you out. You reached for his hand again and he was only too happy to respond.

Like most places, Papyrus noted less monsters in the facility, but there was one or two monsters when he looked for them and that made him glad. A human sitting by the door waiting for the rest of their party to arrive was watching the news on their phone and Papyrus recognized the monster mascot, Pink Lilly, singing from her podium. Thanks to her stepping up and taking over his old role, Papyrus felt more free to pursue things closer to his soul.

At the counter there was a human who checked the pair of you in, renting out shoes and a harness for each. He eyed Papyrus once before adjusting the largest harness they had on hand to accommodate.

Wall 9 and 10 were the only ones open next to each other, but there were plenty of places where they could hook up and begin climbing. A few employees mingled about on the floor, one of them coming over to make sure the pair of them were safely strapped in and connected before clearing them to climb. 

It wasn’t much of a challenge, but it didn’t need to be. They where on a pair of more challenging walls that required actual strategy to climb, and while it wasn’t much, it was fun enough to succeed in clearing the air and focusing minds on things other than worries. Papyrus paid extra close attention to his date mate’s disposition and whenever he thought things might get to easy for you, he might have used a bit of blue magic to turn the wall hangings around and make things interesting. You noticed, if the look you shot him was any indicator, but you didn’t seem to mind since you just laughed you way up to the top to join him in your harness.

“Does this mean we can try to ‘expert’ walls now?” you asked after pulling off one of the coupons hidden at the top of the wall. It allowed only the more experienced climbers to advance on to the next levels.

“You think you have the energy for it?” Papyrus teased. He knew you did.

“I might not have as much as some, but I’m sure I won’t hold you back too much.”

“I’d never complain about you holding me!” Papyrus cheered, hesitating only when it looked like you were going to laugh right over the edge of the ledge they were resting at. He held your arm to keep you steady.

“Did you-oh no, I shouldn’t point it out. Papyrus, you’re real delightful without trying, you know that right? You’re fun and charming and just overall really…really a gift.” You inhaled deeply and then something in the tone of your voice changed. “Did I ever mention to you the first time I saw you?”

“The first time we met?” He had been there, he remembered.

“No, the first time I saw you. It was just after monsters emerged.”

Papyrus held himself still, listening intently. This wasn’t the first time someone had told him about where or what they had been doing when they first saw monsters. As the self proclaimed ‘monster mascot’ he had listened countless times to stories of how people’s worlds changed that day. Was it the national broadcast? Was is the cryptic long shots of monsters in the distance emerging that some news media caught before anything official could be said?

“I don’t think you have. I…you’ve mentioned something similar before.” Papyrus felt warm. “You’ve told me what I meant to you.”

“There are a lot of people out there who still hold onto their anger like it’s a part of their identity and I might have been one of them, I don’t know. I…the first time I saw you was on one of the classified broadcasts that only the Embassy had. It was footage of when monsters first emerged with the human child. The conversation where your king asked the child to be the ambassador and you were so quick to say you’d be their mascot. Your friend Undyne chased after you and tried to hold you back and she said something about not being too hasty about humans. She cautioned you against treating everyone the way you treated Frisk.”

As you described the scene Papyrus felt a strange wave of da ja vu, like he was back in his younger body, experiencing the thoughts and feelings of his younger self. The details were vivid in his memory and everything you said only helped him remember that day better.

“She was pretty keen, since there were people watching you wanting to kill you on sight but you-ha you told her that you were going to give everyone a chance and that you believed in us-that we could change and choose to be good. Hearing that really shook up my entire worldview and the Embassy buried that footage as best it could.”

You reached for his arm and pulled him closer. He said your name but waited, knowing you had more to get off your chest. It was a moment more before you started talking again. “All I ever wanted up to that point was to be a hero, to be the good guy who saves the day, but you were the real deal. I don’t want you to not know what you mean to me.”

“You’re trying to rattle me, aren’t you?” Papyrus chuckled, blushing as he tried to keep his soul from slipping free in an attempt to reach yours. He could feel it straining against its bindings.  He had been honored by similar words before, but they hadn’t made him this uniquely moved before.

“I’m going to try and be a good person but I might just end up being a little selfish.”

“That’s fine.”

“Only if you say so.” You nodded and then leaned a little ways away, straining in your harness over the ledge. “Ready to rock and roll?”

“The moment!” Papyrus exclaimed. “It was so good, why would you punish me like that?”

“I can’t help it, you all but cackled. “It’s like I’m dating a movie star or a ‘rock’ star. I have to try my best to impress.”

“If I catch you I’ll make you to regret those words,” he playfully warned, turning back around to back off the ledge and resell down after you, following the sound of your precious laughter.

 

Later in the night you found the snacks where you left them in the fridge and pulled them out to prepare before climbing back upstairs to the movie room. You were sleeping over at the brother's house instead of your place for a change. Papyrus was already asleep and you should have been too, but midnight cravings stirred you awake and you noticed the light on in the movie room. A space documentary Sans had seen dozens of times before was playing and Sans was in the back row, nestled deep into a recliner, texting on his phone.

“Hey,” you nudged his side and he blinked, almost startled to see you next to him. “I thought you went to bed hours ago. You were out when we got back. What are you doing up now?” You squeezed yourself in between him and the armrest, resting the nacho bowl with a dip insert filled with melted cheese and salsa. Sans hummed in appreciation, enjoying the salsa even if it wasn’t ketchup.

“It sounded like the two of you had a gneiss time rock climbing.”

You narrowed your one good eye and puckered your lips. “I know I heard a pun in there somewhere but I don’t understand it. You mist be in a better mood.”

“When was I not, princess?”

“Don’t make it sound like it’s a rare thing.”

Sans took another chip but you bit at it before he could pull it all the way out of the chip bowl and he made a sad sound before tossing the part still between his fingertips at your face.

“So what were you doing up? Don’t you like sleeping?” 

“You know I do. Doesn’t mean I can do it whenever I want to.”

You shot him a look and he made a sound like he was offended even though you knew he wasn’t. He knew himself better than that.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m just taking care of a few things. I still actually work a lot, remember? You think this house came out of nowhere?”

You rolled your one good eye. “So was it Stretch or was it Red?”

“Red was being a bastard about something,” Sans grumbled, checking his phone once more before turning off the screen. “He’s just whining about shit I don’t need to worry about. Still, it woke me up so I started to work on other things and I just came in here to have something on in the background. Sorry I missed it when you came back. Are you upset?”

“I’m here now, so there’s no reason for that. Will you come back to bed with us?”

“In a minute princess,” Sans promised, chuckling fondly. “I need to order a few things.”

You leaned over and rested your chin on his shoulder, watching as he scrolled through the shopping tabs for different items he was looking to purchase. “Sans, Red is a skeleton, the itching powder isn’t going to do anything for him.”

“I know that and he knows that, but I also know it’s a bitch to get out of your carpet when put into cleaner and if Edge reads Red the riot act I don’t have to suffer any of this.”

“You’re terrible.”

“Love you too, babe.”

 

Notes:

Papyrus chapter with minor foreshadowing. I have one more really fluffy Red/Edge date chapter before shit hits the fan so heads up on that front!
See you in two weeks, thank you for being patient with me as I juggle all the new parts!

Chapter 78: Real Ones 8

Summary:

I know you're thirsty for the Underfell brothers so here you go.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Surprising Red in the city proper had been your idea, but you wouldn’t have been able to do it without Sans helping out. It was a shortcut and a half away, after all.

“You sure you don’t want a third wheel hanging out with you the rest of the day?” Sans teased.

“You’re offering something you can’t even follow through with. Didn’t you say you had stuff to do today?” you said, poking the side of his skull, marveling at how the skull indented like it was made of something other than bone. It wasn’t the first time you had been proved monster skeleton and human skeleton matter were two uniquely different substances. It made monster skeletons, in Papyrus’ own words: extremely good cuddling and hugging partners.

“I can always change plans,” Sans grumbled, glancing behind you to the open sidewalk that led out onto the city streets. Across the main road was a small park where vendors would pop up and sell from their carts or trucks.

“I’m sure all the others would appreciate that,” you said.

“They’d understand.”

“No they wouldn’t, you have humans on your financial review committee. Even if you have a reputation amongst your monster colleges you know that’s not how humans see it. They don’t care how long you’ve been above surface, people expect you to be on time to meetings and not cancel for silly reasons.”

“You’re not a silly reason,” Sans chuckled, no doubt thinking up some other awful pun for the scenario that would help him deflect. It was a little odd how he hadn’t punned around with you yet and you wondered if that was because of where he was going next-he was dressed up in something other than his ketchup stained hoodie and slippers for star’s sake.

Papyrus might have been the monster mascot, but behind the scenes Sans had helped the king and queen make a lot more legislative changes over the years by establishing relationships with private and public companies alike who were eager to benefit from monster technology.

Sans had financial connections to several high profile companies who benefited from his research along with the royal scientist Dr. Alpheys. Between the two of them only Sans had stayed in the country as Alpheys and her wife decided to settle in Japan where they were full time weebs and part time celebrities (just the way they liked it). Via the photos Papyrus and Sans shared with you it seemed they were living their best life. Good, they deserved it.

You weren’t sure which company it was he had to meet with today, but one of them was gathering to discuss implementing new research and they needed to see if the cost of implementation would outweigh the gains or if it really was worth it to go forward.  Unfortunately, if it wasn’t NASA, Sans lacked the motivation to get himself to these meetings without outside help and support.

“Maybe if these meetings are so draining what about withdrawing or stepping down so you can focus on working only on the things you really enjoy?” you asked, floating an idea you had been growing recently. It didn’t seem like Sans enjoyed this sort of work, but more importantly, it seemed to really mentally drain him in the worst sort of way. If work was overly taxing it wasn’t healthy. 

“Not that simple, princess,” he sighed. “I make money for the people in power, they pay me, sure, but more importantly they are inclined to support legislation that allows monsters equal access to all sorts of things. It’s one of the reasons segregation only lasted nine months after surfacing.”

Next to Sans you went still. “That’s still…you’re still there for that reason?”

“I was at first, now…it might be okay to pull back from a few but I ain’t confident they’d like that too much. There isn’t anyone else who can properly fill my seat for me and get them the results they want. Your species, no offense, is sorta obsessed with seeing how fast and how far they can go. There’s not a lot of emphasis on compliancy.” He paused then added, "Still, sorta interested in seeing what they end up finding in space."

His words made you consider something.

“Does Papyrus know that’s the reason why you worked with these companies in the first place, or how you really feel about them?”

He didn’t meet your gaze but you knew he heard and understood by how the color of blue magic dusted his skull. “Yeah, that was one of the things that came up this past year, but for a while it wasn’t…addressed. He knows now and he wants me to pull back too. I guess I’m just lazy about that as well, huh?”

You slipped your arms behind his neck and stepped close enough to touch your forehead to his. He didn’t pull away but you felt his shiver slightly. “It can be hard to break from certain routines even if it means less work later on. Not everything makes sense,” you whispered. “When you’re set in a rhythm, even a grueling one, it can be difficult to alter that. I just want you to know that you’re worth more than your work. If you need to break away from this, even temporarily, you can.”   

“It’s not that bad.”

“Maybe not, but you’re kinda more important to me than anything they could ever offer, so I’m still gonna advocate for whatever I feel is best for you. If you like the work, fine, if you’re interested in making a shit ton of money, go for it, but if you’re letting guilt drive you in this direction then don’t. We can figure something else out together.”

Sans mad a happy sort of sound and tugged you a little closer, nuzzling against the side of your neck. “It makes me glad to know Paps is getting out of that scene, himself.”

“He does seem happier for it, even if school is another sort of challenge he’s doing so well!” you encouraged.

“I already got all the degrees I need, what do you see me doing with all that extra time?” Sans teased. There was a new levity to his tone that you recognized.

“Whatever you want to do. Didn’t you say you used to do stand up?”

“Oh yeah, I was really humerus for a skeleton. Wouldn’t mind slipping back into that. I’m sure there’s a few spare ribs out there I haven’t split yet.” 

“There’s my pun-derful skeleton,” you teased, feeling  light in your heart when Sans beamed back at you. The two of you hadn’t started out on the best foot, but it had been over a year since that first disastrous encounter and things were better than you had ever predicted or dreamed. “Don’t be late because of me.”

“It’s okay, I know a shortcut.”

You leaned in to kiss the side of his skull and stepped back, waving him off as he blipped out right in front of you, holding the side of his skull your lips had touched.

In his absence you turned to look out in between the two buildings towards the main sidewalk that would lead you to an overpass you could take to get across the busy street to the public park area. It was still morning, but plenty of places for ‘regular’ food were already open. Oddly enough, Red had once confessed to you that there was enough demand for hotdogs that he could sell them during the breakfast crowd time slot. And as much as you enjoyed them yourself, hot dogs for breakfast was still a bit much.

You had filled up on waffles and fruit before leaving so you were good for a few more hours, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t grab a drink to enjoy before making your way over. Red was likely still at home and wouldn’t show up for another half hour. You were early but that’s how you surprise people.

There was a fast food looking shop that sold teas and specialty drinks so you slipped in to stand in line and wait before buying something for yourself. Inside, the line snaked out and looked like it would last longer than just a few minutes, so you let your eyes drift. There was a television up in the corner, displaying a muted news anchor lady with closed captions for those who chose to pay attention.

You recognized some of the images in the background and felt your body tense when you realize the national focus was, for some reason, directed towards Mt. Ebbot, the unofficial aboveground home to monster kind. Often time when the news wanted to speak about monster issues, they would feature the mountain or the city it bordered.

But it wasn’t monsters…

“The Embassy has announced the completion of an internal investigation into one of their programs. The covert and classified MAGE program where children were being raised and trained has been found to be in violation of Monster Human Peace Accords. The controversial program was suspended nine months after monsters first surfaced and has received zero federal or state funding since then, but continued to generate revenue due to land ownership of several key properties in Ebott city.”

“This comes after the newest Monster Mascot Pink Lily, an up and coming monster singer and actress, made this a part of her platform after officially being endorsed by the monster Queen Toriel. Thanks to tremendous grass roots support from a far reaching fan base.”

The image on the television screen cut to the famous pink monster, looking a little toned down in a skirt suit and less blaring decorations. She was sitting in what looked like a conference room while reporters with mics and cameras circled around her like a half formed halo.

“It’s fantastic to hear that these steps towards progress are being made, but true equality can’t be counted on until the details come to light and the organizers of this program are returned to justice. Isn’t their lead organizer still missing? Where is he now? What about all their agents? Monster hunters, one report called them, shouldn’t they be held accountable too?” she spoke into the many different microphones before the television cut back to the news reporter.

You stepped up in line and tried to hide the heavy thump of your heartbeat. You knew that the Embassy had shut down your program and that Hightower had gone rogue with his branch of loyalists, but the MAGE program had never been something so publicly discussed. Sure, there were rumors and conspiracies about it, but never anything confirmed. Also, because you had all been brought in as minors and initiated as such, your records were sealed and couldn’t be accessed by the public.

The newest monster mascot was talking about justice and she was right to, Hightower was a menace and needed to be stopped, but you were worried that this crusade for justice would unjustly catch the other kids like you in its crosshairs.

You couldn’t find it in your heart to blame the others for what they did. They were hostages and victims, but no one else would see them like that because they could topple buildings and bend metal. Would anyone investigating the Embassy’s MAGE program even look at all the other kids who took their own lives after their sense of purpose was ripped out from underneath their feet?

You doubted it.

This would only embolden the other kids on the run with Hightower, Thrive and her brother, to entrench themselves in his ideology.

The news switched over to something you didn’t care about in time for you to step up and order something with boba in it. You tried to not think too much about the things you couldn’t control. Whatever the new monster mascot said and did was something you couldn’t control so the best you do was stand on top of those worries and focus on the things you could. You’d keep an eye out for Hightower and be ready whenever he made his next move.

“Thank you for your business!” you heard called out over your shoulder so you waved backwards before stepping out. 

You had a bone friend to find, after all. The overpass was crowded, but everyone seemed to be heading in the same direction so you didn’t have many complications in getting to to park. It was a nice walk too. There were plenty of shops and carts set up, even if many of them weren’t open until eleven. You walked around until you recognized the spot on the sidewalk reserved for ‘Red’s Hot Dogs’ and the cart he’d fill up once he arrived.  It was empty but you didn’t think it’d stay that way for long.

“Are you here looking for something to eat?”

You turned and looked back over your shoulder to see a taller man, dressed casually but clean. You almost thought he was calling out to someone else but when you glanced around you saw there was no one else he could be calling out to.

“I’m good, just waiting for a favorite place to open,” you said, nodding absently to Red’s empty lot with your drink.

“You sure I can’t convince you to try some pace that’s already open?” he asked, laughing to himself with one hand in his pocket while the other rubbed the back of his neck. “Maybe bother you for your number?”

Oh.

Oh!

You were getting hit on. You almost didn’t recognize it for what it was. It had been a while since anyone showed you interest outside of your boys.  You needed to say something to turn this guy down.

“Sorry, I’m flattered but I’m already seeing someone… and I have kids,” you rushed to add, keeping your ring hand out of sight since you didn’t want the absence of a wedding band to make him doubt your truth. It wasn’t a lie. Tron, Wendy, Peter, and Phil were all your kids and you really were seeing someone else.

Several someone elses.

“Oh shit, no dice then. Sorry to bother you, but hopefully you have a nice day,” the other human said, taking a half step back and looking embarrassed.

Past his shoulder you noticed a few other men who looked around his age, watching the exchange. One slapped another and nodded your way and some words were exchanged. What you knew of lip reading told you that the one said ‘told you so’ to the other. Buddies.

“No worries,” you said, waving him off, thankful that the exchange wasn’t any more awkward. That could have gone worse, you thought to yourself as he rejoined his friends and continued on with them.

“See this is why I love the idea of our remote little town life,” a voice behind you made you jump. You turned and Red caught you in his arms with a leering grin you couldn’t help but find endearing. “If I let you out in public any more I’d be beating them off with a stick.” 

“Red,” you laughed, turning to hug him around the waist as he played with your hair, guiding your head against his shoulder.

“Sweetheart, warn me next time you decide to show up and I won’t dawdle. When did you decide to surprise me like this?”

“Came up with it on a whim. Were you surprised?”

His eye lights were fuzzy as he rumbled out his answer. “Delighted, babe. Wada ‘ya say we skip the dog stand and make it a date?”

“It’s a couple of hours before peak business for you, we could be quick.”

Red scoffed. “I don’t want it to be quick. You know I don’t need the money or the business, right?  Let me spend my time the way I want to. People can do without my dirty water dogs for a day. Plus, you can’t tell me you didn’t predict this. You’re too smart to not know I’d drop this all in a soul pulse for a tour of the town with you.”

“Don’t say I’m manipulative,” you snickered, unable to protest his accusations.

You secretly hoped he’d take some time off but not the whole day. There was still plenty of time between now and peak business hours. Plus, it wasn’t like you wouldn’t see him that evening.

“Nah, I’d call you pretty-tea-cute though. What’d you get?” he asked bending down to steal a sip of your drink. “Mmm, milk tea?”

“If you wanted one I’ll get you one.”

“Nah, I just like stealing from you. It’s all fair play since you took my heart I think I’m entitled to a few sips of whatever you’re drinking.”

“Then where else are we going? I don’t see any swinger dance halls or cowboy bars around these parts,” you teased.

“I’m still smug as hell over the fact that me and bro were the first to sweep you off your feet and take you on a date before anyone else. It’s about time for another day of fun, ain’t it?”

You grinned wide but didn’t protest when he spun you around and dipped you into a shortcut.


“So, is Edge still upset with you about the carpet?”

“Don’t bring it up, babe. I know it was Classic who got the damn itching powder into the cleaner. It’s flaking all over the place and its worse than glitter to try and get out.” Red grumbled. He was leaning over the railing of the observation deck to one of the high rise buildings that allowed visitors up high enough that they could get a nice view of the city.  In the middle of the day it was decently busy, but not crowded enough to be congested or uncomfortable.

“Then it’s nice to get away a little and enjoy the sights,” you said, munching on your snack from second lunch.

“It’s a damn nice view,” Red said absently, and when you looked back over, predictably, his eye lights were fixated not on the scenery of the city. His stare was later focused and you couldn’t help but warm because of it.

You wordlessly offered him your boat of fries, having already finished one earlier and gone back for seconds. Red shot you a look that let you know how touched he was to have you share your food with him. He understood how precious your food was to you.

“Sorry I didn’t grab any mustard.”

“That’s okay, babe, I’m the one with taste in this relationship, that’s how you ended up with me and I with you,” he laughed, winking over at you.

Just for that comment you dipped the boat out of reach and made him move closer to grab some. He caught you by the wrist but instead of pulling you closer for more fries you felt yourself being pivoted and turned as he positioned you against the support post, pinning you in place. In such a situation you were reminded how Red was not only stouter, but also taller. He was a monster in every sense of the word, and with your back to a cement pillar you were forced to look up into his downward leering skull, dusted with a happy red magic.

“Tease,” he purred lowly.

“We’re in public,” you half heartedly complained.

“Convenient howz its not busy then, right?” he rumbled, leaning even closer so that his teeth were hovering just over your cheek and ear. You could feel his breath with a static of magic to make it warm. 

And like he said, from what you could see over his shoulder the floor was all but empty. Had he been waiting for such an opportunity?

“Sneaky.”

His laugh was a warm breath on your face that made the heat in your chest pool lower. You caught the gleam of his golden fang as his grin stretched further. “Don’t complain when you know you love it.”

You didn’t hesitate but turned your face just enough and pushed up onto your toes to reach his skull where you wanted to and kissed first. He didn’t hesitate but turned into the kiss more fully, leaning in so that his hand moved off from the wall to slide in beneath your jaw and cup your neck, keeping your face tilted towards his.

There was electricity between you that tasted like magic, or maybe it really was magic that tasted like electricity for how it shot through you and made you numb in the fingers. If it hadn’t been for his hand grabbing your wrist the boat of fries would have dropped long ago. You were surprised by your own hunger and your own vicious need to be closer and taste even more of your lover. 

“Dis what flying feels like, sweetheart?” Red rumbled low when you had to break for breath. He didn’t leave you alone for long and started to nibble on your jaw, gently pinching at the skin with his teeth in a contradiction of gentleness. It was more than a little arousing to feel the sharp points in such a tender way.

“It’s not as fun,” you gasped out when he bit at the underside of your neck, knowing exactly what he was doing to get you excited without hurting you.

But then Red stepped back, dancing out of reach with the boat of fries and a cunning smile just in time for the elevator to ding and unload a family out onto the observation deck, oblivious to your previous affairs.

“Now who’s the tease?” you hissed, stepping closer to take back your fries.

He leaned down over your shoulder and you fed him dutifully, thankful for the food to help ground you. The morning had been stressful in a different way, but next to Red it only took a few hours for you to feel like a different person, a person who didn’t have worries.

“I gotta keep things interesting for us sweetheart, pride or no pride I ain’t gonna let you get bored of me.”

“There is literally no chance of that.”

“I know, because it’s me,” he laughed haughtily. “I know I gotta keep you wanting a little something more.”

“Believe me so I don’t have to say it twice, but I am wanting of nothing with my lovers. All my dissatisfaction comes from matters unrelated, this political climate, the situation with Hightower, my brother and his friends, the Embassy, the other kids…those things make me dissatisfied but never you.”

“Forgive me for sounding ungrateful, but that ain’t a huge bar. Give me some credit, babe. Make me work a little more for it.”

“A lazy bones like you?”

His expression turned mischievous. “That’s only with most things, when it comes to the people I care about you know I’m more like a dog with a bone than a lazybones. Make me work for it a little.”

“You don’t have to,” you laughed. “I love you freely without the quests or acts of service. There’s no fear of that wearing out, but if you’re looking for an excuse to romance me I won’t stand in the way of that.”

Red rolled on of his shoulders and nodded to the view. “Then don’t say I don’t take you up on any offers. Hows about we blow this hot dog stand and meet up with my bro for the evening? I had something fun in mind, but it’s not exactly…well, lets not tell the others about it since it’s not exactly legal.”

You almost laughed. “Red, are you going to take me on a date to commit a crime?” you whispered teasingly.

“No…well, maybe…only if you want to. But its not like it’s a horrible thing and no one gets hurt in it…usually.”

You were interested before but now you were colored curious. “You’re not going to tell me where you plan on taking me until we get there, are you?”

“A monster has got to keep things interesting somehow. Trust me babe, you’ll like it, just don’t tell Classic or any of the others. Even Black would get his pants in a twist if he found out which is bent if you ask me, considering he came from a world just a cruel and cut throat as ours. He gets a couple of kids and suddenly he’s a moral upstanding citizen comfortable with criticizing the rest of us.”

“I’m sure Rus wouldn’t blame you.”

“No, but he also wouldn’t be interested in joining. It’s not his speed, ya see.”  The way he said it made you think there was a pun in there somewhere but you weren’t sure what it was or if it was important.

“Well, whatever you’re playing at I’m game so let’s get going.” 

Red opened his arms a little wider and you let yourself sag into them, tilting the boat of fries back so that the last few crumbs fell into your moth before the two of you were folded into darkness and spit out into light.


You were surprised but not disappointed when Red took you back to his place and then led you out to the garage. He passed over a bright red and orange helmet for you to put on, decorated with cartoonish flames that made you grin.

“It’ll take close to an hour if we stop for snacks,” he said.

“Are we stopping for snacks?”

“Do bears go poop in the woods?”

“Good point.” You nodded along, accepting the helmet. It fit perfectly, surprising no one. You didn’t doubt Red had a human helmet lying around for you on purpose. The custom bike helmets he had to commission someone for had been a fun bit of frustration as he realized he still needed to legally wear protective gear on the road even if he was a monster.

“Ya ready?” he asked, looking you over before settling onto the bike himself. You wordlessly followed and hugged him around the waist, letting him know you were there and ready to roll. 

“You planning on telling me now where we’re going?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a little hint?” you whined, rubbing your thumb against where you could feel his ribcage press up against the leather of his riding jacket. The teasing touch made him shiver but it wasn’t enough to distract him while driving.

“Not even a hint, doll face, I’ve already spilled a detail for you to pick up if you can,” he laughed with a deeper, rumble to his tone. It sounded like he didn’t mind the teasing. “But keep teasing me if you think it’ll get you anywhere, I don’t mind.”

You pouted behind the shield your visor created. Knowing Red wouldn’t be able to see as he focused on the road. “I wasn’t teasing, that was flirting, but thanks for the confidence boost. It’s good to know I can still rattle you after all this time.”

“Always!” he barked out in a laugh before suddenly accelerating with the new stretch of open, straight road with no traffic to speak of. You gasped and clung a little tighter, thrilled and delighted with the rush of adrenaline. The vibrations through Red’s shoulders and frame as he laughed was an added bonus. You really liked the feel of him and couldn’t complain about being so close.

You really should have been more honest with yourself earlier, when you realized that you enjoyed cuddling and sleeping next to a skeleton. You had never been the type to attach yourself physically to another person or act ‘clingy’ for a lack of better terminology, but that was your folly. You had nothing to lose and everything to gain about by honest about the things you wanted. You wanted this. You wanted Red. You wanted him close, in your arms, no space left between you.

Noble ideals were good and righteous, sure, but this sort of love you had stumbled blindly into like a fool with winning lottery numbers was true. Your soul hummed with this truth: as much as you had once wanted to be A hero, now you wanted to be Their hero. You wanted to protect your family-your loved ones. And you also wanted to be around long enough to enjoy that reciprocated love.

You nuzzled your face into the back of Red’s shoulder, muffled enough by the helmet to begin with. When you mumbled something you weren’t sure if Red heard you but he didn’t need to sing you’re sure he felt it in your magic. “Love you.”

Red rumbled all over with a pleased chuckle before revving the engine and pushing the bike to rapidly accelerate over the stretch of straight, empty road in front of them.

Less than an hour later they were far away from the familiar but seeing more and more signs of life in spite of the obvious lack of development. There was a section of the road that just stopped , branching off the main road into what might have once been a side street, only to remain unfinished. Still, you could smell food and saw more and more people in muscle cars on the stretch of asphalt ahead of you both.

A tinkling suspicion started to rise up in your heart.

“We’re meeting Edge here? Is this a car show or something else?” you asked with a note of hesitation.

“Something else.”

You remembered what Red said about the legality of what you were riding into and the clues fell into place.

“Oh stars, Red, is this an illegal drag race?”

“Technically isn’t not so illegal cause the roads aren’t public no more. Development this way fell apart during the last recession and never went anywhere. The land was sold when it became apparent it wasn’t going to be anything so now we’re on private roads. Didn’t ya see the signs way back?”

There was loud music blaring out of the cars you passed, pulled off the road into gravel lots where monsters and humans alike loitered, complementing and trash talking the cars on display. There were several different food trucks parked off the road selling plenty of savory smelling treats that made you salivate beyond control.

“Something smell desirable?”

“Beside you, yes,” you flirted absently, gazing longingly at a basket of chili fries and cheeseburger still in its wrapper. Red’s chuckle made you feel warm in a new sort of way. There was something about the sound of his voice when it got that low that just slipped past all your defenses.

“Lets find boss first then we can get you something for those bones,” he said rubbing his thumb over your wrist where the bones were closest to the surface.

Out of all your lovers, the only ones who were more insistent or encouraging with food were Red and the horror brothers. For Jack and Dusk it made sense why they would want to see you eat as often as they do, but with Red it was a little less obvious. You just noticed he was a little more eager to buy you food or feed you when the both of you were out-like he liked seeing you eat or something. Eh, it was probably just his preference.

“You know where he is?” You scanned your surroundings with your good eye but it was Red who saw his brother first and turned his bike down the dirt to come up alongside the gravel plot where Edge had parked his Firebird. He was currently talking to another monster who looked lizard like with scars on her face. When he hear your approach his whole posture changed and the lizard monster laughed, recognizing something that prompted him to leave with a backwards wave.

Edge called your name with such affection even before you had the helmet off. When you blinked again he was there, helping you brush down the mess of hair that had been pulled up from the helmet. “You came,” he said.

“I was invited, wasn’t I?”

Edge glanced sideways at his brother and the grin was one only brothers would be able to understand. “Thanks,” he said to Red before refocusing his attention on you again. Behind him Red chuckled like an older sibling who had done something obvious. “You’re always welcome to join me in any of my terrifying adventures. Did you hear about my position?”

“You have a position?”

“It’s my slot on the chart of readers for today. I’ll be racing in a little under an hour,” Edge explained. “It’s not the most safe date mate excursion, but you’re welcome to be my copilot while I utterly trash and smoke the completion.”

“Now I know you’re in a good move cause I rarely ever hear you pun,” you teased, poking at Edge’s chest with a heavy look from under your lashes. Edge blinked nervously, only just realizing his verbal blunder while Red laughed full and deep.

“Verbal mistakes being who they are, my offer still stands,” Edge said, coughing into one of his scarlet red racing gloves. “I’ll keep you safe.”

“You know I don’t need such promises, but yes, I would love to join you.”

His offer made you a little proud to call yourself his lover. Edge didn’t protect you more than you needed and he didn’t hold back. He trusted you with your abilities to hold your own and respected your power. You felt like a whole person next to him, someone who could stand on their own.   

“Before that, didn’t you want food?” Red interjected.

“You know what she likes,” Edge grumbled, half turning around to look at his brother while draping his arm across your shoulders. “I can’t leave the car here on its own.”

Red frowned. “Why not, plenty of other people are doing that. That lot over there with the Challenger is empty.”

“I don’t have some simple ‘Challenger’ dear brother, I have a work of art and I’m not naive enough to leave it alone when I’m mingling with scoundrels and ruffians, no matter how delightful they may be.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Red teased. “I thought these guys were some of your friends.”

“Ha! That’s why I feel confident in my assessment. My terrifying self would expect nothing less of his peers. If I were to step away I would only insure the karmic retribution for my own stupidity. I’ll take one of those drinks with the chewy bubbles. Here, take my reusable tumblr for a discount.”

Red rolled his eyesights but accepted the black and red flame printed reusable tumbler that had been since you last saw it, upgraded with a studded glitter lid. Red looked to you with an expression that expected some sort of response.

“I had one of those this morning, I’d just like something solid if you don’t mind, Red.”

“Have you been eating enough?” Edge asked, glancing sideways at his brother.

“I’ve been eating way too much, honestly,” you laughed. “I’ve just been hungry a bit more recently. It’s no big deal.”

Edge leaned a little closer, eyeing you critically. “You’re resonating a low level magical static field, did you realize that?”

“What-what does that mean?”

“It means you are manipulating the magic you normally leak.”

“I leak magic?” You looked away from Edge to where Red stood with a blank sort of expression.

“No worries, babe, all monsters do that. It would make sense if a human with magic did something like that too.”

“But it is unusual that you’re doing it subconsciously.” Edge leaned a little further back to see you more fully and then grinned wide. “But I would expect nothing left of my most excellent and terrifying date mate. It is a testament to your awesome levels of magical output. We should spar sometime soon. I’d like to try going all out this time.”

“You mean you were holding back last time.”

“No, I was just distracted,” he smoothly replied, staring pointedly at your lips before bending down to press his teeth to you. There was a spark of magical static that made you almost breathless until he pulled away. “You have that effect on me, but I know you’re also not immune.”

You didn’t doubt you looked a little dazed in his eye lights. He was magnetic and romantic when he wanted to be. You heard Red laugh and then shortcut away to the back of the line at one of the earlier food carts.

Edge chuckled at your expression and brushed a knuckle bone against the side of your face, under your empty eye socket. “You’re only growing stronger. Sometimes with monsters it can signify some sort of emotional maturation as well as age. It’s nothing to be concerned with. You’re very strong and your soul has survived great trauma only to recover stronger than ever.”

“I’m not too worried about it, as long as I’m not hurting anyone it’s all good.”

“Much the opposite,” Edge chuckled. “It’s exceedingly pleasant standing so close to you for one more reason now. Here…” 

There was nothing but confusion until a few seconds later you felt it, the static of his magic rolling out and colliding with yours, mixing and reacting like two unknown elements. It made your soul tingle, which you didn’t mind but then it started to actively stimulate your soul, seeping deeper than the initial brush. It was pleasant, like a hug but a bit too intimate to be adequately compared. You felt Edge in his magic-what made Edge a unique monster. You felt his personality and his preferences, his ideals and beliefs and the whole of his identity became a sensation brushing up against your soul, seeping into you through the scars left from the soul pin so long ago.

Edge coughed into his shoulder and pulled back, face flushed with dark color as he tried to regain composure. You had a feeling your initial suspicion about the sensation being more intimate than a hug was spot on. Thankfully, no one else seemed to be looking your way.

“Forgive me, I did not mean to get so carried away.”

You realized you were a little woozy on your feet. “I didn’t mind it.”

“Neither did I, but my preference would be to continue this elsewhere, beyond the gaze of prying eyes.” He bowed his head so that you could hear it when he whispered. “Somewhere I might  be allowed to act without restraint.” 

You could only laugh, recognizing the color on his cheekbones and the heat from his hands-even though his gloves. “Then… maybe later.”

There was a shout from somewhere behind you and you turned with Edge to look and see a couple of cars revving theatrically before pulling out of their gravel plots to the main road. Someone on a bike raced out ahead of them with a flare and then threw it almost out of view, close to where the road looped. That was the end point of the racetrack, you realized.

“First set,” Edge explained.

“When do you race?”

He chuckled. “In a little less than an hour; I don’t have enough notoriety to be a part of the opening act and that’s fine with me.”

“I’ll go with you when its time so don’t leave me behind.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He kissed the side of your skull. “Remember to not do the same with the tables are turned.”

Edge picked you up by the waist and lifted you up to sit on the roof of his car so you could see the race from where you were. Surprisingly you had a good view of the road stretch. A pair of cars were lined up on the four lane highway to nowhere. There was the echoing rev of engine as the crowds clustered and cheered.

You clapped along with them as the man in the middle of the road held up a flag. When it fell your heart jumped as both cars surged to accelerate. You cheered loudly as they both tore up the track in a blaze of color. The closer they got the louder your heart hammered in your chest, and then there was the moment one overtook the other. You thought your heart wouldn’t hammer any harder but when the second car surged up you were screaming and shaking until it crossed the finish line. 

“Excellent, isn’t it? A worthy show of prowess.”

“Don’t flap to hard or you’ll fly away, babe,” Red warned, appearing with a pop of magic with Edge’s drink and an arm filled with food. “Plus, it’s only the first race. What’ll you be like with the next five or six?”

You accepted the food happily, hungry enough to eat all of it. “Don’t worry, I’ve got pretty good stamina.”

“Good to know, sweetheart.”

“Don’t be crude,” Edge warned before sucking up his boba noisily. Even without lips he somehow managed it menacingly.

“Heh, not like you weren’t thinking it.”

Edge subtly kicked at Red’s shin without intent and Red laughed from the harmless strike. “Idiot, I already knew something like that so you didn’t need to comment on it.”

It was too much fun but before you knew it the food was gone, you were full, and the next few races were finished. Someone called out to Edge that he needed to get ready since he would be going as soon as the next race was over. Edge helped you into your seat and Red watched from the sidelines as the firebird pulled out of the gravel pit onto the road to idle, watching from further back as the race ahead of you finished. It wasn’t a close match and you didn’t pay it much mind as you studied Edge’s expression from the passenger’s seat.

“We’ll leave the windows part way down if you’re okay with it,” Edge mumbled.

“Of course.”

Edge fidgeted with his hands on the wheel before adding, “It might not be as fun as flying but you’ll enjoy it.”

“I only ever end up flying alone so this is already a million times better,” you said in a quieter voice you hoped was heavy enough with emotion for him to feel your sincerity.

Someone outside was screaming about all the money they had just won and someone else was cheering for the winner while another group began to demand the next two contestants now that the track was mostly clear.The radio had somehow caught a signal and there was the distant beat of some Hall and Oats melody singing about being out of touch int the background. All that seemed to fade out.

“I love you a lot, Edge. Thank you for loving me.” You leaned over and he turned in time to meet the kiss. A little of your magic brushed against his but you pulled it back before any more of it could mingle.

“Later,” he promised with a voice little louder than a whisper and a dark, simmering sheen to his eye lights.

“Later,” you agreed.

“Edge, to the starting line!”

You smiled wide, already feeling the adrenaline flood through your blood. Your skin crackled with vents of magic that made you smell like smoky fireplaces and bonfire summers.

“Let’s go,” you urged with the widest smile.

Smirking confidently, Edge nodded and then turned to drive the car into position. “Yes, let’s go.”

A couple of victories and one loss later the three of you were driving back in the dark, dark night, back to a warm home and a pair of loving arms. The radio was stuck on quiet but you didn't mind as you nestled further into Red's lap, ignoring the modern conventions of seatbelts as Edge guided his Firebird via the unused private backroads to their home in the woods.

You felt woozy and in love and maybe a little out of touch with the reality of a world that wasn't yours, but that way okay. You felt skeleton kisses behind your ear and turned to give Red better access, smiling when you heard Edge chuckle. His free hand reached over to give your knee a reassuring squeeze. 'Almost there,' you thought you heard him say.

You wished you could live in this moment forever. You wished it would always feel like this. You wished you would always be this safe and loved. And maybe safety was a fleeting thing but this love was a promise and you believed in it more than anything.

And that's all that mattered. 

 

 

Notes:

Enjoy the last semi peaceful chapter with some of my favorite good boys (they are all my favorite boys but shhhhh-don't tell them that.)

I know the wait between chapters are longer but the length of each chapter is longer and feels closer to what I want. Like I'm covering all the points I want to cover in one chapter. That's just my perspective as the author. Fingers crossed I can keep this up for the five or seven more chapters. I've got the blank entires ready for them on my outline and that's my prediction for how long it'll go. I anticipate those chapters bloating and splitting cause there is still a lot to get over, but the end is in sight.

Thank you for sticking with me as long as you have. I appreciate all the love and shout outs (The Last of the) Real Ones has received as my first fic in the Undertale fandom (but hopefully not my last). You guys are a blessing. Please know that even if I can't respond to all the comments.

Chapter 79: Real Ones 9

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

It was sunny and everyone was outside, enjoying the budding warmth with food and friends.  You could heard over your shoulder the snippets of different conversations going on, weaving like threads in a tapestry that was made all the more stronger for every new direction it was pulled in.

Stretch was trying to ask Edge about something without getting read like a book by a smug looking Black who apparently had but into the conversation uninvited. It only seemed to humor Edge who began to loop Black into the conversation that Stretch was trying to keep closed. You weren’t sure what they were even talking about originally, but you felt the familiarity in their tones without the aid of words.

Jack and Dusk were sitting at one of the picnic tables, the heavy wooden one that never moved from its fixed location, and talking to a quiet Peter for a change of pace. Normally Peter was all over the place and off the walls with all his extra energy but he was, remarkably, subdued around the more battered brothers and it made your heart soft to see. Peter was so kind and you couldn’t be more proud. The fact that Dusk and Jack seemed thrilled to have the attention of a child was just the cherry on top.

You looked over you other shoulder, searching for the others and noted Blue talking with Sans, close to the porch. The seemed to be engaged in a lively enough conversation for even Sans to look engage. Blue was doing a good job of being animated with whatever it was he was talking about. The two of them didn’t have a lot in common but they were both older brothers so some things still bonded them together.

Before you could find him Red found you, bumping his hip against yours. “You wanted more?” he asked, nodding to the dish in your hands. He was in front of the grill, adamant about being the one that managed it for a change.

“You know me too well. Sorry I’m eating all your food.”

“No you’re not.”

You laughed at the truth of his words. “No, I’m really not. I might even come back for a forth round so don’t put it all away anytime soon.”

“And Black was worried about leftovers,” Red scoffed with a familiar grin. “Here doll face, fill up while you’re here. There ya go.”

You balanced the grilled vegetables along with the bratwurst chunks on skewers, designed for easy finger eating. You departed with a kiss to his cheekbone and returned to the picnic where Papyrus was editing selfies with Wendy. Phil was nearby in the grass looking at bugs with Tron but you realized someone else was missing from the table.

“Hey, where did Rus go?”

“Maybe to use the bathroom?” Wendy absently answered, eyes fixated on the way her photo changed with a cat filter.

Papyrus chuckled over her and brushed back some of her curly hair. “Skeletons don’t need to use the bathroom like humans do. Maybe he needed to head inside to check on one of his computer projects. Tron,” Papyrus called, “did Rus say anything before he went inside?”

Tron looked up from the grass and shook his head. “I didn’t even hear him leave.”

“No worries, his food is still here so I was wondering what made him take off,” you said before biting into some of your grilled veggies. The crunch made Wendy look up long enough to see your extended cheeks and laugh before she tapped on Papyrus’ phone screen to turn her face into something else.

“Do you want someone to go look for him?” Papyrus asked, sounding like he already suspected what it was that was bothering you. “You didn’t bring your phone with you, otherwise you could just text him. Want me to do that?”

You shook your head, trying to shake off the bad vibes. “It’s just a feeling.”

“Those are important,” he gently reminded you.

You took another bite, finishing off half of your meal and stared over at his empty plate. Skeletons were allowed to get up and have a few minutes to themselves. Just because they didn’t need toilets didn’t mean they didn’t need private moments for phone calls or….or… You forced your eyes away and bit into another crunchy pepper, forcing a smile onto your face. It was only a feeling, there wasn’t any real reason to worry but you decided you’d go looking for him if he didn’t come back by the time you finished off your plate.

“Mommy, you want my leftovers too?” Wendy asked, watching you as she pushed the plate your way with only a few green vegetables left around.

You pushed it back her way, grinning at the moniker you were slowly growing more accustomed to. “No, those are for you to make you healthy. Finish what’s on your plate, love bug.”

“But I love you and want you to have the healthy food,” she giggled, pushing it back at you one more time.

“Will you eat them if we split it?” you compromised, not wanting to force her to eat if she really was full while still believing in the standard you’d already set. If you walked back your stance of ‘veggies are good for you and you need to eat them’ she’d never forget it. You had never had a family to model healthy dynamics for you, but you hoped you were doing a good job by balancing rules and enjoyment.

“You eat these and I eat these?” she asked, splitting the veggies unevenly. You corrected the discrepancy by scooting a couple from your side to her side.

“We can do it like this, okay?” you said, noticing the extra camera focused on you as Papyrus aimed his phone in your direction. “Are you filming us?”

“I’m saving this moment for posterity. You’re adorable,” he gushed in a voice filled with nothing but honesty. “My favorite movie stars.”

“Thank you!” Wendy chirped, missing it as you scooted one more vegetable onto her side of the plate. She was too distracted smiling from the camera to catch it but Papyrus saw all. Thankfully he didn’t blow your cover by laughing too loudly.

“Alright, now time to eat up!” he encouraged, pointing to the plate. Now that she was on camera Wendy ate without issue, though she scrunched up her face a little at the texture of the veggies, claiming they tasted ‘badder’ after the grill. She never noticed how her pile was larger than yours, and when she finished she slammed her palms down on the table to ask for ice cream next.

“Let your food settle a little bit more before you dig in to the desserts,” you said, but before you could finish speaking she was already up and running across the back lawn to where Black sat, still teasing Stretch with Edge’s help. You didn’t bother to get up, already knowing what she was going to ask.

Black laughed loudly and then reached down to pull her up onto his lap and sit her sideways, hugging her close as she pouted. You couldn’t hear what had happened but you could guess based off the body language. Black was a marshmallow for his kids, but that didn’t impede his ability to put their safety and well being above all else. That was always admirable.

When you glanced over to where Phil and Tron were searching for bugs you noticed Red sitting next to them in the grass, eating one of his bratwursts on a stick while the boys chatted excitedly about what they had found. The grill was out and the food was finished and before you knew it more time had passed…but still no Rus.

Weird. He loved backyard picnics. He wasn’t someone who often liked going out to other places, unless those places were locations he felt comfortable with, so having everyone in his own backyard was usually something he vied for. What was he doing that kept him away from the fun for so long? You only managed to get together like this every other week, (even though most weeks you did something with the bulk of your family managing to schedule time off,) so you hoped it wasn’t anything that could keep him away for much longer.

“Do you want to go look for him?”

You glanced up to where Papyrus stared down at you, keenly observing. “I don’t want to be intrusive.”

“I think you’re mature enough to tell the difference. I’ll clean up here, you go take a peek and see if he’s willing or able to rejoin us. I miss his company as well.” Papyrus said, already reaching for the paper plates left on the picnic table. You kissed the side of his skull before getting up to head inside.

You turned down the stairwell to the basement, finding the door unlocked. Before you were halfway down the stairs you could hear the humming from his different processors as computer light colored the far corner of the basement level. You smelled the burning dog treats and wrinkled your nose in distaste. What was bothering Rus to the point where he needed to smoke right after picnic day?

“Rus?” you called out his name and he startled at the sound of it, likely not expecting to see you when he looked up. His eye lights were vivid in neon shades of violet, causing you further worry. “You’re worrying me now. What’s wrong?”

He looked like he wanted to answer but instead he just reached out his hand and made a ‘come here’ motion that you quickly responded to. “Look at this,” he rasped, putting out his joint in the ash tray next to his monitor. The smell and smoke still lingered but you could still see the news on the monitor in haunting clarity.

“That’s the Embassy.” On the screen there was looping footage of damaged sides to the iconic building, still weeping flames that a fire fighting team was trying to put out. It took a second longer to realize what you were seeing. Someone had attacked the Embassy.

Phone-your phone! Where had you left that. Maybe Raven had tried to contact you or warn you about this. Maybe it was him or one of the guys he lived with. If it was them-

“I don’t think it was your brother, but he did try contacting you. I intercepted and they said to lay low,” Rus hurried to explain, grabbing at your wrists. “Hey, hey, listen, it’s fine, calm down.”

You inhaled and smelled the smoke that had nothing to do with Rus’ burning dog treat. That was you. Vents on your arms had opened up and begun to smoke with the rush of anxious adrenaline. Somehow the picture of your former home, a symbol you grew up idolizing, getting attacked triggered your older instincts.

“What happened here?” you asked, focusing to close the vents on your arm and quit leaking worry and smoke.

“A mess,” Sans interrupted, appearing with a blip and little else. “I got a call myself.”

“Sans, what did they say?” you asked, not even caring who it was that called him the first place. The Embassy was on fire.

“The Embassy was breached a little over an hour ago but the explosion was recent, I don’t think they’ll be able to cover up the rest of this so easily,” Rus supplied before nodding at Sans’ smartphone. “Was that your informant on the inside?” 

“Yeah, the employee I’m friendly with. They said as much or less than that. A group came in and made some trouble from what the desk folks know. The employee said that they were only just recently evacuated,” Sans explained. 

Rus frowned, clicking on one of the browser screens to enlarge it. “The news isn’t calling it an attack yet, its still trying to play it off as a gas explosion.”

Just like what he said, the news banner under the female reporter cited the accident as being the work of faulty gas lines that exploded during maintenance. There was still no word from sources if anyone was hurt in the midst of the explosion since the Embassy regularly employs AI and android bodies for dangerous work.

“With funding withdrawn was the Embassy still able to maintain and use their AI unit, Amanda?” one of the newsroom reporters asked the human female on the ground.

No, Hewlett, as a part of their restitution efforts the embassy was forced to decommission a bulk of its AI and android resources, turning over most of those bodies to federal authorities last winter, and instead began reemploying human and monster workers for more and more tasks. It is not clear if this was one of those such tasks.” 

You shook your head, feeling a throb of pain behind your empty socket. “It’s all a smoke screen, they’re running the media around in circles and trying to tack this onto recent politics to distract the public.”

“It’s only working for some of the people,” Rus mused, sounding only minimally engaged as his eyes zipped from one screen to the next. “I watch the places where even the most crazy conspiracy theorists hang out and so I expect them to go off, but even the moderate and mid level social media channels are buzzy. It’s funny so many are getting upset over this when there isn’t even a body count.”

“What else can you see from inside?” you asked, leaning a little closer. “You were able to hack their security, weren’t you?”

“Someone knows you well,” Sans laughed, watching as Rus grinned through his blush. He pushed away from the main monitor to check a second one on the side table that was nearly finished downloading something.

“I was downloading what I could to an external drive before they wiped the servers clean-which is what they’re trying to do now. If I was faster I could have had this all done by now but It’s still like this. Here, look at what some of I  grabbed that they didn’t bother deleting.”

Rus pulled up a minimized window with a paused video still loaded. He dragged the cursor back a few minutes and hit play, leaning back as the digital feed went out. You leaned. Little closer, trying to see what there could be to tip Rus off. A group of maintenance workers moved into view, normal looking enough but before they were even fully in the screen you recognized the build of Thrive and her brother Tank, two of Hightower’s last paws and a pair of formidable mages in their own right. Thrive’s powers were vegetation based and her brother was powerhouse, physically speaking. Both of them were dressed up as matching maintenance workers, trailing in after the initial group already entered.

“That’s how they got in,” Sans commented. “They must have been watching the Embassy for a while, looking for an opportunity like this. How often does a human show kindness and just wave someone in when they see a uniform?”

“What were they at the Embassy for?” you asked out loud, feeling guilt and fear roll in your gut. You had a suspicion but you really hoped you were wrong. The first man made portal to the void was there, deep in the basement. “Rus, do you have any other video feed from the basement level?”

“That’s what I’m trying to salvage. It was the first thing they tried to wipe. You’re probably thinking the same thing I’m thinking,” Rus grumbled, double checking the file to see how much still remained.

“You think they were doing dirty work for that old man?” Sans asked, reaching out to grab for your shoulder, squeezing it encouragingly.

“That, yeah…maybe.” Your voice sounded thin even in your own ears.

“You don’t sound so sure, princess.”

You reached up and grabbed onto Sans’ hand holding it in place. “Maybe it’s just me being naive and wistful but it doesn’t feel like Hightower’s style so I’m suspicious.”

There was another pop and you turned as a trio to see Stretch in place, looking frazzled from his escape attempt, only to realize he had jumped out of one frying pan into a new fire. “Wha…what’s bugging the bunch of you?” he lamely joked. “C-ant some of you crack a smile?” 

“Weren’t Black and Edge trying to get to you listen to them just now?” you shot back on a reflex, forgetting the gravity of the moment for the sake of a witty retort.

It got Stretch to chuckle dryly but that petered out once he saw the way the others in the room watched the screens. “For real though, what’s going on? I got a text.”

There was a PING sound from the computer that interrupted the potential answer. You and the others turned to watch as the loading screen fell away and all the video files Rus had been trying to download popped up onto the screen. Every thirty minutes was a separate icon and Rus was already zeroing in on the one he needed to see what happened during the time of the supposed break in.

“That’s those kids, ain’t it?” Sans asked, sounding unsure.

“Their names are Tank and Thrive, they’re a brother and sister duo. You won’t find one without the other,” you explained, watching the video feed of your two former friends walking into the building in stolen uniforms, looking natural as sliced cheese. Thrive accessed a hidden keypad in the wall while Tank stood in front of her, watching to way to make sure it was safe. The action made you lean forward. “They’re trying to access the lower levels!”

“What’s so bad about that?” Stretch asked when he noticed how white your knuckles turned on the back of Rus’ chair.

“That’s where the pit is…the-the portal to the void is in the lowest level. If you wanted to access it you’d need to use one of these hidden access points. Most of our other training grounds were down below ground too, at least the ones where we could safely use magic.”

“I don’t think they’re looking to check out your old gym, princess,” Sans said.

Rus clicked out and found another file with the same time stamp that was for a different access point in the building. It showed the repair crew going through the motions of fixing what they were called to fix until an alarm went off fifteen minutes later. They scattered with the rest of the employees, looking completely unaware of what had just happened below their shoes. It seemed Hightower hadn’t paid them off.

“Where are the cameras for below ground?” Stretch asked.

Rus didn’t answer but he clicked on a new file with the same timestamp and you recognized the scene as soon as it came on. The screen was split four ways, showing four locations from below ground where you would train, the hallway, the medical bay waiting room, and the hallway outside the Pit access room. Thrive and Tank were already running for the access door. Tank was out in front and his skin was steel gray as he charged through the doors with a muted yell, blasting them off their hinges as he barreled through, unstoppable. Automatic weapons began to fire but his body was built proof. He jumped up and pulled every mounted weapon from its dock and crushed them with his bare hands. Thrive jogged in as soon as the coast was clear.

“Effective,” Sans murmured, no doubt recognizing some of the tactics from the files he had seen on these two.

You were intimately familiar with the way the siblings fought but you didn’t say anything like Sans had. Your stomach was all tied up in knots as Thrive ran to the control pad, lifting it up and throwing back the safety box to access the buttons that would pull back the cover and expose the pit. 

“Don’t,” you whispered to the computer screen, knowing it was useless. This was all history and even if it wasn’t, Thrive had never listened to you once in her life.

But like a train crash, you knew it was going to happen and you couldn’t look away. The metal began to roll back and Tank dug into the ground, cracking the cement with his efforts to establish a foothold. There was spill as void leaked out, spilling over the edges like horror house fog. You almost flinched but Stretch was behind you, holding your arms as he let you sag against his chest. You felt him kiss the back of your skull but you didn’t turn to face him; you couldn’t look away.

Thrive screamed, soundless on the muted video as a pelter of vegetation’s grew out of the walls and floor. She conducted her magic and it surged, growing the plants impossibly until the coiled up and over the edge of the opening. She strained and poured even more magic into what she was doing and there was the physical manifestation of three of her four horns, spiraling off her skull as the vines and trees grew thicker, choking the hole deeper and deeper. It was a muted video feed but you could hear her screams in your head, familiar and distinct as she gave all of herself to the task. More and more of the wildlife swelled out and disappeared into the pit, curling in to break down its edges and sides.

The last of Thrive’s four horns manifested as her hair, coiled and healthy and black, began to whiten at the roots. Tank screamed something and ran up out of his spot to his sister and touched her shoulders. The video didn’t capture it but you could see the moment he channeled his power into her. Two of his horns manifested as his skin rippled like dragon hide. The pair of them put everything they had into choking up the pit into hell and you felt the tears on your face as the floor began to crack under the strain of so many trees and plants.

They were clogging the pit. They were closing it the only way they knew how. Down the opening Thrive’s plants were tearing at the edges of the hole, separating their feathers to this existence somehow. She had figured out how to do it and she was giving up all of herself for it.

You whispered silent encouragement to the pair of them as Tank began to slacken, white haired and bruised from the places where his body broke down to feed more magic. Thrive screamed something and threw her brother off.

He didn’t stand up again.

“It’s killing them, why are they doing this? Why bother?” Sans huffed, agitated at the sight none of them could influence.

“They’re closing it,” you said, transfixed by the scene even as Thrive continued on her own. “They’re sealing the pit so Hightower can’t access it.”

“Why would they do something like that? Aren’t they still working for him? It doesn’t make sense for them to sabotage this access point if they’re trying to help that crazy ass out,” Stretch said, sounding like he was already working on the answers in his head. He squeezed your arms and you looked up to see him staring down at you. “Honey, do you think they’d turn on him?”

You looked back at the video feed, watching as Thrive fell apart on the floor, a streak of white through her hair as she scrambled behind her to find her brother and lift him up onto her shoulders. She glanced back once more at the pit and you could see on the screen, grainy and low rez as it was, the honest hatred in her eyes when she looked at what she had destroyed. It was a hatred you knew well.

“Yeah, I think that’s what they did,” you breathed through the tears. “She…no, the both of them taking out this pit means- well I don’t know what it means exactly, I just have theories.”

“Let’s hear them princess.”

You wiped at your face, smearing the tears. Breathing was a little staggered as the video feed rolled on with images of how Thrive carried her limp brother out, cradling him as best she could when they were inside the elevator.

“They wanted to be heroes, we all did, more than anything. This is them being heroes the only way they know how. I don’t know if this was something they had been planning long term or if they finally turned on Hightower after they saw what he was really like-maybe it was even after he sent Esperanza off to her death. Still, this looks so much like them turning on him because they want to. That pit symbolized more than just an access point to the void, it was where we all went to die and come back reborn or not at all. It’ll exist forever in all of our nightmares. Thrive’s hatred for that place is honest.”

“We’re entering the stage of reveal in this dance,” Rus lovely commented, reaching for what was left of his dogtreat. “Your old man isn’t wearing any more masks and now he’s so far out of reach he probably couldn’t stop them if he tried.”

“You think that’s why they choose now to turn on him?” Sans guessed.

“That and availability,” Rus answered, pointing to the video of the pair of them struggling out of the elevator. “They were either planing or waiting for an opportunity like this one. Those uniforms are evidence enough. Neither of them moved on a whim here.”

“So what are our next steps?” Stretch asked, rubbing his hands up and down your arms, comforting you. “We plan on letting them go or turning this over to the authorities to help them understand?”

Rus snorted and shot an incredulous look backwards over his shoulder at Stretch. For his part Stretch only shrugged, likely suggesting the authorities wasn’t really a viable option to begin with.

“We’re not going to just sit back and let this flow on its own, are we?” Sans chuckled dryly, already sounding tired. “I’ve already reached out to a few contacts but I’m sure there are others we can sniff out, but what do you want, princess?”

You looked up at Sans, knowing instantly what the selfish desire in your heart was for. You but your lip and measured your words first. “I… I want to contact my brother first and see if he would be willing to help. Thrive and Tank both need help. Tank looks spent and Thrive wasn’t in perfect shape either. They’ll need help and we need answers.”

Stretch chuckled and you glanced up at him again. “I just realized, honey, what a terribly effective team you and your brother would make if you ever wanted to become bounty hunters, what with you and your map magic and his ability to teleport is all.”

Sans chuckled along. “They two of you working together could have been dangerous. I’m glad we didn’t end up as enemies in this timeline.”

You took a deep breath and nodded along. “Yeah, me too.”


      

  You ended the call and stared out the window, watching as the glow from the fireplace was caught in the glass, overlapping with your reflection. Raven had been helpful and talking to your brother cleared up a few things, but there were still too many variables left in the open.

Hightower was too quiet. You knew he was out there-somewhere-planning his next steps and watching for his optimal opportunity. It’s what he had trained all of you to do. You knew in you gut  that the danger was imminent, but you couldn’t see any sign of it and that frazzled you beyond words. You weren’t crazy and you weren’t paranoid- you knew better.

Needing something to do you flipped over your phone and flipped through the apps to your messages, reading the details back over again about all of Raven’s possible clues to where Thrive and Tank might be. It was nothing new, but you appreciated the messages being something you could look back to and not worry about your memory making problems for you.

You turned away from the window, flipping your phone between your hands and slouched down onto the armrest of the recliner, turning so that you fell backwards into a sideways sprawl.

“Elegant,” Black absently teased, reading from the paper at his desk in the study. 

When you didn’t reply right away the paper crinkled from being put down as Black’s attention shifted to you. He watched you for a moment longer before touching his phone. You heard the typewriter clicks before a message was ‘wooshed’ off. Then Black called your name.

You shifted in your seat to stare up at him, noticing how he’d stood up from his desk and was right in front of you. “You didn’t even hear me, did you?”

You managed to crack a smile before answering. “You can’t expect me to always hear the most stealthy captain of the guards whenever he moves, can you?”

“I don’t plan to ever belittle your achievements or abilities. You are better than this. Get up, you’ll only worry yourself into a hole if you stay here.”

“I don’t have a direction, Black. I don’t know where I would even head out if you told me to get lost now.”

“That’s precisely what I’m about to tell you but it’s not because I think you’ll actually be useful to the grand efforts if I assigned you a simple reconnoissance task. I used to do this all the time to my subordinates for more than one reason. Idle minds invent harsh realities.”

“When you were still underground?” you asked, suddenly curious.

Black didn’t mention much about the time he was back in his world below ground. You knew that came from a place of wanting to heal and move on, but still you were curious about the details he never divulged. Unlike Blue and Papyrus, who only aspired to the position of captain, both Black and Edge were uniformed captains in charge of their own units and all the terrible responsibilities that came with it. 

“Sometimes the subordinates would need mindless work least they start to grow worries. You’ll not invent any peace for yourself while stationary here. You should go out for a run at the very least,” Black said.

“You sure this isn’t just to keep me in check and remind me of my place?” you halfheartedly joked.

“Ha, if I wanted to do that I’d have you on Queen’s garden patrol!” Black laughed in a familiar sort of sharp glee that was absent from his usual speech. “There were enough horror stories about that garden to instill fear in even the most banal of brain dead idiots. But enough of that now, I already called someone to come take you out. You’ll be doing the both of us a favor.”

“Blue?” you guessed, not sure who else he would call.

You frowned when Black silently shook his skull in denial. Papyrus was in school and Edge was at work this weekend. Jack didn’t leave his brother for extend periods of time and Black himself was busy with his own work. Other than those four, you didn’t know of anyone else active enough to want to get up and move. Yet, the phrase, ‘doing the both of us a favor’ stood out in your brain.

There was a pop from behind and Black stepped away to let you see Stretch where he was, scratching at the back of his skull while yawning wide. “Hey guys, what’s up besides the ceiling?”

“It’s your day off so make yourself useful and take my wife out on patrol so she doesn’t stress herself into a state,” Black barked, sounding as haughty as a king ordering around his subjects.

Stretch blinked once and then glanced down at you before looking back to Black. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he sighed, recognizing something in Black’s expression.

“If you’re tired you don’t need to,” you hurried to say, recognizing Stretch’s reluctance to do anything physical. He was only of the laziest of all of the lazy bones, after all.

“What was that, volcano sunrise?” Black sly teased, looking downright devious as his eye lights turned sharp with neon tones.

At the nick name Stretch snapped to attention and if a skeleton could go pale that’s what you would have seen in the moment as his whole demeanor changed. He almost cursed again but swallowed the sound along with whatever else he was about to say in complaint. Black laughed at the change and crossed his arms, striking an impressive figure in the study.

“Yes, that’s what I thought,” he all but chuckled. You didn’t admit to being a little turned on by the impressive authoritative stance Black was taking as he bullied his roommate into hanging out with their shared date mate.

But poor Stretch.

“Black, didn’t Edge talk to you about the nicknames?” you gently chastised.

Black looked back at you and the harshness to his eyes and edges didn’t abate, but his voice softened for you, doing a complete 180 compared to how it sounded when addressing Stretch. “My apologies, love. I shall endeavor to correct myself without delay in the future.”

You only half believed him. “Please see that you do.”

Black reached for your hand and you let him take it, bringing your knuckles up to his teeth in a skeleton kiss that was just as swoon worthy as he hoped it to be. “I am your obedient servant, mistress of my heart. Now please depart before I change my mind and hold you captive any longer than I already have.”

You stood and kissed the side of his skull before passing him to mosey up to Stretch. He took your hand without complaint but he was glaring childishly over at Black, looking for all intents and purposes, like the younger brother who got chastised in front of mom.

“You know the curfew,” Black barked once more before Stretch pulled you to his side and flared his static magic meant for shortcut portals.

“Screw you and your curfew, old man,” Stretch back sassed before cutting out of space and turning with you in his arms to a new location, running from the sound of Black’s cackling laugh. “Ugh, that guy really knows how to push the envelope,” Stretch complained once the magic wore off.

You laughed at his disgruntlement. “You take it well enough. That’s why he likes to tease you. It probably reminds him of what it was like with Rus before things got bad for them underground.”

“Aghh, don’t think I don’t know that too,” Stretch sighed, “it’s why I put up with it as much as I have, but he’s so annoying sometimes, just like-”

“An older brother?” you interrupted with a cheeky grin.

“My brother was never this annoying,” Stretch snorted, flushing with magic in his embarrassment.

He rubbed at the back of his neck and you were happy to see how well he was taking he teasing. If he was really as annoyed as he claimed to be he wouldn’t have showed up as quickly as he had or stayed long enough to listen. Stretch was pretty good about ignoring things he didn’t want to do.   

“My brother and I can’t see each other anymore without a little love spat, but that’s just what it is-a way to show how much we care for each other. As rude as we get we still show up for each other. At least I can say that now since we’re on speaking terms again. A year ago all of this was a different story.”

“I know that was rough on you,” Stretch said, squeezing your hand in his. You squeezed back.

Now that you stopped to consider where you were, you recognized a familiar clearing where parts of the earth showed signs of torching. A second later it hit you and you remembered why this location was so familiar.

“What are we doing at the clearing behind the grocery store? You took a shortcut here of all places? Why?” you asked, stepping away to better see the landscape.

Stretch caught you by the hand and tugged you back to his side, keeping you from going too far. “Don’t think about it too deeply, it was just the first place I thought of that had room to run. If I short cut into the forest I wouldn’t know which way to go.” Stretch tried to fight back a grin. “Plus, if we get hungry maybe we can pop in to bag a couple of Popato Chisps.”

You nearly snorted. “Was that the real reason?”

“You think I would ignore our illustrious and savage captain after he gave me a direct order for some Popato Chisps?” he fake gasped.

“You may have plenty of other people pegged, mister, but din’t think I don’t see you well enough to know better,” you laughed.

“If we’re being honest,” Stretch muttered, tugging you closer as he turned with you to head out towards the grocery store’s parking lot. “I’d much rather be the pegged if you don’t mind.” 

You sputtered on a laugh and he flushed dark with color all across his skull. You heard him groan and drop his face onto your shoulder, burrowing it between your jaw and neck. He mumbled something else in defense but it was too muffled to make out. He was just too cute.

“I’m not laughing at you and I’m not invalidating your preferences. Don’t be like that. It’s not a bad idea. I’ll keep that in mind for the future,” you said.

Stretch lifted his head from your shoulder but looked away when you tired to direct his gaze. He was recovering from his initial embarrassment but you didn’t hold that against him. Of the brothers, you had a suspicion he wasn’t the most experienced when it came to bedroom activities, but if he was anything like Rus (and maybe he wasn’t!) then it was only a matter of time before he became more fluent.

“So, if I didn’t call you out what were your plans for the day?” you asked while walking over the forest debris.

Stretch made a face as he considered the question. “Sleep…nap…doze…have dinner?”

“Wow, sounds like a full schedule. When did you plan to slumber?”

“After dinner.”

“Next time squeeze some time in to cuddle, kay? I know Black has the best of intentions but sometimes that works just as well as running laps around the supermarket.”

“Don’t you have other night plans?” Stretch joked knowing full well that you were going to crash at Red and Edge’s place for Red’s turn on the nap schedule.

“I’m a free agent during the day except for when I have to run the kids to and from school. There are no rules against a couch bound cat nap.”

Stretch chuckled. “I didn’t know you had it in you to sleep so much in a day. Black isn’t wrong when he said you had energy to burn. Your magic is static and tight, like a boss monster’s but way worse cause you’re human.”

You hesitated, stepping out of the clearing onto the blacktop of the parking lot. “What does that mean if my magic is tight? Is that recent?”

“It’s always been sorta tight, just more so than usual cause I guess you haven’t had a need to use it in a while. It’s been quiet for months. But yeah, when monsters max out their carrying capacity in the magic department it can feel tight. The longer it stays at full the tighter it can get, but I said it was worse for you human types cause your bodies aren’t made out of magic, so there ain’t a natural exit port.”

You made a face, suddenly imagining what happened when soda cans and bottles were too full after a good shake. “So if I don’t use up my magic I’ll…what? Explode like a shaken coke bottle?”

“I don’t think so, but you know I’m still not sure when it comes to humans, but since you’re as old as you are and as healthy as you are I would assume not. If that was an option it would of happened already. Your magic just…sits there? If I wasn’t too worried about the whole public opinion on mages I’d say have fun, run out and light it up.”

“What’s the public option on mages? There’s only…I mean there are less than a dozen of us left. How can there be public option about such a small group?” You remembered the video feed you saw while waiting to buy drinks before your date with Red. Since then you hadn’t really paid a lot of attention to the news.

“It’s fantastic to hear that these steps towards progress are being made, but true equality can’t be counted on until the details come to light and the organizers of this program are returned to justice. Isn’t their lead organizer still missing? Where is he now? What about all their agents? Monster hunters, one report called them, shouldn’t they be held accountable too?

You had recently contacted you old therapist. She knew where you were living. Black and Papyrus had helped you file taxes. You had a phone number and everything. There was a paper trail people could follow if they wanted to find you. And even if Rus could erase most of that, or cover your tracks, there were people who knew you. The Town of Blackberry was your home and you had roots in the community. Your kids went to the local school. You shopped locally and the farmer’s market sellers remembered your favorite flavor of honey. This was your home.

Another squeeze from Stretch made you look back up and the rush of blood in your ears dulled when you saw his face. His gaze was stead and his hold was bedrock strong.

“I’m not going to let that happen,” he promised, sounding like he already knew what you were imagining. He always could read you so well.

“I know.” You took a deep breath and squeezed his hand back. “I haven’t done anything I feel ashamed of. I won’t let anyone diminish me or threaten this. Let’s go get those Popato Chisps.”

“You got it honey. I want the bee flavored ones.”

“Those don’t taste like bees, they taste like honey.”

“How do you know? When was the last time you ate a bee?”

You stepped into the grocery store, pausing only once you were inside the automatic doors to try and figure out which direction you needed to head. You remembered before Stretch realized and tugged him onwards, passing several other shoppers until you found the snack section and got distracted by all the new monster blend foods. You were both in the mood to try a few new things until you realized neither of you bothered to bring a wallet.

“Shoot, hold these, I’ll literally be less than a minute,” Stretch said.

“Meet me in the freezer section, I want to grab some nice cream for the kids.”

“You say its for the ids but be honest,” Stretch chuckled.

“I am. It’s for the kids…and me. I’m a kid on the inside. I never grew up. My growth was stunted, ask my therapist about it and she’ll tell you herself.”

Stretch laughed at the face you made but bent over to kiss the side of your face and nuzzled your cheek. “Don’t go to far, I’ll only be a shortcut away.”

When you opened your eyes again he was gone but you weren’t worried.

The nice cream section had also grown. More and more humans were getting addicted to the monster foods for a number of reasons. One of those reasons being they were a 0 calorie crave buster that helped people lose weight when they were dieting. Aside from that, they were just fun.

You found a box with a mix of flavored cups and opened the fridge door to pick it up off the shelf. When you were closing the door you caught your reflection in the glass as well as who was standing in the aisle behind you.

Stretch short-cutted in no more than two seconds later and waved his wallet before freezing in place, seeing the same thing you were seeing.

Thrive had her hands up but Tank didn’t look like he could even manage that. “Please. We didn’t know where else to go,” Thrive said with a voice as heavy as a gut punch. 

  


Bonus scene:

 

“No.”

“What part? Why not?”

Edge shut his sockets and turned the manuscript around, circling in bright red the phase in question. “You’re not allowed to call a climax a volcanic sunrise and you are NOT allowed to have the main character call his lover his ‘volcano sunrise’ as a term of endearment. Do you even know how sunrises or volcanoes work?”

Stretch pouted. “I’ve seen worse prose.”

Edge just picked up the manuscript and hit Stretch upside the head with it. When Stretch tried to crawl away Edge followed screaming, “The bar is not there to act as a limbo stick!”

Notes:

Now the plot is rearing up to balance out all those tooth rotting fluff chapters. After this, stuff happens fast. Regardless, I couldn't help myself with the little bonus scene at the end. I think Stretch and Edge are hilarious and the dynamic they have along with Black is priceless.

I'm a little nervous because this is the first chapter I've submitted without the next chapter written and ready to go, but I'm 1/2 way done with chapter 80 and expect to have it finished by tomorrow. May gets super busy for me at first and then gets more free towards the end, so that's something I'm looking forward to. *fingers crossed*

Chapter 80: Real Ones 8

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

In hindsight it was pretty shortsighted to think Tank and Thrive wouldn’t be able to find you a second time, especially considering you were in the grocery store right next to where they thrashed your ass so many months back. You hadn’t done a good job running or hiding. That hadn’t been your intention in the first place though, so you shook off your shock.

If things had been different, if you had loved less and cared more about yourself, you would have packed up and moved to live on the road again, but the situation was too precious to compromise. Your life was here and you were ready to fight to defend it if it came down to it. You weren’t about to run.

Thrive still had her hands up while Tank didn’t look like he could even manage that. “Please. We didn’t know where else to go,” Thrive said again with a voice as heavy as a gut punch. “This is all we had to go on after we got out. Just hear us out at least.”

“What for? We were better off without you in our lives. No one here has forgotten about the last time you came up here,” Stretch darkly answered. You felt him tense behind you and recognized the tension for what it was.

You reached back to touch his arm and stepped up, closer to Thrive. “I’ll talk, but not here. I’m not too worried about what happened last time repeating itself. So, see you topside?”

You pointed to the roof and before Thrive could answer Stretch had already pulled you back into his arms and taken a short cut up to the roof, landing behind the shade of a curved air vent.  He squinted up at the sky and you heard his near-growl of discontent. “We’re still visible to satellites.”

You hadn’t considered that but tugged him across the roof to the covered awning where extra crates were being shaded. “This better?”

“For now, but I gotta let the others know,” Stretch said while texting rapidly on his phone into a group chat that you didn’t recognize.

You let him and waited patiently, anxious for the conversation that would follow.  You were having a hard time predicting what Thrive and Tank would show up for and say. You had seen the video and you had plenty of doubts along with even more theories, but you weren’t sure of anything just yet. The next few minutes could change everything.

“You’re going to be okay, we’re not about to let anything happen to you.” Stretch finished his text and leaned down to kiss the side of your face.

His comfort made you chuckle. “I’m the one who isn’t about to let anything happen to you.”

“The others know and it sounds like Rus is planning on watching from his own eye in the sky. He said it was cloudy but not so bad that he wouldn’t be able to get a video recording if things went bad.”

“I don’t want anyone else too bothered about this, but I understand the sense of worry with circumstances being what they are.”

Stretch had wrapped an arm around your waist without you realizing it, but as he tugged you backwards to his chest to squeeze, it became obvious. “You’re not about to be taken from us again. Don’t even think it. I won’t allow it.”

His words almost made you woozy. It was rare to hear Stretch sound so invested or possessive. He was your lazy lover bone boy and you wouldn’t want him any other way, but you couldn’t deny this side of him attracted you. You were more than willing to forgive a little over protectiveness if it brought out this side of him.

“I don’t think we have anything to worry about. Esperanza isn’t with them this time and the two of them looked dead on their feet. Did you see Tank? Plus, last time I was all on my own and now I have you. There’s no way things could go the way they did last time. I trust you.”    

Just as you finished speaking the door to the roof rattled. A half second later something heavy clicked and the metal swing free allowing Thrive to step out. She squinted agains the sunlight that peaked through the clouds and scanned the roof with a hand up to shade her eyes. When she saw you her whole body’s demeanor changed.

Behind her Tank dragged himself up the stairs, looking like he wanted to lay down and never get up again. His hair was still stark white, like someone had dumped a bag of flour over him and washed only his skin clean. It was unsettling to see. Thrive reached back and offered her hand to her brother, which he took and used to help himself up the last few steps onto the roof.

“You couldn’t have chosen a place more convenient to access?” Thrive called out, shouting across the roof to where you were while also waiting for her brother to catch up. It took the pair of them only a short while to close the gap and stop in front of you.

“You were the ones who wanted to see me. I was fine with the way we left last time,” you said.

“That sounds like six flavors of bullshit, but fine, be that way. I know you couldn’t forgive us so easily and that’s not even why I’m here.”

“The Embassy attack was you, we already know about that,” Stretch interrupted, an arm still around your waist. “We saw you destabilize the portal too. It looked like rotten work but you know that better than I, don’t cha?”

Tank picked up his head to glare, but even that looked tired. “It was fine,” he mumbled.

“You know what we did then. Did you know why we did it though?” Thrive pressed, looking hard at you as she asked her question.

“I have my theories, but I’m not going to put words in your mouth.” 

Thrive nodded and licked her lips. “You don’t have to believe me if you don’t want to but really when all this started we thought we were doing the right thing. We thought Raven really did go crazy and we thought monsters really were just biding their time and waiting for an opportunity to turn on humanity.” Thrive’s eyes narrowed at the arm around your waist. “But that’s what we thought because we believed Hightower and followed him willingly, even when the rest of the world turned their back on him we thought we were doing the right thing.”

“Most people do,” Stretch muttered darkly behind your ear.

Thrive scratched at the side of her head, rustling hair. “But we still suspected, even if we said we didn’t, that something was off about the boss man. After your escape and after all the funding got pulled from his secret friends, we started to doubt even more but didn’t allow ourselves to admit it. Then he sent Esper out like that and…and we all knew she was at the end of things. She deserved to rest but the only way she could manage such a thing…”

You remembered a little too vividly what Esperanza looked like as she died in your arms.

It was uncomfortable, but you spoke the truth. “You’re dying, aren’t you?”

Why else would Hightower send her out on her own? Even if he was on the run he still had enough resources that he shouldn’t have to resort to making his kids into suicide bombers.

She coughed and spit out sand but her lungs sounded shredded. When she coughed again the sand around her splattered with blood. You reached for her and pulled her head up onto your lap, never caring about how the both of your were in scraps and shreds.

You waited while she struggled to get her words out. It was almost painful waiting for her to say what she said. Every breath sounded wet and you could smell something rotting as parts of her skin started to develop splotches, like bruises, only instead of bad blood welling up under the skin it was where her magic had broken down her body to burn beyond her limits.

“You were always ambitious and a piece of shit,” you admitted.

Esperanza struggled, but she managed to tilt her head up and open her eyes. “I’m glad you… were the one…with …the sun… in you…” she choked and it almost sounded like she was laughing as more blood bubbled out of her mouth along with spit and sand. “Don’t let…him get away…with it.”

“He never deserved any of us and you never deserved this,” you said, touching her head.

Under your fingers her skin peeled away and you were almost sick at how fragile her body had become. It didn’t matter that she had been your enemy minutes ago, trying to end your life. You saw her as the girl she had been back when you both trained at the Embassy, the girl who believed in a man who said she owed it to ‘humanity’ to give up everything and want nothing; A girl without a childhood. 

Esperanza struggled with her hand and you reached down to grab it. She squeezed you back and smirked as her eyes stayed shut. “Fuck him up.”

“Yeah,” you promised.

The grief roared back into your blood as anger and you were hot for a moment with that fermented rage. You had cultured it and cared for that precious fury all this while, and it needed somewhere to go, but it wasn’t a fury meant for someone who had been just as used and abused as Esperanza. No, you special rage was for a man with darkness sin his eyes and little else left to his name.

“He used her up to try and get to me but he knew before he even sent her out that it was a doomed mission. You still stayed with him after that?”

Tank and Thrive exchanged a look but it was Thrive who answered. “Only in name. After we saw how he used her like that we knew we were following a monster-no offense.”

“He was a piece of shit, let’s not confuse the two,” Stretch corrected.

Overhead the clouds thickened and began to draw closer together. Some of them were darker than other.

Tank brushed a hand against his sister’s shoulder. “Tell them about the portal.”

Thrive grimaced but turned back with a determined expression. “We really weren’t planning on doing anything like betray him until he had us sneak him into the portal on Mt. Ebott. It’s a little hard to get to even if you know it’s there, but the Embassy wasn’t about to let him back in, even with all his friends. We helped him get there and it-there was something different about it. We’ve seen portals before and we’ve even seen this one before, but Hightower was able to make it darker and deeper or something. There was-it was different!”

“How so?” Stretch asked when you didn’t think you could form the words.

Thrive stared down at her fingers, curling them into fists. “He was talking to it.”

“He was hearing something too,” Tank added. “It was more than just talking. Something talked back.”

“We almost got up to run right there and then, but Everest was there with us.”

You remembered Everest, only vaguely. He was older than both you and Raven but Hightower considered Everest one of his crowning jewels and a trustworthy right hand after Raven ran off. What made Everest so dangerous wasn’t his skills or abilities but his fanaticism. You had almost forgotten about him.

“What did Everest do or keep you from doing?” you asked.

“I don’t know what he’s doing right now but when Hightower was talking to that sliver of the void it didn’t seem to freak out Everest like it did us. He was sold on whatever Hightower was selling. But then when we thought it couldn’t get any crazier Hightower gets dragged into the void.”

“What do you mean dragged in?” Stretch interrupted. “The crack in Mt Ebott isn’t even thick enough for a monster to fall into. It’s a healing fracture left over from the last war between monsters and men. You can’t fall into it.” He wasn’t wrong. There was a reason you were way more worried about the pit at the secondary location and the pit in the basement of the embassy.

“That’s what we thought too but it opened for him and then there were arms that reached for him, dozens of them without definition or detail, just reaching for him. That sliver opened wide and he let himself be pulled into it like he was expecting it. Maybe he was because as soon as that shit was over Everest took off like he had his own plans and we were just told to wait for his return.”

“How long ago was that?” Stretch asked.

Tank shrugged while Thrive scrunched up her nose, thinking. “A few weeks back, maybe….it took us a while to come up with the plan to break into the Embassy and then even longer to pull it off.”

“Hightower has been in the void longer than that,” you admitted. Over a month back was when you had gone with the boys to the farm where Raven was hiding to close up the tear into the void he had been worried about. While there you sank into the dark and saw Hightower on your mental map before it got scrambled. You took that to mean he had been switching back and forth in and out of the void, but with what Tank and Thrive were telling you…

“How do we know you’re not lying. We saw Hightower in the void months ago. You make it sound like he was with you all that time,” Stretch said.

There was a snap of static and magic and you noticed out of the corner of your eye a pair of skeleton looking felines crouched on the tops of boxes and the lip of the awning roof. Their eyes glowed orange and blue, matching the pattern in only one of Stretch’s sockets. One of the cats began to unhinged her jaw and there was a magic building there that made the first few drops of rain coming down sizzle.

“Wait,” you urged, squeezing at his arm around your waist. “Let them explain.”

Thrive looked startled by the cats-blasters but hurried to explain. “That wasn’t him, whatever you saw it wasn’t really him, that was whatever Everest was doing to him during the day. Hightower was with us physically but then the’d go into his zen garden and Everest would put him to sleep and he said that was him searching for answers or some dumb shit. I swear, that’s the truth.”

“Where were you all this time? Why couldn’t I find any of you on the map when I searched?”

“Babe, even you have your limits,” Thrive scoffed as the rain came down on her shoulders. “We were in a whole-ass different country, too far away for any of your friends to shortcut to. I don’t even know which one but Hightower had obviously prepared for this sort of possibility. He had a private jet and everything-all AI controlled.”

You squeezed at Stretch’s arm around your waist and he slackened. The skeleton cats-blasters he had summoned closed their jaws but didn’t dismiss themselves. When you looked back you could see the familiar color in Stretch’s eye lights, a dull burnished orange that was almost black. He was back. “Thank you.”

He only grunted in response.

“It makes sense enough for me. I don’t know enough about how the void works to not believe you but I’ll trust you for now,” you said.

“That’s only one of us,” Stretch clarified. One of his cats yowled angrily in warning.

“We don’t have anything to gain by attacking you like this. You’d obviously kick our ass no matter what state we were in if it was a fair fight, but we’re on our last legs and we didn’t know who else to go to,” said Thrive. “We know he’s not someone we can trust or believe in anymore. That’s why we destroyed the pit in the Embassy, so he couldn’t use it. Look at what it cost us. You think we’d do that for any old reason?”

“when do you know what his next move was going to be?” Stretch asked. “or where this everest guy ran off to?”

“My best guess had to do with the portals. It all came back to the void and what it meant to him. I don’t know what I could have done to ease the portal on Mt. Ebott but the Embassy one was artificial. That one was made by the mages from hundreds of years ago.”

“and the one at the secondary location?”

Thrive winced from Stretch’s question that come out sounding like an accusation. “It was way too big for anyone to do anything about. I’m sorry. This is as far as we can go. I don’t know what else we could do on our own.”

“Do you know or have an idea of what Hightower might do next with the portals?” you asked, recognizing the frustration in Thrive’s voice even if it felt out of place. Thrive was angry when she was frustrated. You heard defeat in her frustration.

“He…if I had to guess, he seemed oddly fixated on the void scar he went into on Mt. Ebott, like obsessed with how old it was and how he believed it was what helped monster develop and evolve over time. If I had to put my chips down somewhere on something, that’s what I’d bet on.”

Stretch’s thumb rubbed against the fabric of your shirt over your stomach and you squeezed his arm in response as he replied, this time with the magic back out of his voice. “I can see the logic in that. Still don’t wanna trust you as far as I can throw you though.”

“Which is why he called the two of us.”

Thrive and Tanks stepped apart and you saw behind them the pair of grinning skeletons.  At the opposite end of the roof there stood Sans and Red in matching umbrellas, protecting themselves from the rain that came in spurts. Red twirled his red umbrella idly while Sans waved at you from across the way.

Tank reached for his sister, looking nervous.

“No neat to look so gloomy. We’re just the delivery boys,” Sans joked.

“Lucky for you, Raven boy took a shine to the idea of putting the pair of you up at his place. Hope you don’t mind a couple of Gaster roommates,” Red clarified before winking over at you.

“Raven did?” Thrive asked, a note of wonder in her tone.

“It’s a probationary period, don’t sweat it. You do good there, we don’t show up to dust you for betraying us to a madman. Sound fair?” Red added. 

“It’s the best we can do. Sorry, but we don’t trust you around the other members of our family just yet,” said Sans.

“That’s plenty fair, but did you already clear this with Raven? You’re not just saying he’s okay with it so you can dump us there and leave us to deal with the fallout when he finds us-us on his doorstep,” Thrive stuttered, turning red in the face.

“Nah, he sounded just as eager to have you as you are to show up there,” Red laughed, seeing through Thrive’s nervousness for what it was. “Lets get going. You can rest up there and we can take our sweetheart back to recover from all of this. Deal?” He offered up a hand and Sans mirrored the offer to Tank.

You watched as you old friends took the steps necessary to cross the way and accept the offer. Thrive looked back once and you met her eyes before she was folded into a dark space and taken on a shortcut away from the roof top.

“So, do you think this is what Black had in mind when he told me to take you out so I didn’t stress myself into a state?” you nervously laughed, leaning back to look up at Stretch.

Stretch spared you a sympathetic expression before leaning down to kiss you full on the mouth. When you pulled back he nuzzled the side of your face with a tired sort of affection you recognized. “Wanna just head back to bed to cuddle?” he asked against the side of your face.

“Please.”

A shortcut later you were under the blankets, wrapped up and halfway to dreamland as the rain outside lulled you the rest of the way there.

 

 

 

Sans stared up at the machine, or what was left of it, sitting ancient and looming in the center of his new basement. He hadn’t touched it in months, but he had felt drawn to it on such a night for reasons he himself couldn’t understand. He remembered the call, he remembered the conversation that happened after it, and then he remembered the rush of living that electrified his bones.

‘A human mage was able to do it, so why couldn’t i?’

He had started to assemble the parts from where he first abandoned them in the underground. It took a spell to just get everything topside, and then it took even longer to refurbish and clean the parts that time had swallowed up. It wasn’t a quick or easy thing. When he had to hit the road with his brother he stayed there for the most part, but occasionally he’d shortcut back whenever he could to tinker on the forbidden fixation.

But with each iteration of his brother and himself they came across, the lull to the machine seemed to lessen and lessen and lessen until it was all but smothered in the background of his brain. There were other things for his mind to fixate on. 

When he and Paps bought this new place in the town of Blackberry it had made sense to move it into the basement and make sure it was all set up. He hadn’t tinkered with it much but there were always low points that would drag him down and before he knew what he was doing he’d be standing at the foot of the stairs in the basement, staring up at the hunk of junk that was so teasingly close to being operational. He knew how to put it together, he knew where all the parts needed to go, and he even knew how to get the new things he would need to make it work.

Red found out about it first, having stumbled upon it while following the hunch of a suspicion. It had been back before Red and Edge had a place of their own.

“Is this to send us back?”

The thought had occurred to Sans more than once and it had been filed by a desire to eliminate supposed competition, but the thought never lived long in his mind. He could think about and see the situation for what it was and logically, there was way more harm than good that would come out of him trying to send the others back.

“You don’t think there aren’t some who would want to go back?” Sans said instead of answering. There wasn’t enough hostility in the air for him to be weary. Red wasn’t being aggressive at least.

No, I don’t. There isn’t a single one amongst us that would wanna go back under the mountain, so what’s this doing here clown face?” Red kicked up to gesture to the hunk of machinery with his shoe. Both his hands were still stuffed deep into the pockets of his jacket.

“Wanted to see what I could do. Haven’t touched it in…a while.” Sans watched Red draw closer. “You believe me?”

“Sounds like something I’d say if I had the luxury of indulging my curiosities instead of constantly acting to save my life.” Red squinted up at the machine. “Does it work?”

“Not as it is.”

“You planning on changing that?”

Sans waited until Red turned back around to look his way before answering. “Not now.   

That conversation felt like a lifetime ago. Thinking about the void in the basement of the Embassy had pulled him back to his own basement to the mental horror he had manically labored over in a previous lifetime-back before he was loved.

He really should have done something about this hunk of junk earlier, back when the Horrorfell boys came to stay with them. Seeing his alternative self and his alternative brother from the famine timeline had turned his metaphorical stomach too much to ever consider coming back into the basement.

He didn’t like to admit it to anyone, even himself, but seeing those two brothers had shifted something in hi against pushing boundaries. He almost felt sick of the idea that somewhere in the world there was something that existed with the purpose or intention of bridging worlds. With that sort of power and ability Jack and Dusk could have been sucked backwards into their own escaped hell, doomed to starve and struggle again.

That… wasn’t something that sat well with him at all.

Since Jack and Dusk had been rescued he hadn’t come down into the basement once. This was the first time anyone had been in this space for days…weeks…months?

If felt so long ago.

“It’s past due,” Sans said to the silence before pulling out one hand from his hoodie pocket.

A dozen different gasterblaster skulls opened their jaws and he felt the suction of so much magic leaving him at once while the room was lit with electrical blue yellow lights.

 

 

It was close to midnight when he managed to make it to the barn behind where the Gaster iterations lived with your brother. A little earlier Red and Edge had taken over to escort the brother sister duo once you had finished negotiations with Raven. Now, only a few hours later, Sans was taking his turn to check in and make sure things were good.

He blinked over via shortcut onto the porch once the decided the house looked safe enough from a distance. He could see inside through the window the sagged body of the taller human, the one you called Tank. The kid looked beat and was currently dead asleep on the couch, hands limp in his lap and mouth slack. His hair had all gone white and it was an odd look for a kid so young. It was a bit disconcerting to look at.

You there just to stare?”

Sans glanced up and saw one of the Gaster boys leaning against the far wall, looking sullen. It took him a minute to figure out if he was looking at the one called Winn or the one called Dee. From what he could remember, Dee was the shit who liked to provoke others and then hang back, masking his interest in the chaos with a cool expression. Winn was the volcano of emotions that was more likely to fly off the handle and fight someone while wearing his soul on his sleeve. The skeleton Sans was staring at looked too emotional to be Dee.

“Was it Winn?” Sans asked while letting himself in. “Didn’t think you’d be the type to welcome anybody over.”

You guessed right. The other one is still talking to Raven, don’t bother them.

Sans rubbed at his chin. “Hasn’t it been hours since they landed?” What could they have to still talk about that was more important than getting rest?

Winn huffed and glanced away but paused before replying, likely taking that time to cool his own emotions. The human he used to be before phasing with the fracture of Underfell’s Gaster must have been a moody little bitch, Sans thought. The more Sans saw of him the more Winn looked like a petulant child. 

None of our damn business, they’ll come out and share when they’re good and ready. What else do you want while you’re here?

“Just checking in, didn’t mean to to sour your expression so badly, or is that how you always look?”

“You’re not being funny.”

“Yeah, guess you got that part covered,” Sans snickered while gesturing to his face. He wasn’t in the mood to pun around with this guy, so he settled for being bratty. “You know where the big guy is, you know the dad-ster looking one.”

Winn worked on smothering out his pout. He managed to stand up off the wall and drop his arms from where they had been folded across his chest. “Gaster?”

Sans snapped his fingers. “That’s the one.”

Don’t call him that to his face- or do if you don’t care about his reaction. It’s not my dusting.”

Winn moved away from the wall and up the stairs without looking back to check and see if Sans was following behind him. It didn’t matter, anyone with the ability to hear would know better when the wood stairs creaked underneath. The house was old enough to need settling and sounded out in its own language of growing pains.

Upstairs he could feel the closeness of the old house and subconsciously, Sans hunched his shoulders up around his skull while following behind the taller skeleton. There was a door with chipped and peeling white pain that badly muffled the conversations inside. He recognized the voices a second later and then the words before he knew better than to turn away and let the would-be lovers have their hour of confessions. Whatever history existed between Raven and that girl Thrive sounded like a complicated one.

Another room left the door open and inside Dee sat on the edge of the bed, hands little more than limp as he read a book perched between his knees. He didn’t stir or look up as Sans passed, but by the way he kept the door opened, Sans suspected Dee could hear everything.

Here,” Winn said before pushing the sagging door to the back of the house all the way open.

Sans saw inside a deserted master bedroom without a bed or much of any furnishings. On the wall and on the floor were calculations and inscriptions. Sans recognized some of the equations for what they were and looked for Gaster, finding the figure in front of a different wall with a pen that was recording his frantic thoughts. On the floor were a few scattered photos and newspaper clippings but there were even more of them tacked onto the wall, next to notes and symbols.

Gaster didn’t even pause when he heard them come in and for a moment Sans suspected the eldest of their bunch might have missed their arrival.

“I didn’t.”

Sans went a little still, doubting Gaster really could read minds. It was just a lucky guess.

I’m keen enough to hazard a guess at what you’re thinking, but no I can’t read minds and yes, I did hear you come in. Wait there,” Gaster said as he moved a photo on the wall to a new location. Sans recognized a badly drawn map of the country for what it was, followed my a smaller map with just their surrounding areas. The places where void openings had been reported or sighted were marked with heavy black X marks.

“They’re still talking. Should I interrupt the two of them?” Winn said, referring to Thrive and Raven.

No, just Dee will do for now. Those two can be filled in l a t e r ,” Gaster answered without turning around. His writing on the wall had slowed and now looked less hurried.

Winn got up to leave and Sans heard him in the hallway, doing exactly what he was told to do. A minute later he returned with Dee on his heels, the book from before folded up under his arm. In this sort of situation Sans thought he might have felt threatened just because of how the odds were so starkly stacked against him, but when the door slid closed he felt none of that.

“You have an idea of whats going to happen next, don’t you?” Sans guessed, his own grin growing manic. “Something you didn’t tell with the others?”

“I’m telling you now, and yes, it looks as if I am not the only one with keen powers of observation. How commendable,” Gaster murmured before turning back around to face the rest of the room. He looked pointedly at Dee who stood up and shifted the book further under his arm.

So,” Dee began. “With what we know from Thrive and her brother, we were able to finish some hypothetical battle scenarios and fill out contingency plans. They both had a pretty good idea what Hightower wanted for the end.” 

Sans glanced up at the wall and looked to the map. “And you think it has something to do without out monster mountain?”

“Mt. Ebott is the most likely site. It’s the only one of the void openings that is naturally occurring. The other two were man, or rather, Mage made. They’re easier to collapse or close up as I’m sure you’ve already seen. And while this scar to the void is smaller, it’s more likely to stay penetrated long enough for something to get through.”

Penetration was the terminology that described a void space that was accessible. Unlike the other void pits that needed to be externally covered, the access point at Mt. Ebott was not always open and couldn’t stay open on its own for long periods of time. Sans hadn’t suspected it of being a viable toll for Hightower to use.

“What makes you think that place matters so much more now?” he asked.

Dee strode to the center of the room and crossed his hands behind his back, standing straight with the book from before out of sight. “Based on what Thrive and her brother explained, Hightower was looking to secure a way to break down and pull more than just the colossal natives found in the deep void. Should this be verified, we could be potentially dealing with an infestation.

“How you figure that?” Sans countered, doubtful of this skeleton’s claims. “I thought he was trying to pull one of those big ass beast creatures through. That’s what we saw when we took a dip last time.” It was a memory he hadn’t easily moved past. The vastness of the native still liked to haunt the edge of his nightmares. He wasn’t sure how you dealt with it in your own dreams, knowing you had seen more than him.

“The probability of that is…” Dee gestured to one of the walls and Sans took in the calculation, reading them like a language to understand what Dee meant to say without saying. The mass of such a creature, the probability of it escaping through such an opening even with spaghettification (which was not even a guaranteed factor) was so minuscule Sans could tell it wasn’t worth the worry.

But then on the wall were other things. Other creatures, other beings with smaller mass and better chances.

“You think Hightower was switching targets?”

“No, I think he already has, and the reason he hasn’t moved in so long is because he’s been catching these little fish in his net, waiting for the harvest.”

“You say that like you’ve seen it for yourself,” Sans challenged.

H e hasn’t but  I   h a v e ,” Gaster interrupted.

Sans looked back over his shoulder at where Gaster had moved to stand, facing a different wall with barely anything on it. There was a grid like design made up of sentences criss crossing like fine twine on the wall but nothing big enough for Sans to be able to read.  He didn’t turn around to face Sans when he spoke again.

That man has his   h o a r d  and there is only  o n e  place he can bring it through. How will you rally to meet it?”

 

It was the early morning, daybreak, when Sans made it home. He felt dead on his feet but sleep was near impossible. He had been checking the science, reviewing the work, disputing and defending the equations the brothers presented to him after their grand reveal, and it had felt a little like being around Gaster again.

His Gaster, the royal scientist that sired him and his brother through mad and selfish science.

W. D. Gaster.

Sans knew that these fractured people who were a hybrid of the royal scientists and cast off humans killed in the void were their own people, so there were bound to be some similarities.  But… the resemblance was elusively uncanny. Sans couldn’t put it into words exactly what, but the sense of being next to his father-next to the royal scientist felt familiar. The paranoia flirted its way into his mood and stepping out of the room was for the best. Even if there was more to do, more data to crunch, Sans needed to step away.

There was a sound from the kitchen and Sans almost jumped, but settled when he realized it was only Papyrus, moving around the pots and pans. He was making early morning breakfast from the sound of things.

“You’re up early!” Papyrus exclaimed once Sans made his way into the kitchen. “I didn’t hear you come down.”

“That’s cause I didn’t. I just got in…” Sans hesitated, pulling himself up to the counter and onto a barstool. “I was at the farmstead with the other Gaster copies doing contingency planning.”

Papyrus hesitated over the food he had been preparing and his expression turned soft. “You haven’t slept yet,” he said with understanding.

“Something like that.”

Papyrus nodded in understanding and then quickly turned to the back counter where a glass dish had be prepared with flour tortillas. He wrapped them in damp cloth and set them into the microwave to heat. A few seconds later he pulled him free and used one to scoop egg, ground meat, chopped vegetables, and a number of other seasonings into. He folded it all expertly onto a clean plate and squeezed a curve of thick red ketchup over the breakfast burrito. Sans perked up when Papyrus put the plate down in front of him. There was heat coming off it that made him smile.

“Eat something before you go to sleep. You’ll need your rest but that shouldn’t be an excuse to avoid food. Blue taught me this recipe.”

Sans feels heavy with every step he takes, but the weight seems to shed off in layers the longer he stays around Papyrus. “I thought eating before bed wasn’t a good idea.”

“It makes you lazy but that’s not a problem worth getting upset over right now. You need to rest so eat that and then climb into bed with something clean this time around. I’m going to do laundry so just leave what you need washed in the hamper.”

“Thanks bro.”

“Of course!” Papyrus beamed brightly from the compliment.  “It’s the least I can do when you’re working as hard as you are. I know this is a stressful time for you-for everybody right now.” He hesitated before adding. “I understand even if I don’t understand.”

Sans took the first bite and almost melted into the food, but paused in his chewing when he heard that last bit. “I’m not used to you not being the youngest,” he chuckled around the foot in his mouth before swallowing.  “You’ve grown up so much it kinda makes me sad.”

“We’ve been above ground for six years already, Sans! Of course I would grow up. Did you think I would stay as I was forever?”

“Nah, but maybe I kinda hoped for it. Don’t mean I don’t appreciate and love all your growth, bro, just got me feel kinda nostalgic. Maybe I should head on over and start bugging Stretch, he’s still practically a baby bones, isn’t he?”

“He’s only the youngest amongst us but he is also a gully grown adult, brother. Don’t be tempted. Stretch is also working through some things on his own now. We’re all stressed so I’m glad he has a healthy outlet.”

“Bad porn?”

“Bad erotica,” Papyrus gently corrected, making no effort to defend the other skeleton. “And he’s getting better with Edge’s help. Be a little more encouraging the next time you see him, please.”

Sans grinned over his breakfast burrito. “Sure,” he answered with false nonchalance. The older brother instincts that had been slackening in recent years felt agitated again. It was a strange compulsion to seek out the youngest and lovingly tease them from a position of authority due to age, but Sans didn’t question it. Maybe after his nap he could seek Stretch out to hang. The two of them were overdue for a hangout anyway.

Yeah, without noticing how or when, Sans felt a whole light lighter. Sure there were evil people out there planning evil things, but with the Gasters reading void frequencies and watching for fluctuations they had an early warning system in place and a tentative plan for how to work towards meeting whatever Hightower’s side threw at them. Things would be hard, things would be tough, but hell were they worth it. They were going to get through this mess one bite at a time.

“Here, take your milk with you when you go up,” Papyrus said, trading Sans’ empty plate for a tall glass of chocolate milk. Sans actually preferred the white stuff but when he had been younger he always wanted the chocolate milk for the mustaches it left on his skull. It was nice to see his brother remembered that.

“Thanks bro.”

Papyrus ushered Sans up partway and then watched him go the rest of the way before returning to the kitchen to finish prepping for his week of meals. Each day he had a different recipe to enjoy from one of his ‘brothers.’

He was proficient in the kitchen but he hadn’t ever really liked anything enough to perfect it until he was able to attach an emotional resonance to it. He had loved spaghetti not because of its taste, but because of the memories he made with Undyne while learning how to prepare it.

He had been above ground over six years by now and in that time he had learned a lot. He was sure he had actually made breakfast burritos before, but never cared for them until Blue showed him how to make them with excitement. Blue had been more than just thrilled to show off and share how much he loved one of his new favorite foods and Papyrus caught that infection of excitement better than a viral agent.

Jack and Dusk were another pair of skeleton brothers that leant their influence to Papyrus’ culinary habits. They knew how to forage and find any manner of edible plants and herbs for seasoning and flavoring. Every week or so Jack would send Papyrus a care package of fresh food or ingredients.  It was a habit Jack admitted to fostering during the early days in the famine, when there was enough food left to share with allies…in the weeks before things turned devastating. It was a habit Jack was almost desperate to foster and encourage again, so Papyrus happily accepted but made sure to send his own care packages down.

Papyrus used some of Jack’s seasonings and then put away the rest with a happy hum. Halfway done with his work he turned on the television in the main room for some background noise. Too long in the quiet made him anxious so it was a nice to have the artificial sounds of people nearby and know he was safe from any actual scrutiny or judgement.

He put together a late evening meal for Sans, already anticipating when his brother would wake, groggy and grumpy. He was just closing up the fridge when the words of the news anchor caught his attention. They were talking about Pink Lilly, the monster mascot that had replaced him. Whatever it was, it sounded like it was breaking news since the anchor had to correct himself once as more updates were funneled through his ear piece.

“Pink Lilly’s Keep Monsters Protected Petition has surpassed even the most modest anticipations and has been the major archetype for the Monster Transparency and Protection Petition. In the House of Representatives HR 56709 as it is being officially submitted to the sub committee of monster relations for review and we’re getting the first updates on what is actually in this bill thanks to the mastermind and monster mascot herself.”

Then the video cut to Pink Lilly, a fashionable pink monster wearing a toned down skirt suit in front of a crowd that was swarming with monster and human activists, excited for the update while Papyrus could only feel trepidation. His replacement was ambitious and almost divinely favored by how quickly she could get things done on an official level. It had taken Papyrus so much to just get a member of congress to consider listening to him on the matter of rights for monsters. It had been such a hard road that he found more power in being a star that won over people and inspired change through their voices.  That’s how monsters eventually were granted citizenship and the power to vote two years later.

Pink Lilly was doing what took him years in a matter of months. How?

“The bill is actually quite ambitious and takes what we wanted and expands upon the theme of transparency for monster’s protection and betterment,” some human woman on the screen said, speaking on behalf of Pink Lilly.

“Such as?” the reporter prompted.

“The Embassy was a great starting point for us and the removal of their funding and the decommissioning of their projects was necessary, but that’s not enough. We need to know what went on and have that level of transparency necessary for actual accountability. There are people who were a part of this ‘anti-monster’ faction who are out there today, living free lives with no one knowing any better.”

Papyrus felt cold in his bones and took a step closer to the television.

“Were these individuals involved in the MAGE project not already documented and tracked?”  the reporter asked.

“Some were, but there were others who have been allowed to live free lives with neighbors who don’t know any better. Regardless of their past affiliations they need to be, at the very least, brought in for the sake of not just monster’s safety, but the greater human population’s as well.”

The crowd in the background was so dissimilar to one he expected to see as the video feed cut out to more looping tracks of monsters and humans dressed up and holding signs. He knew what a crowd was supposed to look like. He had been there before. He had fostered this movement in its early days, working for the rights and safety he and his fellow monsters deserved. They had lobbied, danced, laughed, begged, and worked for everything they got. He knew what a crowd of supporters was supposed to look like.

This looked like a mob.

The news cut to a different story but everything after that sounded like white noise to Papyrus as he stood in the middle of the room. He might not understand the science of what Sans was using to help track and prepare for the dangers a villain might throw at them, but the scenes on the television was something he did understand all too well.

“Fuck,” he whispered to the empty room.

 

Notes:

I added an extra 2K of content this morning when I was doing 'last minute' edits and decided the story needed it. So I apologize for the rough rush edit you're reading as I've only spot checked it briefly, but I hope the last bit helps the chapter feel more fleshed out. Things are getting tense and the stakes are higher on the one hand.

On the other hand, Papyrus got to say the F word and Stretch is confirmed youngest sibling. Also there is an 'older sibling' instinct to seek out and destroy/embarrass the youngest that most skeletons feel. Sans is catching the bug, poor Stretch.

Chapter 81: Real Ones 9

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

“What do you mean I can’t pick the kids up anymore?” you asked, caught off guard. “That’s literally my job. Nothing has even been decided yet so what’s the point in getting scared now?”

“It’s just a precaution. Rus is doing his best to wipe the web of any trace of you, but people will start to make connections if your file ever got dropped as a part of this bill,” Stretch spoke up for Papyrus, glancing between you two.

Papyrus had been busier than normal, caught between classwork at the university and juggling the last few lines of communication he kept open with people from the show biz side of things. Some of his old contact knew someone who knew someone who could get him updates on the legal and political proceedings so that they were ahead of the storm. You felt terrible that all this was happening right before finals week when he needed to be studying and putting himself first but he was surprisingly stubborn.

Wordlessly, Papyrus held up his phone and then waved before ducking out of the room to take his call.

“The kids only have a month of school left before they’re out for the summer. Can’t I just help out until then?” you asked.

Black already paid you too much for doing too little, you would hate to become even more useless to the family if you were supposed to stay away from showing your face in public. It was more than just school trips and picking the kids up or dropping them off. Farmer’s Market on the weekends was out, chilling at Grillby’s was cut too. You were willing to do what you needed to stay safe and keep everyone else safe too, but it was hard to transition from such heights to such new lows.

Before Stretch could answer Red stepped into the room and loudly broke a peanut shell between fingers, drawing your attention. He left the sweet parts behind and threw the shell back behind his teeth before ploping down on the armrest nearest you.

“You looked like you could use another snack,” he said before pushing the bowl your way. There were a few whole peanuts left, but most of the bowl was filled with the innermost kernels that you usually snacked on. “Don’t want you getting all broken up over this situation. It’ll blow over soon enough and we’ll get on with life, yeah?”

“Yeah,” you absently echoed, accepting his offer. “It’s just such a cluster-fuck right now. I thought we were supposed to be talking about what Sans discussed with the Gaster brothers. That sounds more important.”

“Rus is already ahead of us on that,” Stretch said. “He set up a separate computer just to monitor the data Dee sent us. They’re ahead of us on that and already have probes out there in the void. We just need to watch the feed it sends us back.”

You didn’t understand a whole lot of the science and math that went into their plan, but thankfully Sans, Stretch, Red, and Rus were running with the plan in their own way, understanding far more than you.

The gist of it was something like, Dee had built a prob set to scatter into the void and send back readings about void activity. Anytime someone took a shortcut there would be a small little blip. Longer shortcuts required the magic user to use a deeper layer of the void and the blip was bigger in their readings. Shortcuts in the same room barely registered.

The probes also measured other things, like movement in the void. If something twitched they would know. A few times similar readings had come in and they had waited, watching with bated breath to see if whatever was causing ripples would settle or continue to escalate. They always settled, but one day they wouldn’t and everyone knew that.

Dee was working on building more probes and Red had roped Stretch into helping him make their own based off the schematics Rus had designed. Stretch admitted to being a little outside his wheelhouse with the work, but between Red’s mechanical knowledge and Rus’ understanding of the digital and electronic components it was easy enough to manage. They would be ready with their own spread before the weekend was over-possibly even sooner if Sans got the free time to help out.

It wasn’t something you could help with at all.

Instead, you had to hide.

“I hate this,” you admitted out loud. Even in your own ears you sounded like some petulant child who couldn’t see the bigger picture.

“I know babe, but you’ll get through this,” Red answered before Stretch could say anything. Stretch looked more worried when you glanced his way while Red seemed to be taking things in stride.

“I know I’m being a bitch about this but I’m going to go along with the plan, I’m just…” Your rubbed at your face with your hands. “I’m just not going to like it.”

“We’re not going to let this just happen,” Stretch said, crossing the distance to kneel down on the ground in front of you. He put a hand on your knee and looked up at you, offering a smile that was meant to be hopeful. “Sans has also done his fair share lobbying with energy developers who have some sway in congress. We’re not out of options.”

“He shouldn’t even be thinking about this though,” you said. “His focus should be split between this situation with Hightower’s void invasion and getting his own damn rest. The situation he’s monitoring with you all it way more important and I can’t help but feel like this was planned just to inconvenience me when it mattered. I know that’s super unlikely but I can’t help but feel bitter in m gut about all this.”

“Don’t ignore that,” Red said. “There may not be enough evidence that things were stacked against ya, but I’ll trust a good gut any given day.” He fed you another peanut, tapping the underside of your jaw up in encouragement. “Stay on your toes and be careful.”

“Things are suspiciously inconvenient, and if it was a strategic move it was a smart one. If I was our enemy I’d want the people who pose the greatest threat distracted or divided, preferably both. We’re a strong force when together,” Stretch explained, rubbing a thumb over the curve of your knee. “We need to be smart about how we go forward. He already knows too much about you and the other Mages he raised. Us and the Gasters are wild cards.”

You glanced up, took in the details of the living room, the familiar carpet and furniture. You listened to the sounds of a distant radio left on somewhere, inhaled the smell of faded lemon cleaner. You were in the farmhouse where everyone seemed to be converging, a place you had created so many precious memories over the last several months.

Everything felt different but it was disorienting how the environment didn’t change. You felt like you were prepping for a raid or a war. Why were the windows still letting in sunlight? Shouldn’t be the world be flipped upside-down to match how you felt on the inside? Hightower was going to bring enemies out of the void, things you had dreamed about and feared since girlhood. Who let the wind chimes move?

“Babe.”

Red’s voice brought you back. You looked down and noticed your arms were cracked and venting light from your simmering magic. You inhaled sharply and the vents sealed up, sinking into obscurity.  “Sorry,” you mumbled.

“We’re all nervous, sweetheart.” Red ran a clawed hand through your loose hair and cupped the back of your skull enough to turn you his way. You closed your one good eye as he nuzzled against the side of your face and then kissed you over your scar. “No one is going to blame you for being a bit jumping with the situation like it is.

You blinked hard and tried again at settling the errant magic in your body. There was more of it, ever since your survival of the soul pin, when everyone pitched in to help you live through a collapsing soul, your soul had welled with even deeper reserves of power; kinda like a level up. It wasn’t a bad thing, but it made things hard to hold onto sometimes. Red’s touch helped. It was like he was an anchor you could hold onto when everything else nearly swept you away.

“It’s fine. But if I can’t go out and pick up the kids anymore how is that going to go?” you asked. “Who’s going to pick them up and where am I going to stay in the meantime? Or are we keeping it house arrest style?”

“Black is going to get the kids today and spoil them,” Stretch explained. “For now, lets just avoid the public places. All our houses are free range and I know once the kids come home they’ll want to see you.”

“Yeah, that sounds fine, I understand.” You caressed the side of his face and grinned before gesturing to stand. Stretch moved back and Red leaned away so you could get up off the couch. “I’ll be right back, human needs,” you mumbled before heading for the bathroom.

After washing your hands you found yourself dragging your feet through the hallways back to where Stretch and Red were waiting for you. Their voices made you pause to listen in the middle way just out of sight.

“Don’t put this one me when I wasn’t one of yous that voted for confinement,” Red grumbled. You hesitated, feeling like this was a conversation you weren’t supposed to interrupt.

“You agreed to it in the end,” Stretch countered. “Even Edge saw the logic in it. We’re not like this because we want to be mean.”

“I still hate saying it, string bean,” Red sighed, using an old nickname for Stretch. “Don’t feel right.”

“Nothing feels right when we’re dealing with bad people. I thought you’d get that.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Red asked. The tone wasn’t aggressive but it still gave you pause.

“Just that you’ve got more experience in this, in making hard calls and doing difficult things. I’m not trying to make it sound like I have experience when we both know I don’t.”

“Stick around and you’ll learn,” Red laughed. “Topside isn’t as peaceful as I though it was going to be, but don’t mean it ain’t still worth it, even with your stars-awful smut.”

“You don’t get to have an opinion if you’re just going to parrot what everyone else is saying, I know you didn’t even read it.”

“Well maybe because someone didn’t offer to share.”

“I didn’t know you could read,” Stretch sassed back, sounding uniquely peeved.

“Hey, no need to turn sour on me.”

“I’m not even finished with revisions for the second draft so you can wait to share your judgments until after your brother puts me through the ringer. Ugh, why are you even bringing this up when it’s the least important thing we could possibly be talking about?”

Red barked a short laugh. “You’re supposed to be the observant one, take a guess.”   

“It almost sounds like you’re trying to goad me into sharing my novel with you but I can only assume its to make fun of me more.”

“Hey, just because the paperback business is more my bro’s wheelhouse doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good smut on my own, even if our tastes differ.”

“It’s not just smut, its a novel.”

“An erotic novel.”

“If you want to see it you have to try better than this to win me over,” Stretch complained, sounding younger with his whining. Sometimes you forgot he wasn’t an older sibling, but was in fact the youngest of all the skeletons you knew.

“What the hell ya want me to say, pretty please? I thought you’d want someone who isn’t a critic to get a crack at your stuff. I’m not stuffy like the others.”

“You mean your standards are lower?”

“Look, I enjoy my junk food plenty. Don’t mean I can’t also appreciate a fancy plate when it’s offered to me, but I’m not obsessed with only the best. I like plenty of stuff so just let me see your shitty first draft or don’t. I don’t care.”

There was a short beat of silence before you heard Stretch shifting in his seat. Then, “I can send you the pdfs. Is your email still the same?”

“Yeah, sure, that’d be great.”

You wanted to laugh but fighting back your grin was hard enough so you forced yourself out of the hallway and into the living room where they could see you. “What would be great?” you asked innocently, knowing well and good that Stretch was still trying to be secretive about his infamously bad smut novel to you. He knew you knew about it but knowing and admitting are two different things.

Stretch turned to smile up at you but there was the inevitable flush of magic high on his cheek bones that he pretended didn’t exist. “Oh nothing,” he casually dismissed while reaching for you with grabby hands. “You were gone a little too long though, I miss you.”

Classic distraction tactic, one day it wouldn’t work so well on you but it was not today. You knelt down on the floor next to Stretch and let him pull you into his lap, wrapping you up. You had to admit it was one of the nicest feelings ever when he draped his arms around you and caged you in; better than any weighted blanket.

“Oh good, hold ‘er there.” Rd scooted off the edge of the couch and knelt down in front of you to feed you more nuts from his bowl, chuckling when you at first refused the pampering, only to give in with a little coaxing.

“I feel like you’re trying to distract me out of my bad mood from earlier,” you said around a mouthful of food.

“Is it working?” Red asked while Stretch’s arms hugged at your shoulders a little tighter.

Splendidly,” you begrudgingly admitted.

You looked up when you heard the front door but it was a minute or so before Blue emerged, carrying with him a pair of reusable shopping bags and sporting a fancy pair of taped on aviators he didn’t need.

“You’re home early,” Stretch said first, perking up. “Something come up at work?”

“I’m taking the rest of the day off,” Blue proudly declared. “I promised Dusk and Jack I would help them with renovations tomorrow but had an excellent idea that I just needed to take off for so I could see them sooner. Excuse me then,” Blue set his things down and then stepped around Red to kneel down and nuzzle the side of your face. “I was hoping I could steal you away for a little bit this afternoon.”

“Me? I mean sure, I had plans to hang out with Jack and Dusk tomorrow but I doubt they’d mind  me coming a little earlier.”

Red snorted fondly so you sent him a look. “What, you think those two least of us would mind a visit. I’m sure they’d do backflips for the privilege if they could.”

“I can do all the backflips for us,” Blue interjected, popping onto his feet. He then offered you his hand which you accepting with the intention of standing up. When Blue tugged you up Stretch came too, curled around you like a koala bear.

“Stretch?” you snorted.

“I haven’t gotten my fill yet and you’re strong.”

“You’re more needy than usual,” Blue laughed, “but I don’t mind it. You can come up to my room with us too if our lover doesn’t mind.”

“Then I’ll head back down to see if Rus needs any more help. I’ll call if I need your help, string bean,” Red said, pointing his finger guns over at your skeleton backpack boyfriend. “Hang in there, friend.”

Then with a shortcut and a blink he was gone.

You wrapped your arms underneath Stretch’s legs, keeping them hiked up over your hips and snug against your back, then turned to follow Blue up to his room.

A while back you remembered the pair planning on buying their own place to live, which was one of the reasons Stretch took up his job at the chemical plant in the first place. Yet when you walked in to either of their rooms they looked too well adjusted and too moved in to imagine them disentangling themselves from the property any time soon. Also, Stretch and Blue were both consistent figures in the lives of the kids, it would be hard adjusting to that change.

Black’s house was more than big enough for everyone to have their own corner without personalities and elbows rubbing too often. Last you heard he was thinking of adding another wing so the kids could have more study and play places. There was even mentions of an art room you were interested in hearing more about.

Blue led you to his room and once you stepped inside he was kind enough to use blue magic to shut the door behind you quietly. He tugged his aviators off and set them along with his bomber jacket atop the neatest end of his work desk. When he turned back around to look at you his smile wavered at the sight of his brother stuck on you.

“Did something happen to make you this clingy or is this your new normal?” Blue laughed at his brother, hands on his hips.

“Don’t complain if you’re jealous, just be honest,” Stretch teased over your shoulder.

You bent backwards over Blue’s bed and released Stretch’s legs before moving your hands to his arms around your shoulders, loosening them as well. He fell backwards after a few extra seconds of stubborn clinging, bouncing harmlessly atop the mattress and sheets. Blue’s soft laughter drew your attention as he watched from the desk, arms crossed.

“You sure they don’t need your help on the assembly?” Blue asked.

“They can get by without me.”

“That wasn’t what I asked,” Blue gently corrected.

Stretch made a face but then rolled off the edge of the bed and stood up to his full height. He brushed out some of the wrinkles from his hoodie before winking down at you. Before you could think to move he stole a kiss and then was gone in a shortcut of his own. The static feeling was still on your lips, leftover from his magic.

“Don’t get too star struck, I’m still right here,” Blue said, reaching for your hands with eyesights that were already spinning into shapes.

“You did not just pun at me, did you?”

“Absolutely not, I would never,” he snickered.

You let him hold your hand and stood in silence, enjoying his company until it feel right to break it. “I’ve been worried about plenty these days so maybe I’m just projecting, but is there something bugging you, Blue?”

He glanced up from where he had been staring at your knuckles and flushed. “You think something is off with me?”

You swallowed, inching closer. “Am I wrong?” you asked while moving your face closer to the side of his skull. He pressed closer and your lips touched smooth bone.

“I don’t think I could hide anything from you even if I wanted to,” he sighed, voice dropping an active as his eye sockets turned heavy while his eye lights glowed brighter than ever. When you glanced up you saw their shapes were upside down hearts.

“So what is it?” you asked while teasing his neck with your kisses. He leaned away just enough to give you better access and you moved closer, feeling a rare streak of predatory satisfaction when he reached out to grab at your shirt like a lifeline.

Blue pulled you down on top of him instead of answering and you let things naturally progress until he was ready to face you with the truth.

“I want you to spar with me,” Blue admitted at last. He reached over and brushed a gloved palm over your ruined eye, gentle and affectionate. “I’ve been training and working towards it, so I want to show off a little to you and remind myself I’m not as terrible as I think.”

You propped yourself up on one elbow and glanced down at him, skull cushioned by a wrinkled pillow. “A spar? Sure, I’d be more than happy to oblige, but we’d have to go somewhere with a bit more cover. You heard I’m under house arrest until that bill nonsense is resolved, right? I can’t go out so easily anymore or show off my fire magic. People aren’t all willing to believe it’s a trick anymore.”

“I already asked Dusk and Jack if we could use the woods behind their property. It’s as rural as we need it to be, plus there will be someone nearby in case things get out of hand or one of us gets hurt.”

You sat up a little more, realizing how much this had been bothering Blue. You could recognize it in his tone now, in the way he watched you when he spoke. Wordlessly, you shut your good eye and reached for his hand, placing it over your chest where your soul would be.

“You can pull it out, can’t you?”

Blue almost flinched but you held onto him. Instead of pulling away he sat up and leaned in a little closer. “I can, but what for?”

“I want you to hold it. I’ll spar with you and we can go together, but that’s all beside the point. Here, I’m here right now so hold it in your hands.” When you opened your eye to gauge his reaction you weren’t surprised by the fuzzy shape of his eye lights.

Blue ducked his face, as if hiding from you, but then you felt the gentle tug of your soul coming forward, the heat of it emerging from your chest and settling in his cupped hands. You still couldn’t see it with your human eyes, but you knew it was there. You could feel Blue holding you and almost cried at how tender and exposed the new position was. You but your lip and grabbed a hold of his shirt, hangin on as he held your essence in his hands.

“I love you so much,” he whispered to your soul. “Thank you for loving me. I won’t betray this trust.”

He brushed his thumbs over the edges of you once, twice, before pushing your soul back into your chest. You felt it sink into place like a weighted stone. Like a puzzle with all its pieces, you felt whole again, just in time to be smothered with kisses from a very handsy skeleton.

 

The pair of you walked the whole way up to Dusk and Jack’s house, using the better part of an hour to make it there on foot without running. Neither of you were in a hurry to exhaust yourselves before your spar and it was, admittedly, nice to take a leisurely stroll through the rural woods between here and there.

Blue spotted Jack first with his keen sight but it wasn’t long before you could see the tallest skeleton of your family. He was wearing the cutest brass spectacles and a gardening jacket. He looked like he had been planting if the dirty patches on his knees was any indicator.

“I’M SO GLAD TO FINALLY SEE YOU. I HAD BEEN EXPECTING YOU TO SHOW UP A LITTLE EARLIER AND WORRIED IT WAS MY VISION AT FAULT AGAIN.” Jack touched the side of his brass spectacles to make sure they were straight and secured with colorful washi tape.

“You look dashing,” you complemented casually, reaching for one of his hands. The moment your hand made contact Jack lit up light a light, blushing with pale magic that only added to his darling features.

“THANK YOU!” Jack rattled out, sounding more put together in spite of how he seemed to still fluster at the slightest advances. “I LIKED TO THINK SO TO, WHICH WAS WHY I PICKED OUT THIS LOOK IN THE FIRST PLACE. IT IS ALWAYS GOOD TO HAVE ONE’S TASTES VALIDATED BY ANOTHER TRUSTED PERSON.” He was so shy, even after all these months he was still such a sweetheart of a marshmallow lover.

“Certainly,” Blue cheered in agreement. “If you don’t mind though I was hoping to speak with Dusk. Is he in or…”

“OH NO, HE’S ALREADY OFF BUT YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO FIND HIM EASILY IF YOU JUST FOLLOW THE BIRD WATCHING PATH THERE.” Jack pointed to the path behind their house in between the trees. “HE WROTE DOWN YOUR REQUEST BUT ONLY JUST REMEMBERED TO READ HIS NOTES SO HE’S STILL PICKING OUT A PLACE BUT I DON’T THINK IT WILL TAKE HIM MUCH LONGER.”

“Excellent. I should head out that way and be back in plenty of time. Wait for me here, dearest and I should be back shortly,” Blue said with a casual lean in to catch the side of your face and brush his teeth against your cheekbone. You made a happy sound and then he was off, heading down the pointed out path.

“WOULD YOU LIKE A LIGHT SNACK BEFORE THE OTHER RETURN? I HEARD YOU WANTED SPACE FOR A SPAR BUT I FIND FIGHTING ALWAYS INSPIRES AN APPETITE.” Jack tugged your hand towards the house, eye lights blown a little wider with hope.

“I actually just had food not too long ago but a drink or some snacks would actually be amazing right now. Jack, you think of everything, thank you.”

With only a hint of mischievousness you leaned on his arm and stared up through your lashes, smiling in a way that made him fluster again. It took a lot of self control to keep from giggling at his reactions. You loved him dearly but teasing him was such a dire temptation you had to fight down.

Hand in lovable hand the two of you made your way inside and you sat up on the counter, watching as Jack prepared a kettle for tea while arranging a party plate with a few different treats, taking care to make the platter to his artistic preferences. But arranging the cookies didn’t take long and eventually he was left to awkwardly stand in the middle of the kitchen, watching the kettle for when it would be ready. You noticed when he didn’t move towards you or look up and recognized it for what it was.

“Jack,” you called softly, swinging your legs and extending a hand. He hesitated, but bowed his head and shyly stepped closer, letting your hand catch him at his elbow. You tugged him a little closer and then closer still when he didn’t get the hint.

“You Are Sure You Are Not Hungry?” he shyly chuckled, coloring beautifully with magic.

You only hummed low and non committal before tugging him down so that your lips could reach at his jaw. He made a soft squeak like sound at the contact and you heard the rest of him rattling.

“You’re so precious,” you cooed against the side of his skull. “I love your face.”

“Th-h-he Tea…” he rattled out, shivering and heating with magic from your simple touches. You made sure your fingers were like feathers running up and down his arms.

“I’d rather have you right now. I’m not pushing past your boundaries in any uncomfortable ways, am I?” You wanted to tease him so badly but not badly enough to make him truly uncomfortable. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

His hands went to your waist and his face buried into your neck, nuzzling against your jaw as the rest of his shuddered in starved affection. “Don’t,” he mumbled. “Stay, Please.”

“Of course. Don’t feel like you don’t deserve this affection. I love you, remember? This is me showing it. I want to spoil you and tease you but I don’t want t go where I’m not wanted or do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”

“You Couldn’t.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t care about making sure. I had a feeling you were the affectionate type and could use a little more contact.”

Jack chuckled into your shoulder but didn’t directly comment other than to pull you closer. For a while the two of you stayed like that until the tea kettle’s screams tugged Papyrus off you to the counter. You pulled down the mugs as Papyrus added a small cup of milk and a smaller thing of creamer to his tea platter. You followed him out when he called for you to follow him and saw a table outside, in the middle of his flora garden. It was shaded nicely and set up perfectly for two. That’s where the two of you lingered, talking casually while waiting for Blue and Dusk to return.

“YOU SHOULD STAY OVER FOR A FEW DAYS I THINK. I-THIS IS NOT AN UNDERHANDED ATTEMPT ON MY PART TO MONOPOLIZE YOUR ATTENTION, BUT WE’RE THE MOST REMOVED FROM THE PUBLIC AND FAR MORE SECLUDED THAN THE OTHERS.”

“I wouldn’t think less of you if you admitted to wanting to monopolize me a little,” you teased back, knowing he had the best reactions.

Predictably he sputtered at first but then, surprisingly, he bowed his head a little and mumbled under his breath. “It Might Be Nice To Monopolize You.”

You were a little surprised by strongly the urge took hold in your soul. But you wanted to push Jack down and smother him in kisses. This skeleton deserved more love and affection. You had put down your teacup and was halfway out of your seat before a shout from behind made you pause. When you turned around you saw Blue and Dusk coming out of the woods.

“We found the perfect spot to train and this one doesn’t have any bird nests for us to disturb so we can let loose without a worry!” Blue cheered.

You turned halfway around and leaned in to whisper. “I’m going to pick this up when I get back. Don’t forget I’m spending the night now.”   

“WHAT?”

But you were jogging across the field to catch up to Blue and Dusk.

Dusk pushes past Blue to stand in your way and accept your attention first. You don’t miss the professional set of binoculars hung around his neck, a peace offering gift from Black you had helped pick out. It looked like he was using them well.

He said your name and you let him fold you up into a hug that Blue held back from joining. Dusk’s arms had always felt safe and you never wanted to turn down his touch. Who you pulled back he pawed at your hair, cataloging all the minor changes you had gone through since he saw you last. You didn’t think there was anything for him to see-it had only been a couple of days-but sometimes that was the reason. It was less about looking for changes and more about confirming you were you.

“You found a place for us to fight?” you asked, looking up into his bloated red eye.

“A place to spar,” Blue gently interjected. You just stuck your tongue out at him and then turned your attention back to Dusk.

“yeah,” he admitted after a short while. “….not far from here, actually.” He then took your hand and tugged you behind him, into the dense woods.

In very little time the three of you found the space Blue and Dusk had picked out. It was perfect with just enough difficult terrain to make things interesting. A few fallen trees were littered across the space, giving you ideas for what you could do to make the environment work for you.

You paced out ahead of Blue and turned to make sure he knew you were warming up. Dusk had moved off to the side and was in between the trees, stalking from the shadows but still attentive to what was going on.

“You just about ready?” Blue called out, manifesting a huge war hammer out of magic.

He swung it once, twice, and then turned it over his knuckles. It was so heavy at the end and almost comical in its size, but he swung it like it was nothing. There were few who were as fast as Blue, you forced yourself to remember. Yes, he could hit plenty hard, but his speed was also a huge issue for you. You were still human, after all.

“Let’s see,” you teasingly called back before stretching your hands up over your head and popping the bones in your back. Even at a distance you caught the way Blue had to sharply inhale at the sound and relished the reaction.

You let your magic loose inside you, tentative at first, but then overestimated your control and ended up flaring with stray tongues of fire escaping through the vents in your skin. You countered quickly, searching for that elusive balance. What once had been second nature was now a conscious effort. You had to be careful and measure out your magic tentatively.

Your body darkened like soot from a fire and you nodded encouragingly. “Let’s see what you’ve got,” you called out with a tone just as daring as your eyes.

You were surprised when the first swing came and it missed you by a mile, until the blowback tired off the skin from your arms when you braced to cover your eyes. Blue had smashed his war hammer down on one of the fallen trees and completely pulverized it, sending splinters and starts of wood out in all directions. You were blinded for a moment, but had to move before you could see anything when you felt his intent zip close.

Blind, you jumped back out of the way, trailing harmless fire.

“You have excellent senses,” Blue called out in a sweet voice that didn’t match the crater he left in the ground. “You could tell where I was even without you human sight.”

You laughed nervously. “I have to be at least this good to keep up with you.”

“Oh, are you going to take me seriously or are you content with only ‘keeping up’ with me?” he taunted with his perfect, sweet smile and sweet voice. It sent shivers down your spine, but not in a bad way.  Blue’s power levels were no joke. You were sure of it now, he was both stronger and faster than you.

Perched atop the highest point of a felled tree you summoned a halo of fire in front of your hand. It spun and spread out into a star. At each of it’s points a blade formed and you shot each one Blue’s way, completely unsurprised when they all missed spectacularly. It wasn’t that your aim was bad, but he was just too fast. It was like he wasn’t even there.

But that’s fine-you only needed them to give you enough time to manifest your flames into something else.

Like a rocket ship at liftoff, the force thrust you upwards until you were high enough that you caught yourself with a new pair of wings, split into four different points to keep you aloft. You were high up enough that you were hopefully out of Blue’s range-

A bone attack speared your shoulder and while it was magical, it left phantom pains in your body before disappearing, only to be replaced with another bone attack that caught you in the hip. Another one hit your chest. You felt yourself falling and struggled to right yourself before impacting. The best you could do was wrap yourself up in feathers and flames and accept the impact for what it would be.

When you climbed up out of your own personal creator Blue wasn’t smiling anymore. Was he disappointed with you? Had you failed to impress him? Were you really so pathetic?

“I’m not out yet,” you warned, shaking off the injuries.

“I should hope so. You haven’t even begun to fight,” he said before pointing at your face. “Why haven’t you manifested any of those horns of yours or am I not worth the effort?”

“Really,” you sighed out, feeling some of the tension ease from your body. “I need to be quicker on the uptake.”

Blue wasn’t going to hold back so you shouldn’t either. Anything less would just be an insult.

The space under your feet erupted and it was near blinding, but you wouldn’t be able to tell since a horn had manifested over your eyes in the shape of a visor. Two other horns curled back, thinning to a deadly point. Your whole body was flame and it almost took you by surprise how fast the transformation went. That was quicker-ever since your soul recovered from the soul pin-everything had gotten a little quicker and hit a little harder.

“Come,” you called, beckoning with your hand.

Blue defended and you caught the pole of his war hammer, bracing under it as the force of his swing forced you down into the earth. The ground cratered under your feet but you had managed to stop his main attack.

But then he was kicking your feet out from under you and there were bone projectiles you needed to avoid, so you let go and rolled away. The war hammer split apart with magic and you had to duck and weave as two smaller hammers wing at your from opposing angles. He was fast and with two smaller weapons you were forced to flicker, intangible in your flame form, through the attacks you couldn’t dodge in time. Going intangible had a huge downside though.

“There you are!” Blue cheered before taking aim and nearly missing your soul which was now obvious in its location.

You opened your mouth and fire came roaring out, spraying wide. Blue had to backtrack to create distance and in that distance you manifested a new weapon, cracking it against the air in warning. Blue grinned at the fire whip but didn’t stay far for long. With the whip you had reach and speed that even Blue had to be careful about.

He threw projectiles your way while running wildly around your strikes. You had to readjust to  what he threw while also aiming with your whip, trailing fire in the places where you anticipated him running. You nicked his clothing at one point and he had to shed his outer jacket when it caught with magical fire.

He ran up the length of a fallen log but your next strike wasn’t for him. When he reached the low point you smashed down the high end and flung Blue up into the sky like a child caught on the wrong end of sea saw. He was flung upwards and unable to run to avoid your attacks. He’d fall the same as anyone else but this was your chance!

You collected a bead of magic between your eyes and Blue saw the moment you had him in his sights, collecting bones to put between himself and you for a shield. The bead grew with layer after layer of hastily added magic that wouldn’t do as much damage as it normally would. You loved Blue and didn’t want to kill him, after all. You had to pull back some of your magic from the layers and only pour a fraction into the attack, but before it could swell and launch-

AHGHHH!”

The bead detonated right in front of your face and you were thrown backwards. The bone visor over your eyes shattered and you tumbled, ankles over ass, backwards through the dirt and into the trunk of a nearby tree. Your flaming exterior flickered and the world went sideways as you teetered in and out of focus.

You caught sight of Blue’s war hammer up high above you and then there was something bigger, pushing Blue back with animalistic rage. The shadow hulk hunched over your form and the deep rumbling was what you recognized as growling.

Why had your HP gone down so much? When had Blue hit your soul?

Blue was putting away his huge hammer and speaking quickly, trying to calm down Dusk who was crouched over you. Your other two horns hadn’t dropped but you didn’t feel like fighting anymore so you let them drop and turned your face into the grass, inhaling for a sense of security. The world was spinning and you needed to get right. Absently, you reached out and pawed at Dusk, grabbing at his arm so that he would turn away from Blue. This wasn’t him, this was just a reflex.

“I’m fine,” you moaned into the dirt. “I just was stupid.”

Dusk turned around and grabbed at your, picking you up like a rag doll and folding you up into his arms. His face was close to yours, nuzzling the side of your cheek.

“What happened?” Blue asked, sounding panicked. “I saw the explosion but that should have been meant for me.”

“It was, it-I just lost control of it. I was holding more magic back than I was putting in and I got to my limit so it decided to blow up in my face,” you explained, realizing the truth of the matter as you explained it.

“You looked like you really took a hit there, it dropped your HP by well more than half,” Blue explained, still sounding hesitant.

You felt back that your spar had been interrupted so spectacularly. Holding back shouldn’t have been something that gave you so much trouble. “Sorry,” you whispered over the edge of Dusk’s arm. “I used to be able to do that much but I guess I was off. Since…the soul pin incident I haven’t had a good handle on my actual magic levels.”

“Don’t apologize. I don’t intent to regret my choices either. This wasn’t anyone’s fault.” Blue made a worried sound and then reached for your face when Dusk didn’t make a move to stop him from drawing closer. “I’m only glad you weren’t hurt more.”

When Dusk made an unhappy sound you pat at the side of his face and then held up a thumb to match your lopsided smile. “You know what they say about fights and flying…anything you can walk away from…”

“no more walking for you.”  Dusk started to walk past Blue, heading in the direction you had just come from. “now is time for rest.”

“Do you have monster candy at the house?” Blue asked, walking astride his larger counterpart. You wished you could see it from a different angle because it had to be comical-the largest and smallest Sans walking side by side. Oh, wait, you had seen that earlier, when they came out of the woods…yeah, you might have hurt your head worse than you thought.

“mmm, candy and…paps can make food.”

Blue didn’t correct his counterpart about the name since he knew what Dusk meant.

You were carried the rest of the way back and, predictably, Jack was a downright tizzy mess when he saw the state you were coming back in. You had never seem him glare at anyone before but when he looked over at Blue it was borderline murderous. You had to hurry and explain that it wasn’t Blue’s fault, that it was your own damn magic going off in front of your face that made your HP drop so drastically.

“YOU SHOULD ALSO SLEEP SOME,” Jack said after feeding you monster candy and a sandwich. “I DON’T FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH YOU LEAVING HERE IN SUCH A STATE, SO EVEN IF YOU NEED SOMETHING LIKE A TOOTHBRUSH OR SHOES, STAY HERE. SOMEONE ELSE CAN BRING THEM FOR YOU OR WE CAN MAKE DO WITH WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE.”

“Sure, sure, I’m fine. I just need a little downtime,” you laughed, feeling more embarrassed than sore after finishing your food. “It’s cool if we just watch reruns on tv together? It’s not like I have anywhere I can go, always.”

Dusk didn’t answer with words, but picked you up from behind and carried you with him to the opposite couch, sinking down into it before tossing the throw blanket over both of you. You were caught between his legs, back flush with his chest, one heavy arm draped across your front like the safety bar on a rollercoaster to keep you in place.

Jack snickered at the sight and Blue hid his smile behind his hand.

“I’ll check with the rest then and see if there is anything else you need before bringing it back. You should have a bag here though, don’t you?”

“I’ve got my toothbrush and a change of clothing so I’m fine. I don’t need anything else that can’t wait another day.” You waved to Blue and when he was close enough you grabbed at his shirt and pulled his skull down to kiss on the cheek. “Love you.”

Blue turned his skull for a better kiss and you braced against Dusk’s back, tasting the tingles of his magic. “Love you too,” he whispered before leaving.

You watched him leave but even before he was out the door you could tell Dusk was grumpy about something. You looked up and saw his sockets half lidded, his bloated eye light spinning in absent thought. “Kiss?” you softly called out, wondering if he was upset about Blue’s received affection.

Dusk just tugged you closer and bowed his skull against yours. He was much taller and far larger than you so it might have been an awkward angle, but you didn’t mind.

“MY BROTHER PROBABLY FEELS THE SAME WAY. YOU DON’T LET LOVED ONES OUT OF THE HOUSE WHEN THEY LOOK LESS THAN THEIR BEST. I SHARE HIS ANXIETIES IN THIS, THOUGH I RECOGNIZE HOW IRRATIONAL THEY MAY BE ON THE SURFACE.” Jack knelt down on the floor next to the couch and offered you another monster candy-this one less to heal you and more to treat your tastebuds. His thumb brushed over your bottom lip causing your eyes to look back up at his face. “UNTIL YOU ARE BETTER, JUST DON’T LEAVE OUR SIGHT. WE KNOW YOU’RE QUITE CAPABLE BUT STILL, THIS WOULD DO A LOT TO GIVE US PEACE OF MIND.”

“Of course,” you promised. "I'm not going anywhere."

 

Elsewhere, Blue had made it back to the main house in time for early diner preparations, but the kitchen was empty. He could hear the kids playing upstairs, but didn’t sense Black with them. Rus was downstairs and that was to be expected, but…not the others.

“Rus?” Blue called out before descending the stairs to the basement. “Bro, Sans, what are you all still doing here?”

Red blinked in a second later with his brother and Blue was surprised when he noticed Black in a different corner, typing away on his phone. Something was off, Blue could tell just from the atmosphere.

“You’re here, we were just about to text you,” Stretch said, jogging over to his brother.

“Why are we all gathered here? Something happened, didn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Stretch admitted.

“Maybe?” Blue narrowed his eye lights at his baby brother.

“Get over here and see it for yourself,” Sans called out, interrupting Blue’s stare down.

Most of them were huddled in front of a huge monitor that was being fed data from a bulky computer system underneath it. There were readings with numbers and coordinates in quadrants that Blue couldn’t understand in any way that mattered. He knew whatever it was had to be important judging by how it made Red grimace, but it didn’t give him any more clues. Blue glanced up at Edge who looked just as lost in front of all the numbers.

“What is this?” Edge hissed.

“Those are the readings from the probs, bro,” Red explained before anyone else could.

“I gathered that much on my own, but what do they say?”

This time it was Rus who spoke up. “It means we’re out of time. We don’t need the other probes because things are already gathering.” He pushed away from his primary computer and the news feed was one of a human reporting on ‘strange weather conditions’ around Mt Ebott. There should have still been plenty of daylight left but it looked like night and no one could tell how or why.

Blue knew what this meant.

They were out of time.

Hightower had made his move.

 

 

  Things were going to end where they started

Notes:

So, who thinks the boys are going to share this information with their wounded lover and who are going to just do something about it themselves? I'm curious to hear what you may think.

Always a little bittersweet to add chapters to this last part, but I'm very passionate about this fic having an ending and completing it's 'plot mountain' journey so it can stand on its own as a completed fic.

I really hope you liked this. The last 3K was hastily added this morning, so I'm running out of steam and time, but I have some days off from work coming soon, so we should be good. Fingers crossed I can keep this up. ;)

Chapter 82: Real Ones 10

Notes:

Some body horror elements and fight elements in this chapter

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

It was a hot second before anyone said anything more. The air in the room seemed different as the full force of how royally screwed they all were settled on their skeletal shoulders. If it was only the short notice that would still be terrible, but there was more than just that working against the skeletons.

“You said sweetheart wasn’t feeling well?” Red asked, sounding unsure.

“We were training earlier,” Blue explained, glancing around the room at everyone who was still listening. Rus was still semi distracted by his computer data and Black was texting in the far corner but his posture wasn’t so withdrawn that all were convinced the ornery papa wasn’t listening in. “She was having a hard time controlling her magic and the blowback left her in sour sorts.”

Whadaya mean she was having trouble with ‘er magic?” Red asked, voice rising.

“I meant exactly what I said, that she lost control of her magic during our spar. She tried using it for an attack and it blew up in her face, okay? It wasn’t serious but she’s resting with Dusk and Jack right now.

That didn’t sound right and Red couldn’t shake how wrong the words felt echoing in his ear holes. Sure, he was willing to believe that maybe you had made a mistake with your magic and maybe gotten hurt in a spar-it happened to the best of fighters every once in a while. However, it was hard to picture you miscalculating the weight of your own magic for an attack. Hadn’t you had your magic for years and years and years? You had fought with it before and done plenty well for yourself. Was there something Blue wasn’t admitting?

“Yeah, well I’ve seen ‘er fight and that sounds like a load of shit,” Red grumbled, glancing back at the multiple screens. His hands itched and he wanted to scratch at his bones but he kept himself from the least of his bad habits.  “She was just fine while sparring with Edge last time. Sweetheart’s a fighter, one of the best. It couldn’t have been so bad if she walked it off.”

Blue bristled at the volume, reacting like he was the one being accused of something. “I’m not saying this to belittle her, I’m just telling you what happened. I know she’s strong, that’s why I wanted to spar with her in the first place.”

“Well its not like we could get to the city right now if we wanted to anyway,” Stretch interrupted, standing up behind his brother. “Remember when we had to drive down for that appointment with the Embassy personal?”

“That was just the cover story for our real objective,” Black scoffed, clicking off his phone’s home-screen to rejoin the group. “I remember our exercise in reconnaissance well enough. What merit does that have for us now?”

“Its the distance,” Sans answered before Stretch could say anything. He had one hand up in the air with his pointer finger extended. “Ebott is too far away to reach in a single shortcut. Jumping that far would require too deep a penetration into the void which is why we drove half of the way there.”

This wasn’t news to Red. He had been reckless more than once inside the void, abusing its abilities while overestimating his own. The only other skeleton that could possibly give him a run for his money when it came to manipulating shortcuts and void magic was probably Sans, and even then it was a tough call. Red knew he could last longer in the void and hold himself there, like a coiled spring that refused to be ejected. Sans had the benefit of more lifetimes lived and more years above ground, as well as a deeper well of magic, but Red knew he was the one who could subjugate the void better than anyone else.

The question was…would it be enough? 

“It ain’t impossible, just risky,” Red said after another beat when he realized no one else had said anything else.

“Risky and tricky,” Stretch corrected before glancing subtly over at Black. “Not everyone has such perfect control over their shortcutting capabilities.”

“My skills are flawless and just as developed as any of yours,” Black snapped, clicking his heels together.

“Maybe for a solo jump, but we’d be carrying passengers. And that ain’t accounting for how drained we’d be once we popped out of the other side.” Stretch waved his arm out and gestured to the group. “Sure, even if we gave it everything we had and jumped without baggage, we could make it there only to collapse on the spot from overtaxing our magic. We’d be no good to anyone like that.”

“We were supposed to plan this out after finishing the extra probes,” Sans explained. “Right now we don’t have a good answer to the problem. We don’t know how to get there in the shortest amount of time while maintaining our reserves of magic, and we don’t know what we’re up against. Let’s tackle those now. Rus?”

The called upon skeleton looked up from his monitors. “Yeah?”

“You still remember how to shortcut, don’t you?” Sans asked.

Rush shared a look with his brother and something cautious was communicated in that look. “Yeah, why?”

“You can power the jump we all take then hang out here, monitoring the situation or sleeping off the effects of such a magic drain,” Said Sans.

Black surged forward to stand in front of Sans, blocking the other Skelton’s view of his brother and the computer monitors. “That’s not a safe option. Powering a jump for so many people for such a long jump is not something I can sign off on. The strain could dust a lesser monster.”

“I don’t think your brother would qualify as a less-”

Irrelevant,” Black snapped before Sans could finish saying anything more. “Even if the risk is low it is not zero so I can’t consent to such foolhardiness.”

“Then what if it was a split jump?” Stretch offered. “Each of us powered the jump a little while Rus feeds it as much as he is able. Maybe we don’t show up with full bars but it would be better than nothing. We could take food with us, that would help too. Bro,” Stretch looked to his brother, Blue, “Your magic and HP both recover the quickest out of all of us so you could take a bigger fraction. What do you think?”

Red watched the spark of eagerness transform Blue’s whole demeanor. “Absolutely! That’s as good of a plan we can get and it’s enough to see us through!”

“Hold your horses, cowboy, there are more lose ends. I haven’t heard back from the Gaster clan on this,” said Sans. “They were supposed to be the ones who would feed us more tailed data about breaches and the things we needed to go up against since they had all their probes finished.”

“I’m not unwilling to go in blind, I’ve done more with less and I’m willing to take the risk,” Edge spoke up, sounding confident in spite of his prolonged silence.

Red knew his brother was a smart guy, Edge had a knack for visual puzzles and strategy. He didn’t enjoy it anymore, but the war games like that board game Risk were games he did well in.

Once they were on the ground with enemies in front of them, he wanted to be next to his brother, knowing that no one else would be able to do so much with so little. Even if Edge was drained and out of magic, he’d still be dangerous enough with his hands and his teeth. More than once Edge had proven that to lesser fools.

Black stood up a little straighter and sidestepped to be parallel with Edge, facing Sans and the rest of the group. “That goes double for me. Regardless of the details, I’m not willing to sit this one out or delay it by one bit. There’s less time to lose the longer we stand around here jabbering.”

“What about sweetheart?” Red spoke up. No one said any thing in response but plenty turned to look his way.

“What are you asking about?” Blue’s face looked scrunched with confusion.

Red bristled again. “Obviously I’m asking what we were planning on doing about sweetheart. Who’s gonna bring her here?”

“You’re not suggesting we take her along with us now?” Blue gaped. “I just told you she wasn’t well.”

“She’s strong. I’m sure it wasn’t that bad. If we left without her it would devastate ‘er in the morning.” Red looked to his brother for backup. “She’d want the opportunity to make things safe for her family too. We can’t just leave her behind.”

“We can if she’s incapacitated,” Black interjected. “If a solider needs rest and their commander forces them out onto the field again its only because they need a body to take a bone shard for them, not because they believe in the solider.”

Stretch put a hand on his brother’s shoulder, providing more comfort before speaking up. “Couldn’t she sleep after this is all over.  Rus, you said there might be a delay before anything comes through.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Rus called back, answering Stretch’s question with only half his attention. On his screens were windows for the local news coverage, the probe readings, and message boards with rapid fire information. “The pattern hasn’t changed since it first emerged but that’s only been seventeen minutes of data. It could change in the next minute or not ever.”

“So is it worth bothering honey or not.”

“No,” Black cut in sharply. “If they’re resting we should leave her undisturbed.”

“Even if that’s not what she would have wanted?” Stretch huffed before reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out a smoke or something he could light up and suck on. He didn’t find what he was looking for, but pulled free a stick of pink colored rock candy. He hesitated a moment longer before ripping off the wrapper and sticking the rest into his mouth.

“You admitted as much yourself, that she’s strong,” Edge answered instead. “She’s capable of understand the reason behind our action. Plus, if you could think of the situations with our roles reversed, she wouldn’t hesitate to give us the care we needed. I say we let her rest.”

“Agreed,” Black echoed.

Boss,” Red groaned, not having expected for his brother to throw his support behind Blue’s suggestion. It made Red feel like he was the one acting like the bad guy in this situation, even though he knew what you reaction would be when you woke up and heard what they had done. You had such a spark and a fighter’s spirit. You would have been able to rally yourself together for one more adventure.

But…

“If boss ain’t in it I ain’t got a prayer to live on,” Red grumbled, throwing his hands up int the air.  “Fine, but you can’t make me the one who has to break it to her.”

“Worry not, I’m more than willing to have that conversation with her on my own,” Blue cheered, perking up with the favorable direction of their conversation.

“If she wants to come I ain’t stopping her either. Darlin knows herself best.”

Stretch and Blue shared a look between them that had Red thinking the weren’t exactly in agreement with his line of thinking but unwilling to do anything to disrupt it. They’d let him have this much.

“Moving on, what’s our timetable for this?” Black asked, waving his hand backwards in a dismissive gesture. “We should leave as soon as possible. I’ve called the kids out sick at school for the next few days so I din’t have an outstanding reason to hold back now.”

“I want to hear back from the Gasters, if we can-” Sans cut himself off suddenly when he felt the phone in his hand vibrate. “Speak of the devil,” he mutters under his breath before tapping open the messenger app to read the rest of the text. A few seconds later his face scrunched up and he started to type back. “It looks like they’re moving out with a similar plan. Dee is powering their jump and they’re taking Raven.”

“Did you let them know we-”

“Not enough time,” Sans said, cutting off Red. “We need to move fast if we want to catch up. At this rate we might even beat Papyrus there.”

Red recalled hearing earlier in the day how Papyrus had a meeting scheduled with a former representative of his in Ebott.  By now he’d be in the city already or close to it depending on when he left. Hopefully Sans had already contacted his brother to let the tall guy know where they were headed.

“Get ready, I’m telling the kids goodbye,” Black called out over his back, racing for the stairs.

“We’ll be in the living room!” Blue hollered back.

“Last few minutes, lets try to leave in ten,” Sans said, turning his face back to his phone, the messenger app already open and lit up with new activity.

The other started to disperse and even Edge turned around to head backup the stairs, but when Red saw. His brother had paused to wait for him he hurried over to Edge’s side. Edge didn’t say anything but the two shared a meaningful look before Edge nodded to the stairs and headed up first. Red followed behind, turning where Edge turned until the two of them were in the mud room right off the kitchen.

“Something rattling your bones, bro?” Red teased, shoving his hands into his short pockets.

“Nothing unexpected, but I thought I would ask about you.”

“Me?” Red was surprised about the shift in conversation. “What about me?”

Edge stared down at his brother a moment more before he spoke with measured words that wouldn’t travel far. “The last time you were so close to the void like this it had been traumatizing. I’ve seen you shortcut since then, but not as often and rarely without good reason.”

“Ain’t that what you’ve been yammering at me to do though?”

“Yes, because I wanted you to break away from your lazier habits, not because of any feelings of fear you might have.”

Red bristled. “I ain’t afraid.”

“I know you better than that, I know you’re very brave.”

Edge spoke so plainly with nothing but honesty it soothed all the agitation out of Red’s posture. His brother’s words made Red think back to something you had told him a long time ago, about how his soul felt like courage even though monsters weren’t supposed to have a soul trait like humans. You had said you felt orange in his soul, courage in his soul. It was almost laughable since he considered himself someone too lazy and cowardly to be brave. Plenty of things scared him.

“But you’re also afraid.”

Red didn’t have it in him to raise his hackles at his brother a second time so he just ground his teeth and held the retort back. “I ain’t following you here, bro. How’s this connected to anything we’re supposed to be doing?”

“You’re brave because you continue to do the things you need to regardless of how it frightens or terrorizes you. Shortcuts are harder for you, I don’t see you taking them to get from room to room or up the stairs, but you’ll shortcut to reach me or our mate. You’re brave because you’re scared and you still do the hard things.”

Red glanced away. “I’ve taken over a million shortcuts before. It doesn’t make sense to get scared of taking one more.”

“Fears don’t always have to make sense.” Edge glanced down at his gloves, narrowing his sockets as he glared at the shape of his hands when he made a fist. “Remembering how to heal taught that to me. Fears are a lot more nefarious than we first assumed, but that makes the overcoming all the more commendable.”

Red stared up at his brother, tall and fierce with battle scars and a fashion style just as sharp. It felt like both yesterday and a hundred years ago when Edge-his Papyrus had been a baby bones wearing stripes and getting into trouble with stolen comic books. They weren’t kids any long and Edge was an adult now, but sometimes it still took Red by surprise just how much Edge had grown up. He sounded like his therapist but better because when Edge said things they meant so much more than when they came from someone other than family.  Coming to the surface had changed both of them, but Edge was like a whole new monster…an honest one who didn’t have to hide behind the theatrical act of  tyrant captain to the king’s guard.

If Edge could grow up so could Red.

“Yeah, I’m not too keen about making such a heavy jump without sweetheart present,” Red admitted with his eye lights fixated on the floor while he lowered his voice. I know its not a big deal to anyone else and I get what Blue means about needing rest, but can’t help it. The soul won’t be quiet without ‘er here.”

“It’ll have to,” Edge urged. “You know as well as I that our lover is too precious to force out of a rest for something like this. She deserves to recover at her own pace but if she knew she'd force herself past her limits.”

“…i’ll miss ‘er.”

“It makes me anxious to be apart as well, I can understand your feelings, but brother,” Edge grabbed for Red’s shoulder and urged his brother to look up at him with that touch. “you’re not going into the void alone. We’ll be making this effort together and I’ll be there.” Edge gave a reassuring squeeze that got a smile out of Red-though it looked more like a lopsided grin. 

Red really felt like he had the coolest brother in the world. Edge was all hard edges and sharp points but his personality was good and true.-always had been . Even while living with the lie of their power dynamic to trick the royal guards, Papyrus had always been a sweetheart in the shadows where no one would be able to see.

“You always know the best things to say, bro.”

“Of course, Edge huffed, fitting his fists on either side of his hips to strike an intimidating pose. “One does not become great and terrible with mediocre life advice.”

“Five minutes, people!”  Blue called from the living room.

Red squared his shoulders and let Edge walk out first, following behind like a shadow, a little less hesitant to be as brave as he could.


The void fell away, burning like an exhausted fire but the air didn't change.  When Sans took his shortcuts there was always the plunge and then the emergence. The world around him was vastly different from the world he traveled through when he used the void to shortcut. He had expected that familiar shift and change, but when the group emerged from the void on the outskirts of the mountain's domain in Ebott, the air still felt thin and dark. 

It was subtle, not as pronounced exactly as the true void, but when Sans glanced around he could tell that even those who didn't normally shortcut could tell there was a difference. Edge and Blue were jumpy, searching for whatever it was that made the world they stepped into different from the one they left behind.

"What the hell is this?" Edge asked first, already manifesting his bone-hilt sword. Blue followed his lead, summoning his war hammer. 

Sans glanced up at the sky and saw how abnormally dark the clouds were, like some of them were painted black with ink while others drifted in shades of transparent gray. It wasn't exactly like the void in terms of color, but it was growing darker and darker, like that was its intention; a gradual descent into oblivion as opposed to the traditional fall. 

"Evacuation plans have already been put into place from the looks of it," Black interjected, pointing down to the city below where monster and human cops had already begun waving cars and people out in a orderly fashion.

 Plenty of people were lingering on the streets with their phones and cameras pointed to the sky.  Someone was pointing at the mountain and others were ignoring the sight, not yet concerned with the change or maybe to stubborn to admit it. 

"Why aren't the rest of them leaving to safety?" Blue asked, sounding surprised. "Humans and monsters both." 

"Monsters might have their own reasons but humans don't look like they all believe the situation to be dangerous," Edge scoffed. 

"As fer' them monsters, some of them probably don't want to leave no matter what comes out. Or maybe others don't wanna mingle with the traffic but that don't sound like the most important question to be asking right now." Red nodded back at the mountain. "Shouldn't we do what we came here to do?"

Black hesitated when he felt a buzz in his jacket's chest pocket. He paused to unzip the  pouch and pull out his phone clipping something onto the inside of his ear canal. It looked like a customized ear piece. With that in place he turned his phone on and then put it away. "GO," he barked with a rush of familiar magic in his voice.

"you got one more problem," Rus called out through the ear piece. Sans was close enough that he could overhear. "Looks like we get the seeds of a riot on our hands down below.  Someone has video footage of one of those mages heading up to the mountain and now they're running with the narrative that this is something the mages are doing in retaliation for the legislation in congress now." 

"Shit," Red cursed, seeing for himself the fights breaking out on corners. Oddly enough there were plenty of human protestors turning on their own as well as the police. Some monsters were mixed in there too while others turned tail and ran the other way. There was plenty of confrontation though.  

"Papyrus," Sans breathed to himself, already reaching for his own phone. His brother had to be nearby. If the former monster mascot was down there what-"

"Sans, look!" Blue urged, pointing to something he could see. 

"Is that Undyne?" Edge gasped.

"Can't be, she's in Japan now with her wife," Sans murmured, seeing for himself what the others were gaping at. Papyrus was on top of a police cruiser waving people down while behind him Undyne was controlling a chunk of crowd out of violence. The pair of them looked like a classic team, something Sans hadn't seen in years? "How?"

"Oh that?" Rus asked over the open channel he had with his brother. "I booked their flight tickets for them. They touched down early this morning. That's why Papyrus had to leave so early. Funny meeting this version of our royal scientist, she's more of a powerhouse. Said something about not wanting to miss out on all the action or something like that."

Sans could only laugh, feeling momentarily overwhelmed by how cool his brother was. Papyrus had been on top of all of this before Sans even knew what was going on. Even if he wasn't the official monster mascot, was a hero and no one could tell Sans otherwise. Papyrus was the coolest little brother there was. 

Somehow, impossibly, Papyrus looked up and even though they were so far away that the people looked like beans, Papyrus somehow found them and waved with a bright smile. Too far away to hear anything, Sans still understood what the gesture meant. Papyrus had this. They needed to go.

"We don't know how much time we have here," Sans said, pretending no one could hear the emotion in his voice or how wet his words came out sounding. He was allowed to feel proud of his little bro. 

"Agreed," Black chimed in. "Rus, continue to monitor the situation from your side. I'll keep this channel open so chime in whenever you need to." 

"Good, well it sounds like there might really be one of those mages in the cavern ahead of you if you decide to go that way. I verified the video evidence and its solid. Looks like that blond kid Everest. I don't have as much data on him."

"He was a favorite of Hightower's," Edge added, eye lights narrowed on the path ahead. "That can't be a good sign."  

"What, you thought this was going to be easy?" Blue playfully scoffed.

"Nah, just prefer it that way, Blueberry," Red teased back, standing up next to his brother. 

"Can't argue with that line of logic," Stretch chuckled, putting out his monster cigarette and inhaling the added magic. After Rus he had shouldered the bulk of the transportation. 

"Shall we then?" Black said, already marching forward. 

Shortcutting any closer wouldn't do them any good since they had to pick their way through the mountain brush until they could find a better path leading down to the famous entrance, a closely guarded city secret that had been a nightmare to keep hidden after the human ambassador's story went public. 

Sans took point, remembering vividly where the entrance was supposed to be and how covered up they had left it. So, when they got to the gaping maw of earth and realized they were in the right place his soul stuttered. There were plenty of tracks and footprints in the dirt around the site and obvious evidence of a scuffle. It looked like some of the earth had been blasted away and the makeshift door camouflaged was gone as well as much of the mountain. 

"That looks like an invitation," Black chuckled darkly. His hand flickered and a weapon materialized. 

"We got here first," Sans said aloud, noticing the lack of prints that would have belonged to the other skeletons in Gaster's group. 

"No excuse to keep them waiting," Edge grunted, already turning sideways to walk down the steep slope that fed into the entrance to the underground.

 Halfway down he began to grow obscured and Red called out for Edge to stop, realizing what it was. "That's where the void stuff is coming out. We gotta be careful here or else we could get-" 

 The rest of his sentence didn't have a chance to be heard as it was swallowed up by the echoing crack of some terrestrial thunder's boom. Like rocks shattering the sound made them all wince away from the source. When Red and Sans looked back down at Edge he was even harder to see even though he hadn't moved. 

"Its coming in thicker!" Stretch warned. 

Black cursed but then jumped to slide down sideways the rest of the slope. Blue was right behind him follow by Red. Sans and Stretch shared a look before bringing up the rear. 

What should have been a hole to the underground had bee carved out and transformed so utterly that the scar that had once been out of reach, something kids would pass as they fell onto piles of yellow flowers behind the ruins, now had platform access. Darkness drifted like fog, snake like and lazy the whole way there. 

Sans caught up to the rest of the group and together they rounded the bend to see where the scar had been. It was still there but it was swollen like an infected wound and leaking darkness from the void. At its base a boy who had only grown up physically stood with both hands raised. Sans saw the man but couldn't make sense of how that adult wasn't a kid when Everest turned and looked back at them. 

Everest was just as old as you or maybe older, but his hair was unnaturally white and his skin was bruised. Parts looked like they were dusting and Sans recognized the symptoms. In spite of his impending death Everest's eyes were clear with conviction-the blind sort of faith children had in their parents. What he was doing was wrong but Sans couldn't help but feel the gut punch when he saw Everest. 

Something had changed in Sans since his time in the underground and even since his depression cycle on the surface. He had been and would always be a judge, delivering justice and judgment to sinners when the need arose. The duty had made him paranoid and secretive as well as harsh and unforgiving. He didn't have the capacity for grace until he felt it for himself; forgiveness undeserved from both you and even his brother. 

Whatever Everest was doing, it was bad, bad, bad, and Sans was going to stop it, but he still felt pity for the kid.

"Step away from the scar!" Black barked out an order. 

Stretch stepped up and beside him a pair of skeleton cats with blasters in their mouths purred dangerously, lit from within.

Everest turned the rest of the way around to face them and they could see his empty chest. Where his heart and ribs should have been was a swirling vortex of void that was slowly eating up more and more of his body. At the center was the fragmented remains of his soul, being devoured to power whatever it was he was doing to the scar. 

His face, still so full of faith, stared straight past them as more of him was consumed. 

Black charged first, followed closely by Red.  Shadows swallowed up the violent red energy from Red's dragons shaped blaster while another whip of darkness caught Black's sword and swelled to push him back, away from the scar and the host body. Stretch sent out his cats too, running for the edges to attack from different angles, but there was plenty of darkness there to swallow their Gaster blasts as well.

And just in time. Sans saw the moment the last shard of Everest's soul was consumed, crushed down and swallowed like rock candy. 

The shockwave pushed them all back, sending them ankles over ass to the far corners of the cavern as the scar began to bleed ink instead of smoke. Out of the ink arms and hands and bodies and faces began to swim to the surface and take shape. Different horrors rose up, not unlike the amalgamates who had taken too much determination. 

The first one emerged slow and lumbering, like some horror from a nightmare, but the second and third ones were out like shots from a gun, soaring like bullets for the far walls until Stretch and Red shot them down. The bodies fell like weights to the ground, just as grotesque in death as in life. They looked like they had been stitched and melted together from the remains of too many different things left floating in the void. 

In horror, Sans looked up and saw the dusting body of the mage getting swallowed by more and more of the inky substance, only to be broken down and pulled apart to be used by whatever was coming out. 

Something emerged and screamed and they all felt it like a physical stab in their brains, the psychic horror was breaking down their minds with things that couldn't be comprehended. 

But worse than all that was how the ink didn't seem to be lessening. It came out thick and full and wretched.  Some looked like they could have been human at some point and others looked like nothing at all. 

"Don't falter," Black barked.

He and Edge were back to back, lunging and swinging in tandem. The cavern filled up with light as both Stretch and Red fired off their blasters. The room shook as Blue dropped his hammer down. 

Sans wasn't going to leave his friends and family to do this alone. He felt his magic pool with yellow and blue flame a split second before the cavern was filled with a barrage of inescapable bone attacks that carved a solid path right down the middle of the black mess. 

Red whistled low before his dragon blaster split open to reveal an even smaller mouth. The beam that came out next was as thin as a needle, but when it impacted the concussive force left a crater in the ground and little else. One of his sockets was on fire with magical flames not unlike Sans'. 

 Stretch laughed from the opposite side of the cavern before his cats split their faces and instead of two there were four different cutting beams, targeting with pin point accuracy.  He was smoking another cigarette and one of his eye sockets was lit with vivid neon lights. 

"Watch out, the judges got your number!" Red bellowed before his attack devastated another corner of the room.

A series of smaller, faster bodies emerged from the void ink and charged for Red. He got his blasters up but it was still recharging. Before he could get a shot off the ink creature was on top of him, swiping and slashing only to hit air as Red dodged. It came closer and started to open up its inky black body to reveal a vertical may with dozens and dozens of different sized teeth before a glowing red blade cut it down the middle.

"Don't dawdle," Edge chastised before snapping the substance off the end of his blade.  When he turned there were more running for the pair of brothers so Edge braced, stretching his legs out for stability, then swung with his whole body. The arch of his blade carried beyond its furthest point and everything in his path fell apart. A red streak cut the sky and all the black ink bodies fell apart into tiny pieces. Sans had only seen the single strike but that was just cause Edge really was that fast. 

"Oh man, if sweetheart could see ya now," Red laughed, clearly proud of his little brother. 

"FOCUS," Edge snapped, skull tinged pink. 

Black jumped in front of the pair of them and cut through something that tried to take shape, glaring back over his shoulder like he had heard their conversation and disapproved.  It only got Red to laugh harder. 

The void kept spilling ink and while the creatures weren't hard to hit or kill, there didn't seem to be an end to them. More and more, the creatures sledged forward, some small, others large. 

  No one wanted to admit they were tired or show it, but when Sans started to feel it he knew the others had to be feeling it as well, with no end still in sight. 

One of the creatures jumped up in front of stretch and he narrowly ducked out of the way to avoid it, but when Stretch turned around again the creature was already mostly out of the room. "It got past me!"

Blue ran to the edge of the room to try and see out, but when he took his eyes off the fight two more flying types leaked through. Red shot one down and Sans got the other but more and more were starting to slip through. 

"Let them, there are others outside who can do this too," Black shouted above the noise. "Don't lose focus here. Concentrate." 

"Oi, comic!" Red screamed out. "This ain't gonna end until we fold that closed."

Sans looked to where Red was pointing and saw the scar to the void and remembered a similar situation months back when he had been with you and your brother, doing exactly that.  It was possible but with the barrage of oncoming attacks, half the number of people, and not as much magic? 

"Someone say something about closing a portal?"

Sans turned with Red to see Winn and Dee striding up alongside Gaster. Dee looked a little haggard but nowhere near as drained as Sans thought he would be for making such a huge jump. 

"Red is correct, that's the only way this is ending," Dee said.

"Then let us end it," Gaster coolly suggested. His neon purple eyes flashed and a giant serrated pinwheel as big as the room manifested. He grunted and the pinwheel revved like a chainsaw and smeared through the opposition, clearing out the entire room in a matter of seconds. 

"Once Gaster drops his Wheel those who can't manipulate the void will need to defend those of us who can," Dee instructed. "This tear is unnatural so it'll be easier to return it to how it is supposed to be than the one by the barn. We should be able to succeed."

"Should?" Red squeaked. 

"I'm a realist, nothing more and nothing less, get into places, please."

"Black, Stretch, we need you guys at the edges of that thing," Sans screamed, pointing to the wound. "Edge, Blue, you'll have to defend us."

"Of course," Said Edge while Blue cried out, "Leave it to us!"

Sans hurried into position alongside Red and Black, using his magic t pick up a piece of the void. When Gaster released his wheel Dee and Winn were already trying to pull their half up to the center. Gaster meandered over to their side, taking his time while on the opposite end Sans put everything he could into pulling his flap closer to the center. 

"Faster," Edge urged to Blue who was nearby. The two of the were running and dashing in between attacks, deflecting and catching them instead of just avoiding them. Sans was satisfied entrusting his safety to those two as the two halves of the void began to fold back to their original positions. Gaster had been right, this was easier than the last time Sans attempted it. 

The void amalgamates seemed to notice what was happening but instead of attacking them ran faster and faster away, rushing to get out of the ink before their source was cut off. Fewer and fewer tried to attach and more instead chose to ran. Blue and Edge had to balance defending with making long ranged attacks all on their own while Gaster finally reached his section of the void. 

Gaster grabbed the fold with both hands and his half surged forward to the center, faster than before. Then Red's fold reached the center, shortly followed by Sans' and then Winn's. Black and Stretch reached the center almost at the same time Dee managed to fold his in too. 

Like the opposite of the boom from thunder, the room cracked with the sealing up and Sans was knocked back from the shockwave, along with everyone else. When he looked up again there was only one other black void creature trying to crawl away, but a blue war hammer crushed its face in. 

"Is that it?" Blue asked from atop the corpse that was slowly dissolving. 

As the black ink from the void fell away, the raw materials remained; half of a human skull and some bones. The skull was too small to belong to an adult's. Now that he looked for it, there were plenty of bones scattered around the room, some human, others not.  

Sans forced himself to look away and instead focused on climbing to his feet. 

"There were more that made it outside," Edge yelled before running out. 

Blue got up to follow him. Red made it to the edge of the cavern, hesitating while Stretch ran out after his brother. Black was still in the room, staring down at one of the skulls. A moment later her admitted out loud, "Its probably better we didn't bring my wife along." 

This time Sans didn't chastise Black for his exclusive nickname. 

"What did you say?" Winn asked, speaking up for the first time. "Where is the rest of your group? Raven was left outside but..." 

"Not here," Sans said for Black, knowing Red was still in the room watching. "Wasn't feeling well so we left her behind to recover first." 

"You should have brought her along, even if for no other reason than to use her map magic. We will have a hard time finding Hightower in all of this," Dee sighed, sounding just as stuck up as ever. 

"There is time enough for that later," Gaster interrupted, looking first to Winn and then Dee before his eye lights settled on Sans. "There is work outside that must be done first." 

 

 

Quite a few more than just a couple got past them. What made things worse was how the creatures would grow as they ate the dark substance that made the skies so black once they were outside. They became faster and harder to kill, and unfortunately there were casualties as well as injuries. 

It took hours but they cleared out the city and the sun began to peak through. By the time they were done everyone was exhausted except for maybe Gaster who seemed uncapable of suffering injury or exhaustion.  

Sans was sitting on the sidewalk, staring down at the stains a human had left behind when Black walked over and called out to him. Sans looked up from the red smears and blinked. Papyrus had just left to see to something and would be back soon. 

"I said," Black repeated. "That I haven't been able to hear back from Rus yet."

Black's phone had been damaged early on and he was having to borrow one from a kind human to reach his brother. Rus hadn't picked up any of the calls and Black was starting to get agitated. He had even called you but nothing came of it except for voicemail. 

"You think something is wrong with him?" Sans asked.

"If it wasn't past their bed time I'd call the house phone and ask one of the kids to disturb him."

Sans blinked up at the sky, recognizing the darkness as natural. He hadn't even noticed when the moon came out. "Its an emergency so call the damn house phone, Black," he sighed.

"Then will you call the Horror brothers and see if our mate is sleeping please?" 

Numbly, Sans pulled out his phone to do just that.  The phone rang four, five, almost six times before Dusk answered. 

"hello?" 

"Dusk, just checking in on our girl. How's she doing?" Sans said, trying to sound casual. 

"oh, you're alive. we left a little while ago not knowing where you were. left rus in a dead sleep too," Dusk answered. Then there was a scuffle sound in the background. Sans started to feel worried without knowing the reason why. He concentrated on the bloodstains in front of him and forced himself to stay grounded. 

"Dusk, what happened?" 

"peaches woke up and said we needed to go, so we went...ah, actually we checked with rus first and then we went."

"Went where, Dusk?"

"that first facility we were being held at, remember that one?"

If Sans had a stomach it would have bottomed out by now. "The one with the huge void opening in the basement? Dusk, what are you doing there?"

"i told you, peaches woke up and said we needed to go here so i shortcut us over. she said hightower was here so… we're trying to be quick about this-uuugh," Dusk said, cutting off to brace against something and then grunt as he shoved through it or threw it off. "so yeah...we're here now...peaches said to keep these guys out while she finished things with her old boss."

Sans covered his face with his hands, leaving the phone pushed up against his forehead. “Shit,” he whispered as he realized why they hadn’t been able to find Hightower, why it had been as easy as it had been. They had tripped and fallen straight into that distraction, hadn’t they? He recovered a half second later to shoot to his feet and find someone who could help. “Stay with her,” Sans shouted into the phone. “We’ll make our way there next. Dusk, just-Dusk, Dusk?”

 

The phone line beeped out, disconnected.

 

Notes:

Sorry for the cliffhanger- but also not sorry.

Chapter 83: Real Ones 11

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Rewind time - back to you waking up a few hours ago

 

Jack had met Blue at the door to accept the new bag of overnight supplies before dinner time rolled around but Dusk was unwilling to get up and greet the other skeleton a second time in the same day, not when he was so comfortable. Very soon after their encounter he had pulled you up into his lap and gotten comfortable on the couch, bent slightly so his arms made the boundaries of a nest for you to settle into. It hadn’t taken long for you to fall asleep, lulled into dreaming with the encouragement from his leaking magic. Oh, he should probably ask Jack to change his skull pads, the ones he was wearing were pretty saturated and needed replacing. 

But later. 

He was far too comfortable in the moment to change a single detail. 

He heard the front door shut and glanced up when his brother came over with the overnight bag and a smile meant for you. It was nice to know things had worked out so well, that not only was he happy and taken care of, but so was his brother-which was arguably a bigger deal than any happiness Dusk thought he deserved. 

“SOMEONE ISN’T GOING TO WANT TO SLEEP LATER TONIGHT WITH ALL THIS NAPPING. IT'S NOT EVEN DINNER TIME,” Jack chuckled.

“nothing wrong with that, i’m sure there are plenty of things we can get up to instead of sleeping,” Dusk rumbled with his lids already half lowered. 

Jack narrowed his one eye lights from behind his spectacles, trying to decide if he wanted to chastise his brother for being lewd or let it go. Before the famine, when they were both different monsters, his younger brother wouldn’t have hesitated to fluster at the implications, but that was then and this was now. Things were different and Dusk didn’t want to go on pretending he wasn’t interested in the things he wanted. 

Hesitation could cost you in any environment, but especially the ones they came from. Judging from his lack of a rebuttal, Jack was of the same mind. Neither of them would discourage you from anything you chose to do in the future, but they weren’t willing to rush or push you into anything. With time, things would develop naturally. 

“IT'S LATE ENOUGH SO I SHOULD GET DINER STARTED. I WAS THINKING MAYBE A NICE VEGETABLE SOUP WITH THOSE LOBSTER BISCUITS WE GOT FROM THE FOOD DELIVERY BOX. I’VE BEEN WANTING TO TRY THEM OUT. THEY LOOK SO SOFT.” Jack absently tapped at his lower braces.

“…have…yer teeth been hurting?”  

Jack blinked and then stared down at his brother before smiling wide. “NOT REMOTELY. HOWEVER THEY HAVE BECOME CUMBERSOME TO CLEAN WITH SOME OF THE STICKIER MEALS I LIKE TO TRY AND SOUP IS MORE SO FOR OUR LOVELY GUEST THAN MYSELF. IT’LL BE NICE TO HAVE SOMETHING LIGHT ON THE STOMACH AFTER A MAGIC MIXUP.”

“hn sounded just like a magic discharge, nothing too serious.” Dusk frowned, trying to recall what he had heard more than seen back during the fight. You had been pulling so much of your magic back and thinning it past the point of elasticity and the sounds it made were unique enough to make him wonder.   

Magic blowback or magic discharge wasn’t a rare thing in monsters, in fact it was quite common and almost everyone who used magic had a story or two about a time they underestimated or overestimated how much magic something needed. It happened mostly around the time monsters went through their growth spurts and had to quickly adapt to new limits. 

Dusk wondered how much your magic had changed for you over the last few months. He had a suspicion but didn’t really want to pry into it without your consent. Ever since the issue with that pin in your soul, your magic had been slow to replenish and everyone assumed that was because of the trauma, but what if that wasn’t it. Replenishing a bathtub was going to go a whole lot easier than replenishing a lake. Your magic levels hadn’t been a joke to start with, but after the accident when everyone poured so much of their magic into your soul in an effort to keep it from falling apart, your capabilities had deepened. 

Was that why Blue had wanted to spar with you? Sure the guy had been working hard on bettering himself and growing as a fighter, but why did he want to single you out? The obvious answer was because he was your lover, but Dusk wondered if there wasn’t more to it. In terms of technical skill, both Black and Edge had a lot to offer, but would either of them be able to keep up in a contest of output with you? The answer was more obvious than anything else Dusk could think up. 

Still, magic levels and output didn’t guarantee someone would be a strong opponent. Before the famine Sans was only to deal 1 point of damage for each strike and that was pathetic by anyone’s standards, but he was still a feared fighter for a reason…even before he began eating monsters and humans. There was a lot to be said in how a monster or mage utilized their powers in combat. 

What had they taught you in that facility you grew up in? 

Idly, one of his hands started to reach for your scalp and brush aside some of the messier strands, moving them out of your eyes while you slept. He pet back your hair and traced the curve of your skull with his fingers, lulled by the repetition. In your sleep one of your hands twitched, fingers reaching for something before you turned your head more into his touch and exhaled so deeply the rest of your body relaxed a little more. Your hand found his collarbone and weakly grabbed for it.

Dusk was in heaven. 

He should have asked Jack to change out the pads on his wound earlier because if he didn’t remember this he was going to be so pissed. This was fucking gold memory content. Phone, phone, phone, he needed a picture of this for his phone!

He heard the shutter sound and looked up, tilting his face back to see Jack standing at the edge of the living room, wearing a ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron and holding his smartphone up for the perfect picture. 

“send it to me,” Dusk whispered a little too loudly before you started to shift on his chest. He pet your hair back and you settled back into place, melting what was left of his soul. This was too perfect, how did he get so lucky?

“I SAW BLUE WAS TRYING TO TEXT ME EARLIER, ALL OF HIS MESSAGES ARE NOW LOADING WITH THE STRONGER SIGNAL I GET WHILE IN THE KITCHEN. HE ALSO TRIED CALLING BUT I DIDN’T HEAR IT.”

“…we just saw him. probably wasn’t anything too important, he already left all the stuff we needed.” 

You started to move on his chest again and he held still as your legs stretched out, going ramrod straight as your whole back curved into the stretch before you sagged back down on his chest, limp in sleep once more. 

holy shit why were you so cute ?

He really hoped you had some energy left over when night time came because he was ready to show off his capabilities and give you a sampling of his potential services. 

The thoughts warmed his bones and you must have been able to tell through the shirt since you nuzzled into his chest and nearly killed him for the 8th time that evening.

“DUSK?” 

He looked up, tilting his chin back to see where his brother was standing at the edge of the kitchen, reading his phone with a look of distress on his face. From behind him in the kitchen the biscuits were rising in the oven while the smell of hot soup drifted through the house. 

“…whats that?” 

“BROTHER…THE OTHERS ARE LEAVING.”

That didn’t sound right. “…what?”

“THERE WAS SOME SORT OF NOTICE, A BEACON THEY HAD LEFT IN THE VOID THAT WAS SENDING UPSETTING READINGS BACK, I’M NOT SURE HOW ELSE TO EXPLAIN IT SINCE I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT VERY WELL MYSELF. BUT THEY SAID THEY HAVE TO LEAVE TONIGHT.”

Dusk didn’t want to move but his hands went to cradle your frame instinctually. “…where are they going?”

“TO THE MOUNTAIN, TO…WHERE ALL THE MONSTERS CAME OUT. THEY SAID THAT’S WHERE ITS GOING TO BE MOST DANGEROUS.” Jack stepped out of the kitchen, still holding onto his phone with a worried expression. 

“…they’re not.”

Jack nodded, looking down at where you dozed on his brother’s chest. “ONLY IF THEY WERE ALREADY AWAKE AND ABLE, BUT YES, THEY DID REQUEST THE ASSISTANCE.”

Dusk had to put in a conscious effort to keep from squeezing you tight to his chest and holding you there. “blue was here, he saw it for himself… why da hell would he ask something like that of a person recovering?”

“I AM SORRY BROTHER BUT I DON’T UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT. I KNOW THEY EXPLAINED IT A FEW TIMES BUT ALL I REMEMBER IS THEM NEEDING A STRONG COMBAT RESPONSE WHENEVER THEIR BEACONS IN THE VOID WENT OFF.”

“they’re all plenty strong on their own.” 

“TRUE, BUT THE REQUEST WAS MADE FOR ALL ABLE BODIES.”

Dusk scoffed. “sure but they made sure to explain that we weren’t included in that ‘able body’ list, right?”

 Jack frowned at his brother’s tone. “YOU AND I BOTH AGREED WITH THAT DECISION WHEN WE MADE IT WITH THE OTHERS. WHILE WE DO HAVE OFFENSIVE CAPABILITIES AND EXPERIENCE, COMBAT CAN BE TRIGGERING AND OUR MAGIC IS STILL LESS STABLE THAN THEIRS. WE WOULD BE MORE OF A LIABILITY IN A FIGHT THAN A HELP.”

Dusk knew that, he was just bitter that this decision was coming back to bite him in the metaphorical ass. If he was being honest, he’d be happy if he lived out the rest of his life without having to pick up a weapon. He could be feral and strong when he wanted to be, he could be cold and ruthless, even creative and wild, but coming back from that state of mind was always hell. For years he lived like a cold killer and never came out of that mindset because it was what was required for survival. 

But when he had the choice, when the option was made for him, he dove headfirst for the sidelines. He didn’t care about most things enough to fight for them. Humanity? Whatever. Fellow monster kind? They could take care of themselves for a change. Maybe for his family and new friends he’d pick up his axe again; for you he’d rage gladly. But you were on his couch and in his arms while the others were with each other and powerful enough to take care of whatever came their way on their own. There wasn’t a good enough reason for Dusk to move this time. He would ’trust’ in his family and keep their lover safe. 

“…peaches is still resting and needs ta finish recovering… their hp ain’t even at full yet.”

“THEIR HP HAS NEVER BEEN AT FULL, EVEN WITH SLEEPING WHICH USUALLY PUTS MOST OF US ABOVE OUR MAX HP, I’VE NEVER SEEN SWEETIE’S HoPe MAX OUT. SHE’S AS GOOD AS SHE’S GOING TO BE.”

“…don’t me we gotta wake her,” Dusk mumbled, shifting so his shoulder rose up and came between his sleeping lover and his brother, as if subtly worried Jack might reach over and wake you.    

“DON’T YOU THINK THIS WILL UPSET SWEETIE WHEN SHE WAKES UP ON HER OWN? SHE’LL WANT TO BE A PART OF THIS.”

“…they can handle this.”

“I DON’T DOUBT OUR FRIENDS AND THEIR ABILITIES BUT THAT ISN’T AN ANSWER TO MY QUESTION. YOU KNOW BETTER, BROTHER.”

“…why you gotta be right all the time with the important stuff?” Dusk complained, pulling you up to nuzzle the top of your head with his chin. “…but it ain’t right to wake her if they already shortcut there.”

“I…OH I THINK THEY DID. THIS TEXT WAS FROM OVER AN HOUR AGO AND WHEN I TRIED CALLING IT WENT STRAIGHT TO VOICEMAIL. I’M NOT SURE IF THEY’RE EVEN LOCAL ANYMORE. THEY MIGHT HAVE ALREADY LEFT.” 

“then no point in waking up to mop up spilled milk, is there?” 

“OH NO WHAT DO WE DO WHEN SWEETIE WAKES UP? WE SHOULD HAVE SENT HER OFF SO SHE COULD SHORTCUT THE REST OF THE WAY WITH THE OTHERS. YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO THE MOUNTAIN THEY’RE TALKING ABOUT SO YOU CAN’T GET US THERE.”

“…bro, even if I knew where we was going… you think it safe for me to… shortcut so far with carry ons?” For emphasis Dusk bobbed his skull back and forth, showing off the patched section of his skull with the red colored bandages that were sagging with magic saturation. 

“YOU CAN STILL SHORTCUT AND IT'S BETTER THAN BEFORE.”

“heh, my aim is shit.” 

“LANGUAGE.”

“Shhhh.”

Both froze before looking down where you lay atop Dusk’s cheek. One of your eyes was cracked open (the only one that worked), and you had managed to drag up a hand to push a finger up against Dusk’s jaw, missing his teeth or his mouth. It was obvious you were still a little out of it still, the way plenty of people were when they first woke up, but you were rousing. 

“THAT WAS INCREDIBLY RUDE OF US TO WAKE YOU LIKE THAT. I MEANT TO ONLY WAKE YOU FOR SUPPER OR-OH MY BISCUITS!”

 Jack exclaimed, jumping up straight before scrambling into the kitchen. You lifted your head enough to watch him pull out a tray of fluffy brown biscuits that had managed to be saved in time, before burning. The strew on the stovetop was fine as well. 

“I could really go for some food right now, I’m famished,” you groaned, pushing out your legs behind you and stretching like a cat while still atop Dusk. When you glanced down you noticed his singular eye light was bloated and fuzzy. There was the faintest slate gray blue blush across his cheekbones too. You didn’t have a reason to play coy so you pulled yourself up a little until you were staring down at his cute face, then kissed his teeth. “Morning.” 

“it’s night,” he sighed, wrapping both his arms around you and pulling you back down onto his chest before barrel rolling you into the cushions, pinning you between him and the couch. “how the fuck are you this cute?”

“Years of practice, lemme go now!” you laughed as you flailed your remaining arms and legs. “Lemme go or no more kisses for an hour!”

Dusk moved back enough for you to wiggle free.”…how are you feeling, peaches?” 

“Great but I need to eat something. I feel like I’m on empty. Feed me please.” 

Dusk didn’t want to admit it but he wouldn’t deny it how much he loved when you played at being needy. Sure you were all grown up and could take care of yourself but he really liked feeding and tending to your needs when he could. It sated an old instinct. 

“always.” 

He pulled you up into his arms but didn’t set you down again. Instead of folding you up in one arm and carrying you over to the table where the plates and settings were already out for a group of three. 

“WHAT ABOUT MY TEXT MESSAGES?”

Dusk felt his good mood dip a little bit. He wanted to be a bit more selfish but had to push back against the greediest parts of his nature. “no point in bringing those up until we get some food.” He looked your way and pulled out a chair before sliding you down into it. “eat up first and then we can talk.”  

You caught on quickly that there was something with some weight you needed to talk about but you didn’t ask. Maybe it was misplaced but you were trusting him to get to the content of that conversation when the timing was right. 

“WELL I WON’T ARGUE WITH YOU THEN, HERE IS OUR STEW. BROTHER SERVE US WHILE I FINISH PUTTING THE BISCUITS INTO THE BREAD BOWL.” 

He dished out your portion first and before he filled up either his or his brother’s bowels he picked yours up and pushed it against your mouth, encouraging you to start. You made a noise in protest, likely thinking it was bad manners to start ahead of the host. But Jack returned with the bread and sat down just in time to have Dusk fill his bowel with stew. Once you saw the other two had something in front of them you dipped your spoon into the bowl and began to eat. When you paused to chew Dusk leaned over to pick up a biscuit and hold it close to your mouth, encouraging you to grab it for yourself and eat next.

“…seconds.”

“Sure, but isn’t there something else we need to talk about? Jack, what was it you were saying earlier about a text message? Is it something from the others that you needed to tell me?” you asked before biting into the biscuit to tear open with your teeth. 

Jack and Dusk shared a look between them before Jack pulled out his phone and nodded. He pulled up the messages and began to explain. “BLUE SENT THIS TO ME A COUPLE OF HOURS AGO AND IT DIDN’T LOAD RIGHT AWAY, SO BY THE TIME WE KNEW IT WAS ALREADY TOO LATE TO JOIN THEM, BUT THEY ALL LEFT FOR MT. EBOTT SINCE SOME OF THE PROBES IN THE VOID WERE MAKING THEM WORRIED. I’VE NOT HEARD ANYTHING ELSE FROM THEM SINCE THIS MESSAGE.”

 You reached for the phone, flipping it around in your hand to read the text messages for yourself. Dusk watched your whole posture shift as the latter magic that clung to you like an aura turned over like bad static. If he listened for it he could probably hear the way your breathing picked up and your heart hammered in your chest. He could tell without having to hear it from your lips that you wanted to be with them, that you wished you were there right now.

“…its too late now, and….sides…no way of knowing if they’re still there or somewhere else.”

“But it says Rus was left behind. He’s still at the farmhouse and he would have an open channel with Black during the operation. He would know. I have to call him and see if-it’s late but…” 

Your words trailed off into a fumble as you went digging in the bags next to the couch for your own phone. Your hair slipped in front of your face but you pushed it back roughly with one hand while pulling out your phone with the other. Your fingers were a blur over the keys and then you had it pressed to the side of your face. When Rus picked up the voice was loud enough that even Jack and Dusk could hear it from the table. 

 “Duchess, what you doing up?”

“Rus, what happened to the others? Can you see how they’re doing?”

When you turned around to face the table there was an extra haze in your eye that Dusk recognized. You were using Map magic to see the world around you mentally. 

Rus began to explain that the others were all accounted for and safe, that they had fought creatures coming out of the void and how there were several that had slipped through their defenses and now they had to chase those creatures into the city to keep it safe, but the look on your face was pale with horror. 

What had you seen?

“peaches?” Dusk reached for you and squeezed your shoulder. 

“Rus,” you gasped, sounding on the edge of a panic attack. Your voice pitched high. “The facility Blue tried to break me and the brothers out of, the first one…can you see it now?”

“What, yeah but why? I thought you would be more interested in what-oh…oh…are you seeing something I’m not?” Rus asked. 

“What is it?” 

“The…the cameras are all smashed in or broken. A lot of them are just dead so I can’t see but the ones that are still transmitting look…shit another one just went out. This is happening right now. What is it you see? How did you know to look there?” Rus asked.

“It’s Hightower, that’s where he is,” you gasped, releasing the truth with all the breath left in your lungs. “The attack on the mountain was just a diversion. We need to go to the facility.” 

 

 

It was when you made the effort to see as far as you could see. The town of Blackberry was actually closer to the off-site facility than it was to Ebott, so when you were zooming out you saw that before you saw the mountain. Something on the map made you stop and freeze in place, unable to breath normally until you felt Dusk and remembered the rest of reality. 

You couldn’t freeze up now, not when you knew where your enemy was.

“…you need a shortcut there, peaches?” Dusk was already tugging you close. 

“YOU CAN’T SHORTCUT THAT FAR ON YOUR OWN, BROTHER.”  

“Hang on, that’s not-” Rus’ voice from the phone was still coming through. “He’s right, Dusk, even if you had enough magic it wouldn’t be a safe trip. Get here to the farmhouse and I’ll get you there.”

“how?” Dusk asked.

“Same way I got the rest of them there.” Rus explained. “You steer and plot the destination. I supply the juice for the jump like a batter. I’ve had a few hours to rest so I should be able to drop you there easier than with the others.” 

You looked up at Dusk, noticing the sagging bandages and then over at Jack, still at the table. You opened your mouth to insist on going by yourself but Dusk beat you to it with a squeeze at your shoulder. His gaze was hard and left no room for doubt or nonsense. 

“don’t even think about it, peaches, we’re with you to the end of it.”

Jack jerked upright as if just realizing what his brother first noticed. “ABSOLUTELY! YOU THINK THIS WOULD BE THE FIRST HORROR WE’VE HAD TO CUT THROUGH IN OUR LIFE? DON’T THINK WE WON’T BE GOING WITH YOU ON THIS.” 

“Didn’t you both stay behind for a reason though? You-you’re recovering and fighting or combat isn’t good for you.” You felt so sick, knowing that these two would be willing to follow you into a darker hell just because that’s where you needed to go. 

Dusk rubbed his thumb over your shoulder and it made you look up at him, dropping out of the map completely.  “not really, no, but there are things worse. maybe we don’t want to fight no more but there are things we want to protect no matter what.”

“IT DOESN’T SIT WELL WITH ME TO HIDE AND WAIT WHEN THERE IS SOMETHING WE CAN DO. WE MIGHT NOT BE AS PUT TOGETHER AS OUR COUNTERPARTS, BUT DON’T LOOK DOWN ON US FOR THAT. WE CAN MANAGE OURSELVES JUST FINE. BROTHER, WHERE IS MY BATTLE SUIT? YOU NEED THOSE BANDAGES CHANGED AS WELL!”

You reached for Dusk, making a sound of protest. You were unwilling to put into words how you wanted them to stay behind because you knew it would be no use. They were both determined in their own ways and you didn’t have the heart to turn them down when they were already so fired up.

“It’s-”

“-change my bandages for me?” he interrupted before you could say anything.

There were tears on your face but you nodded, moving to get the medical case where his bandages and pads were stored. Dusk said something to Rus that sounded like ‘we’ll be there in five’ before the phone call ended. 

You grabbed at the case and stopped when you felt a pair of hands on your shoulders. Looking back you saw Jack staring down at you. His glasses were gone and he was already dressed up for battle in the armor you first met him in. 

“I CAN TELL WHAT YOU’RE PROBABLY THINKING BUT YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND OUR SOULS A BIT BETTER, SWEETIE. WE’RE NOT AS FRAGILE AS YOU THINK.”

“I don’t think you’re fragile at all. I know you’re stronger than anyone.”

“BUT YOU FEEL LIKE WE DON’T DESERVE THIS? THAT WE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO FIGHT OR PUT ON OUR ARMOR ANYMORE BECAUSE WE FINALLY HAVE A HOUSE AND FOOD AND LOVED ONES?” His words nailed what you were feeling completely. It wasn’t so much you doubted their abilities or even their mental fortitude, but you didn’t want them to have to test out their capabilities for you. They deserved so much more than this horrible world. 

Jack didn’t answer immodestly but leaned down to kiss at the side of your face, careful with his braces that scratched lightly. One of his hands grabbed at your hip and gave you a reassuring squeeze. 

“GIVE US TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO USE THESE HORRIBLE SKILLS FOR SOMETHING GOOD. FIGHTING MIGHT NOT BE IDEAL BUT PROTECTING OUR NEW HOME, OUR LOVED ONES, THAT’S WHAT MAKES A HERO!”

Humanity’s Hero. Funny how you thought of that old title so suddenly. When you looked up at Jack you saw a hero, a real one. You nodded once, resolute, and reached up on the tip of your toes to kiss at the side of his neck, reaching the bones that made him shiver and rattle all over. When you pulled away he was colored with magic and had a bright gleam of new color in his eye lights. You grinned wide then pushed past to quickly see to Dusk’s bandages, replacing them with practiced ease while Jack finished getting ready. 

“Just a short jump,” you whispered into Dusk’s ear when he was ready to go. He had one arm wrapped around your waist and one hand holding his brother’s. 

When you opened your eyes again you were outside the farmhouse. The three of you hurried down into the basement, not caring for how dark the world was at night. Rus had enough lights left on to see by. When you got to the base of the stairs he was waiting there with a nearby astray filled with burned down dog treats. Those must have been what helped his magic levels rise so fast at the cost of his HoPe.

“Don’t forget to take care of yourself,” you gasped instead of a greeting when you saw his face better. 

There were bags of sick color under his sockets and the lines of his skull were sharper. He had been burning out for a while with all the stress but now that things were coming to a head you only wanted him to rest. He had done so much already. 

“Then a kiss for luck?” he teased, sounding as tired as he looked. 

You grabbed at either side of his face and pulled yourself in to meet his teeth with lips. An instant later you felt his skull shift to better accommodate as you trailed your kisses up to his ear canal, one hand squeezing at the top part of his exposed hipbone, poking up out of his low rise jeans. It was enough to make him shudder and hear the promise for when this was all over, when you were finally done. 

“I’m serious, don’t burn yourself down to nothing when we need you.”

Rus looked a little light on his feet but managed to answer. “Promise, precious, I’ll get some sleep after this. After….after the others get back safely. They should be calling to check in soon.” 

“yeah, you look like shit right now and if that’s coming from me you know it's bad,” Dusk interrupted before reaching over and rubbing at Rus’ skull in affection. Dusk had always had a soft spot for Rus, especially after learning how Rus stood up for both Dusk and Jack to Black in the early days when he was still suspicious about the horror brothers. 

“Fine, fine I get it but we’re wasting time like this, so everybody gets in close. Dusk, you’re the one with the quadrants right.”

Dusk gave a grunt for confirmation. With everyone connected, the magic began to build, channeled from Rus to Dusk. You felt the hitch in magic just before Rus backed away and the void rushed in. 

You were outside the cells-the very same ones that used to keep you contained. The ruins you had left behind still scattered across the floor. There were android bodies and rubble littering the walkway. 

“WHERE TO?” Jack asked, already looking ready to rush in. Beside him Dusk waved his hand and a heavy ice encrusted axe dropped into his palm.

You knew where you needed to head and it only took a split second to find the correct direction before you were pointing your boys down the same hallway the androids once dragged you down.  Jack stepped lightly over the rubble like a flat footed fox or house cat while Dusk pushed his way around things, less interested in taking anything less than the absolute straightest path.

“You’d think the government would clean this place up after the seizure,” you complained around while avoiding rubble with less skill. “The place is still such a mess.”

“QUITE UNPROFESSIONAL OF THEM TO NEGLECT THEIR DUTIES WITH THE NEW PROPERTY!” Jack agreed. “AND AFTER THEY PROMISED TO LAUNCH AN INVESTIGATION INTO WHAT HAPPENED HERE TOO!”

“…you really thought they were going to do something like that?” Dusk, even the cynic, asked. 

“Human governments drag their feet on everything. I bet they’re still caught up in some red tape about who is allowed to come and go on the property.”

Dusk made a noise of disagreement before leaning ahead of you to cut down some hanging obstruction that prevented the three of you from traversing down the rest of the hallway. The stairwell was in sight now. “…maybe…but thought you were smarter than that…what do powers in place never hesitate to do?”

“WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY BROTHER?” 

“…no one ever hesitates to pick apart the carcass for the juiciest bits…and this place…had plenty of juicy bits… As if to emphasize his point he kicked away the body of a cut open android. True, while AI technologies were rare and usually reserved for those who could afford them, androids were even more rare. The components and materials were expensive all on their own, but was that really a good enough reason to go through a place like this for spare parts.

“…not the parts,” Dusk interrupted your thoughts. He tapped the side of his skull. “…its the secrets…knowing what happened…”

You reached the stairwell together and it took both Dusk on one side and Jack and you on the other to pull open the doors that had warped in the broken frame. You checked with your map and saw what you expected: Hightower was exactly where you left him along with his apprentice Everest-there was just something funny about the icon on your map for Everest’s name. Apart from them you couldn’t tell what other machines or obstacles you would face.

Your magic was ready though, and you had backup this time. Sure you wished the rest of your fighting family was with you, but you were satisfied knowing they were where they needed to be to keep people safe. There was more than one way to be a hero. 

You stepped down first and when nothing happened you started down the stairs with Dusk right behind you. Jack’s long strides took the stairs two at a time without even trying and he easily outpaced you on the stairwell, pausing next to each exit floor’s door to check and see if this was the one you wanted before moving on. 

The pit was at the lowest levels. Your gut felt tight and your head felt light as the anticipation built to almost unbearable levels. Your footsteps were starting to go messy as you stumbled down the last few stairs, only to be caught by Jack. He made a noise of surprise when he felt you shivering. 

“YOU’RE RATTLING WORSE THAN A BABY BONES IN AN EARTH SHIFT.”

When you opened your mouth you could taste void. It was already leaking out and it was taking everything in you not to fall apart and regress. The single most traumatizing element of your life, your development, your upbringing was so close-close enough that you could taste it. You don’t know how you did it when Red was stuck and you went after him with Sans, just thinking about the deep void made you shiver.

 If that pit was open, would you be able to do anything? 

“…breath,” Dusk instructed, one hand spread out across your back, above where your lungs would be. You pushed back against his hand to feel something and remembered who you were with. 

That's how you had managed last time: you hadn’t been alone. Sans had gone in with you and you had jumped for Red’s sake. You needed that as your focus, the love you had for your family and lovers. The world was an angry mouth closing in on you but there was a light you could shoot for and stay steady on. The rest of the awful, evil reality could fade into background noise for all you cared. 

“I can do this,” you said just as much to yourself as to the two of them.

“…hell yeah you can,” Dusk encouraged while Jack just laughed in encouragement, like what you had said was the most obvious thing in the world to him.  You felt your chest swell with their belief in you and that familiar thrum of DETERMINATION drowned out the fear that threatened to eat you alive. 

There was one last door between you and the floor where Hightower was with the pit, but Jack stepped forward to cut it open with a barrage of different bone attacks that were sharper and faster than you were used to seeing from his counterparts. Dusk stepped up next and kicked in the door. 

You ducked into the room just as something gooey and black tried to swipe at your face. Jack was the one who pinned it down with metal strikes to the next. The goo fell off the exoskeleton of the android it had manipulated and you cursed at the sight. 

“…looks like we’re in the right place.” 

When you glanced up you saw what Dusk meant. There were several android bodies torn up and left in pieces that were starting to rattle as more of that void plasma crawled up to seep into their circuitry, possessing the only bodies they could. You weren’t sure what this was but you were confident it wasn’t something worth sitting down and talking with. 

“WATCH YOUR RIGHT SIDE, BROTHER!”

 Jack cheered before moving across the room to stand in his brother’s blind spot, dragging magical bone spears along behind him. When he cried out the first two launched themselves with deadly precision into the eye and throat of one of the androids, downing it. Even if the androids were nonliving it looked like the goo still took more damage at vital points the same way living creatures would. 

You were impressed with Jack’s accuracy and skill in utilizing his attacks, since he needed glasses to see well enough to read and right now he was running into enemies without visual aids. But then you saw him strike at an enemy without looking and you got a clue to how he could do that. Jack’s magical senses were just that well honed. Like some cooler, less red version of DareDevil, Jack moved with all his senses working for him, not just his eyesight. 

He really was a hero.  

Not one to be outdone, you filled your hands with fire and lashed out with the ends of your fireships, materializing them in midair, just before they snapped off the arms and faces of another body of androids. One rose up without a head and you faltered, unsure of where you needed to hit to deal the more damage before Jack’s bone attacks nailed it in the leg, driving the goo off in writhing cries of agony. 

“You can sense their weaknesses too?” you exclaimed, thoroughly impressed.

“IT IS WHEREVER I FEEL THEIR PRESENCE IS GREATEST. IT SHOULD BE THEIR DARKEST POINT.” Jack let go a new volley and then stepped a little closer to you. “BROTHER AND I HAVE THIS CORNER TAKEN CARE OF, YOU SHOULD PUSH ON AND DEAL WITH THAT MAN. THIS OPENING NEEDS TO BE CLOSED.”

Your emotional heart didn’t want to separate from either of them, but the tactical side of your brain took over. It was bad form to put all your pieces in one place when you didn’t need all your pieces in that corner. As much as you loved being with them, you knew they didn’t need you for this  challenge. The pit needed your attention. 

“I love you both,” you cried out before rushing forward. Dusk’s ice axe cleaved a body in two right next to you and Jack’s projectiles pinned another two bodies down, making the way for you clear. 

Your legs burned but that wasn’t because you were running at your limits. Your feet and ankles were trailing flames the same as your hands and arms. You were barely contained and ready to let loose, knowing there would be no one nearby you loved enough to catch in the blast. It was past time Hightower paid for all this stress.

There was the observation deck that was gutted and open, where you remembered standing next to Julia, watching the cover over the pit being rolled back. That whole room was a mess and the cover to the pit was open 100% with Hightower standing at the edge. Everest was supposed to be next to him according to your map readings, but you only saw one body. 

“Hightower!” you screamed, standing at the edge of the room, caught in the doorway’s open threshold. You were still scared but rage was building, faster and hotter than any fear. 

Hightower turned slowly, rotating from the waist and neck, keeping his feet pointed at the pit. He blinked once in your direction, eyes filled with void black and nothing else, before turning back around to face the pit. It was spilling out, curling in black tendrils and creeping fog. Dribs and drabs of it started to collect in pools of goo that ran off looking for a body to possess. Was that his true intention? To bring void things into the world and ignore the ‘natives’ that drifted through black space larger than mountains.  

It took you long enough to get here, didn’t it?” 

His words echoed with an undercurrent of void magic, the same distorting magic that first made Dee and Winn’s voices so hard to understand. 

“What the hell have you done? You’re supposed to be the motherfucker who taught us how to protect this damn planet and now you want to destroy it? What the fuck?” you screamed before launching yourself into the room. 

Every step was like trudging upstream as the void pushed back against you. Instead of running you struggled against the onslaught, burning away whatever you could in order to cross the room to your one time teacher. Still, Hightower stood with his back to you, ignoring you in favor of watching the void spill out. 

“You’re not even going to answer me now?” you yelled, tasting darkness between your teeth. You breathe fire to burn out what lingered on your tongue. “For years I never could get you to shut up about all your damn bullshit and now-and NOW?!”

You were sputtering with flames, struggling to get closer. It wasn’t fair that it was so hard to take these last few steps when all you wanted to do was run headlong in. It had taken so much mental and emotional strength to get here, to be stopped by physical obstructions made you want to rage.

Your purpose is all but fulfilled here…as is the fate of all others.” He closed his eyes and tilted his face up. “What a waste of humanity.”

 “You don’t get to say that after all your lectures. What was it all for? The torture, the trauma? Why the hell would you put us all through that only to work directly against it? You’re a fucking tool but you weren’t supposed to be stupid .”  You were so much closer now. You could do it, you were going to reach him soon.

Hightower turned back to you, taking one step from the void to show off what was in his hand, bent in front of his chest. Your map suddenly made sense, the reason why you saw Everest there but not in person. In Hightower’s hand he held a flickering light you recognized even if you couldn’t see it. You felt it like Jack felt things. Three fourths of Everest’s human soul flickered in Hightower’s hands. 

It was something only the highest levels taught. Splitting your soul into pieces and hiding them outside of the body allowed a ‘destroyed’ vessel to go through a process called reconstitution . The fragment left would try to build back up a body with the help or aid of another mage. You and your brother were perfect for this, as each could hold a fraction for the other and then recover them if anything ever happened to the main body-but you didn’t have a fraction of Raven’s soul since the both of you had your falling out. Was Hightower supposed to be Everest’s trusted bearer?

“Where is the rest of him? Where’s his body?” 

No doubt being fed on to open the slit at Mt. Ebott, just as this sliver will feed the birthing channel,” Hightower scoffed, speaking as if it was almost an inconvenience to sacrifice his most loyal. 

“Why the fuck would you do something like that?” you screamed, still struggling to reach him. You were so close now, your arms outstretched were almost there. 

“It shouldn’t be something you can’t understand. We just want to go home.” He said, staring straight at you with his dead black eyes. 

His eyes were sharp and cold, devoid of love or affection. If you stared long enough you could swear you saw flickers of movement in the iris of his eyes-dark swirling shadows. 

There was a story they whispered about when you were still a young thing, about a boy who went into the void and never came out, even though the harness came back full. They said a boy went down with the noblest intentions, jumping in to try and save his juniors, only to come out cruel and calculating. He was perfect from the perspective of the upper powers and soon that boy became one of those powers, shaping up the MAGE program into what it was. 

The ugly truth made your eye sting with tears while the empty socket throbbed in something similar. Hightower had never been on your side to begin with. Yet all your rage remained. 

“You ugly fucker, you were supposed to be better than this-” you gurgled, choking as a new wave of black void almost cut you off. “You were supposed to take care of us-supposed to be our teacher-you were supposed to be better than this!”

Your hands reached him but it was like touching ice as your flames flickered out, unable to stay ignited so close to a burning cold body. But you didn’t care, you curled your frostbitten fingers into the fabric of his shirt and pulled yourself forward and screamed. With all the force you could manage you reeled back and punched him across the face. Instead of reaction the face broke open and you stared into darkness as more and more of his human shell fell away. You felt the chuckle even if you couldn’t hear it.  

The rest of his body fell away and the soul in his hand was sucked out, dragged into the middle of the pit where it hovered for a fraction of a second before imploding. The impact sent ripples throughout the room, shaking the void as it leaked out before a new rush of darkness surged. What had once been a pit, open and leaking, exploded into a cylinder of solid black, roaring for the sky as it tore through floor after floor and level after level, eating through metal and plaster like it was nothing until the night sky was visible-but only for a moment because the void bloomed like a tree, branching out to swallow up more and more of the facility until you were staring up at a brand new world with brand new stars.

No

Not stars.

Eyes .




 

T̸͕̣͔̃͋̌̚͠ḩ̸̦̞̰̞̻͉̱͔͈͌̄̾̄͊̕̚͝͝e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚r̸̬͔͇̆͂̈́͂e̷͇̫͈͗̃̈͛̑̿̕̚  w̵̧̛͆͆a̴͈͋̈́̓̕̚s̶̜͎̘̼͕̈́̈́͌̐͆͑̉͌ a̴͈͋̈́̓̕̚ d̶̨͇̹̥̦̥̖̠̙̍̋̽͌̾ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘ǫ̶̺͓̋̑̎͒̃̊͊̿̈́͘r̸̬͔͇̆͂̈́͂





Notes:

*Stares at everything that's happened and how there is only a little left*
AHHHH!

Chapter 84: The Phoenix

Notes:

TW: Some body horror in this chapter at the end- fighting and violence

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Put on your war paint

Cross walks and crossed hearts and hope-to-dies
Silver clouds with grey linings

So we can take the world back from a heart attack
One maniac at a time we will take it back
You know time crawls on when you're waiting for the song to start
So dance alone to the beat of your heart

 


 

If Sans had a stomach it would have bottomed out by now. "The one with the huge void opening in the basement? Dusk, what are you doing there?"

"i told you, peaches woke up and said we needed to go here so i shortcut us over. she said hightower was here so… we're trying to be quick about this-uuugh," Dusk said, cutting off to brace against something and then grunt as he shoved through it or threw it off. "so yeah...we're here now...peaches said to keep these guys out while she finished things with her old boss."

Sans covered his face with his hands, leaving the phone pushed up against his forehead. “Shit,” he whispered as he realized why they hadn’t been able to find Hightower, why it had been as easy as it had been. They had tripped and fallen straight into that distraction, hadn’t they? He recovered a half second later to shoot to his feet and find someone who could help. “Stay with her,” Sans shouted into the phone. “We’ll make our way there next. Dusk, just-Dusk, Dusk?”

 

The phone line beeped out, disconnected. 

                                                                                                  

Sans felt jittery in a way he hadn’t felt jittery before; like manic jittery. He was tapped out and tired as hell but he needed to move, he needed to go, he needed to do something other than stand around and worry about things he couldn’t help. 

Sans .” 

It should have been a question but that tone was all wrong. Gaster was behind him and looked as pristine as the day he got pulled out of the box, not at all like the rest of them who were dirty, dingy, and magically exhausted. It frustrated Sans because he couldn’t blame the guy for not doing his share, he did more than enough, it was just another illustration of the difference in their inane magic levels. 

Sans swallowed his panic. “Where are the others?” Sans asked instead of addressing Gaster. “O need ta-”

Eat something, idiot .”

Gaster’s sharp tone interrupted Sans’ rambling and it made him freeze on the spot. The advice was good, solid advice for a panicking monster who needed his magic refilled, but it was coming from Gaster of all people.  

“What the fuck you know old man?” Sans snarled, turning aggressive in a way he wasn’t used to. He took a step towards the taller monster. Gosh he was even taller than his brother . “What are you doing over here talking to me in the first place?” 

Gaster’s expression was carefully neutral. “ You’re not the only one who knows things .” He pulled from within his long coat a pager like object. “ We’ve also received warnings of activity at a secondary site. I am mobilizing my group presently, I encourage you to do the same.

“We’re tapped, old man. What do you expect us to do in this condition?” 

Sans was only further agitated as he realized the truth of his words. Someone important needed him and he wasn’t in a position to help them. He wanted to help them, to reach them and be their support, but that was something beyond his abilities at the moment. Sure, he’d recover with some sleep or some good food, but not fast enough; Just like Hightower planned it no doubt. They had come out hard and fast to save as many people as they could and that cost them energy and magic.

Even if it was a shorter shortcut than the one they made to get to the city, it was still something he didn’t think he could make on his own and still remain upright for. 

Gaster glanced up at something beyond Sans’ shoulder and the expression never changed, but Sans got the impression that easter was displeased with what he saw. “ Apprise the rest of your group. We will be mobilizing shortly. ” 

Sans turned and saw Black, eyesights flashing neon red with pin prick intensity. The borrowed phone was against the side of his skull and it seemed like something or someone had gotten through to him. 

“Did Rus answer the-

“THEY’RE GONE,” Black interjected, forgetting himself for a moment as his volume surged with new magic. Sans didn’t need it clarified to know who and what Black was talking about. 

“Yeah I spoke with Dusk, but what did Rus say?” 

“YOU KNEW THEY WENT OFF ON THEIR OWN AND YOU SAID NOTHING?”

“i just found out,” Sans snapped, out of character in his shortness.

 The harsh tone seemed to placate Black enough that when he spoke again he had better control over his voice. “They left for the facility but I can’t shortcut there because I’ve never been on site.”

“None of us have except Blue, but even if we had those specs on where to step out, I’m tapped. My magic tank is all but empty.”

“Have you eaten yet?” 

Sans eye lights swiveled away, looking for something or someone new to fixate on. “Food can only do so much.”

“It can do a great deal. Eat and we’ll work together to combine out efforts once more. Your brother should be nearby.” Black looked down at the phone in his hand and then glanced around the space. “I need to find the human and return this to them. They were with a group of monsters.”

“Hope you find them,” Sans mumbled. He turned around, looking for Papyrus. Maybe he really did need something to eat, but he’d find that alongside his brother once he and the others knew what was going on with you. 

It was still night, the sky was dark and wide, but the city had enough lights to make things bright as long as things were kept on the streets. Plenty of people were still up, too agitated to sleep as their city pulled itself from the brink of destruction with a little monster magic and just as much luck.  

Of all people, Sans caught side of his brother stand next to and talking with Red. He drew a little closer and Red turned around first, face stuffed with food as he held a hotdog in either hand, salvaged from a street cart. Papyrus had one as well but it looked like it was piled high with healthy things. Just beyond them was a jittery looking human with a cut above his eye that had been bandaged. He was trying to convince Papyrus to eat more. 

Red noticed Sans first but it was Papyrus who knew something was wrong as his elder brother tottered over. 

“What happened?” Papyrus asked first, even as Red offered up a hotdog. 

“Buddy, take a bite of something and quit looking like a worn out dog ,” Red tried to pun.

“This was the distraction, we gotta join the others at the second site,” Sans said, accepting the dog and tossing it back in one swallow. 

Red blinked and Papyrus turned all the way around. 

“Uhh, run that by us again, short stuff?” Red asked.

So Sans did. Or he did the best he could to summarize the situation and lay out next steps for their troop. They needed to recover what they could of their magic and make some lame ditch effort to reach the far side of the state- something a few hours away. Red seemed frustrated about what was left for them to do, what could they do if they drained themselves out before they even got there especially if whatever was that was worse than what they went through. But before he could get too worked up Papyrus interrupted with a hand on Red’s shoulder. 

“I can handle this! Get everyone together and meet in front of the shop over there. Sans, you need to eat a little more. Red, will you be in charge of making sure the rest have food from Jimmothy over here. Isn’t that okay with you, sir?” Papyrus said, turning to face the human with the name tag that read Jimmothy. He numbly nodded, seemingly a little out of it still. 

Sans swallowed some of his panic and, for not the first nor the last time, admitted to himself that Papyrus was the coolest person he knew. Sans should have been more put together, after all the resets he had lived through and the deaths he had survived, but it was his brother who adapted to crisis like a fish to water. Papyrus was made for stuff like this, knowing just what everyone needed as he walked off the sidewalk towards the far end of the street, saying something to everyone he passes, monster or human. 

When Sans looked back over his shoulder again he saw the mute hot dog seller and offered a tired wave. Red had already jogged away. “Yeah know,” Sans began, feeling a little less manic thanks to his brother. “I used to own one of these for myself. I relish the chance to try another dog if you don’t mind.” 

The seller shook his shoulders in a quiet sort of laugh before signing to Sans, saying he cold take as much monster friendly food as he wanted in thanks for saving the people from earlier. It was the least he could do to pay it forward. 

Less than ten minutes later Sans heard his name being called and he jogged over to the new circle of friends and strangers alike. Papyrus had collected a huge group of monsters that seemed to know him by reputation alone. Sans didn’t recognize any of them from back underground, some looked like teenagers.

“What’s going on?” he asked while sliding in next to Stretch and Edge. 

Stretch made an effort to answer while Edge downed another MonsterMonster energy drink (the energy drink for monster strong monsters). 

“Blue is going to steer as close as possible to the facility and the rest of these guys,” Stretch nodded his chin at the group of new monsters,” signed up to power the ride.”

“What, why?” Sans asked, startled by the generosity. He didn’t know any of these monsters, some of them looked young. Why would they sign up to deplete all their magic to help them get out and away?

“It’s because of your efforts earlier,” Edge scoffed. “If I can grasp that much you have no excuse, Comic.” 

“Earlier?”

 Sans thought back to the moments after they finished closing up the void scar, how they had to race down the side of the mountain and pick off the last few remnants of dark destruction between buildings and sewer drains. They weren’t difficult enemies or especially strong, but tracking them down and destroying them before humans and monsters got hurt had been a whole new challenge…and he hadn’t been perfect. There were still stains on the sidewalks in places. He had tried his best but some things still slipped through the cracks. 

“Yeah,” Stretch echoed, smoking some type of dog treat, borrowed from Rus. It would help his magic levels better than most foods but make him woozy later on.  He sounded haunted enough for Sans to sympathize. 

“It wasn’t a flawless execution on our end, but we did what we could and many more people are alive because of us than if we have been ultimately absent,” Edge added, looking less haunted and more embattled. Loss wasn’t something new to a monster like him, and he knew how to bounce back from it better. “Don’t focus on what you can't do when you need to put your energy into what comes next. Our lover is in need, is she not?” 

Sans felt a little more grounded when he shook his head in affirmation. “Yeah, I spoke with Dusk and it sounded like they were in the thick of it.”

“Then that is where our focus should go. Our energies are meant for better things,” Edge declared, pushing his shoulders back as Papyrus turned their way and waved the group into formation. 

Blue stood in the center and next to him stood Black, followed by Red, and then the rest of the skeleton got in close, connecting themselves like a train that would follow the driving engine down the predesignated tracks through space in time. In front of Blue a fan of monsters gathered. One of them was a bright orange yellow fire elemental and another was a dazzling purple fire elemental that looked at Red a little too keenly before smiling wide in recognition. 

“Thank you,” one of the monsters at the front whispered to Blue before her dads reached over her head to add their magic. “Thank you,” they both echoed. Two more hands reached out from different monsters on different sides. “Thank you,” And then another squeezed in, “Thank you.” The magic sparked, building with pressure as monster after monster pushed their magic into Blue, a monster who could only guide while Black made the actual jump. 

Sans felt behind him as Raven came up, trailed by the rest of the Gaster group. He grabbed for Sans’ shoulder and nodded in encouragement before more monsters added their magics to the mix. Each one said the same two words, “thank you,” but everyone said it differently, and sometimes that thanks came with a feeling. 

Thank you for saving my daughter.”

“Thank you for protecting my family,”

“Thank you for defending our city.”

“Thank you for keeping my wife and I safe.”

“Thank you for the sake of my human who I love.”

“Thank you for keeping our pride alive.”

“Thank you for killing that dangerous thing when you did.”

“I’ll have nightmares forever but I’ll be alive to have them thanks to you.”

“Thank you for saving me.”

“Thank you for saving what I couldn’t. ” 

Sans almost tasted salt and tears as the magic built to a blinding high, powered by all the hope and love and trust a group could possibly have in spite of every reason not to. Even after failure, so many came together to help them try one more time. And this time, Sans wasn’t going to let anything touch his family.

That thought was the last one he had before the jump was finalized and space folded in on them, dragged over their line like a massive blanket, and then pulled back to show a new location.  Sans was almost ready to step out onto the new ground when something pushed him back. The line broke and most of them staggered away from each other, landing on their feet in the dirt on the road just outside the facility. 

“What was that?” Black yelled, staggering back to his feet. “Something pushed us back. Blue-”

“It wasn’t me? I felt it too,” Blue quickly answered. “I tried to get us into the field right inside the facility.”

“We got pushed back, that happens sometimes when you try to shortcut into a space with a person, you just get shunted into the next free available space, but this is pretty far back. Look,” Stretch pointed to the looming shape of the nondescript facility where so much shit had happened. “That’s where we were supposed to be but we got pushed back here.”

“That’s a good distance,” Red grumbled. 

“The question is, why?” Edge added, already summoning his bone sword as he took a couple steps forward. There was an immodest effect on the magical outline of his weapon. It wavered and then turned dull. He still had a sword but his magic was no longer active in buffing it. “Some sort of anti magic zone?” 

“That wasn’t here last time we visited!” Blue complained.

“You think it could be the result of whatever experiments went on here?” Stretch voiced aloud, looking first to Red who was closest and then to Black who was dabbing at beads of magic sweat.  

Black didn’t answer, but he made a face that was answer enough; he didn’t know and he didn’t like the looks of it. Stretch offered Black a cigarette and Black almost refused before he recognized the brand as one Rus frequented. He took one and inhaled deeply once it was lit. When he exhaled the smoke that came curling out was scarlet and purple. 

The Gasters and Raven kept their opinions to themselves, saving nothing, but each one observed the barrier-like phenomenon on their own, testing for themselves how it actually felt.

Sans walked into the space alongside Edge and frowned at the static feeling of his magic roiling in his bones. Anti magic fields were a possibility, but it felt like something else, almost like when you get caught on the edge of a person’s encounter domain and it ends up cutting right through you, leaving you half in and half out until you move. It felt like fractured reality-not unlike the void but distinct enough to be something else. Maybe it was something new.

San opened his mouth to share his theories with the rest of the group when reality split open behind him. The sound was deafening. He turned along with everyone else to watch as a pillar of black nothing-ness ate through the sky, darker than night, surging upwards until it split out at the top like a fountain or some sort of tree. It began to spread, slower now, growing branches out. From where it emerged, mental and foundation alike, was disintegrated. 

Sound went funny for a second but he heard, or maybe he felt, the vibration of his brother’s words as he pointed out to a pair of figures racing towards them, away from the facility. Sans looked and recognized them both. It was Dusk and Jack, booking it for the boundaries before the black substance could spread far enough to catch up to them. 

 As glad as Sans was to see the brothers, two guys he had grown weirdly protective of since knowing them, his soul dropped in his chest when he realized there wasn’t any sign of you.

 

Dusk watched another mess of black goop fall apart in front of him, taken down by his brother before he could even lift his axe at it. As the goop fell away, what was left was the ruined corpse of wires and metal plating of an android he might have killed months ago. It was hard to tell when they all looked the same. 

“THAT IS ALMOST ALL OF THEM, BROTHER. I CAN NOT SENSE ANY MORE COMING IN PHYSICAL BODIES.”

“…that mean you can sense them in their swamp form?” Dusk asked while poking at a stain left behind. There was no life to it anymore, even though mere minutes earlier it was wrapped around a robot bent on his destruction. 

“WHEN THE GOO POSSESSES SOMETHING IT STILL RADIATES ENERGY FROM ITS MAGIC, BUT NOT AFTER A POSSESSION, THEN THE GOO JUST FALLS APART AND I THINK IT DIES OFF CAUSE I CAN’T SENSE IT ANYMORE.”  

Dusk nodded along, listening to his brother before setting his axe down. “…and i don’t hear any more clunking from them footsteps. you think we did it?” 

Jack straightened himself up, stepping closer to his brother and away from a different stain. “I THINK THAT IS ACCURATE FOR THIS LEVEL AT LEAST. I AM NOT ABLE TO SENSE ANY NEW REASON TO STAY HERE. SHALL WE PROCEED DOWN?” 

That was where you were, after all. If there was no more danger to threaten you from behind then it made sense to find you wherever you were. But Dusk took a step in what he thought was the right direction before something rippled through him, the static blowback of what could have been an encounter’s domain spreading over him. But it wasn’t an encounter domain. The world’s colors didn’t invert and the item boxes didn’t pop up like they should have. It wasn’t an encounter…but it was something similar. 

“BROTHER!”

“i know,” Dusk grunted, feeling the weight of out-of turn magic sapping at him. He still had his weapon out but the rest of his magic, already a challenge to reach, now became near impossible. He thought maybe he could shortcut and swing his weapon, but there was so much new weight pulling him down. It made him want to tear off the patch on his skull and growl, returning to his instincts and little else. When he was free he was someone not even his counterparts could properly manage. He could beat this weight if he fought against it with all he had…if he let himself go.

“IT SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE FACILITY, BUT I CAN FEEL IT STILL TRAVELING TO THE EDGES OF THE PROPERTY AND-BROTHER! SOMEONE HAS ARRIVED. THERE WAS A MASS INPUT OF NEW MAGICS JUST OUTSIDE.”

Dusk took a breath to ground himself a little better, keeping his itching hand away from his eye socket. “didja sense peaches in there?”

“YES, BUT IT’S WRONG, IT'S DIFFERENT, LIKE A SLIVER OF HER SOUL. I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT. I THOUGHT SHE WAS BELOW US BUT I CAN’T SENSE ANYTHING DOWN THERE NOW, ONLY STILLNESS.”

Dusk was still teetering on the knife’s edge of his sanity, flirting with a fall. He was trying his best to keep himself together for the sake of his brother and for the sake of you. “if that’s where she is we need ta get there,” he reached for his brother with his free hand instead of his eye. 

“BUT IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE, AND HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET THERE IF YOU CAN’T USE MAGIC IN THIS SPACE?” Jack tried to produce a bone and it levitated with magic for a split second before falling limp to the ground, surviving only as a blunt object. He glanced back at his brother, sockets narrowed in concern. “I DON’T KNOW IF I CAN TRUST MY SENSES.” 

Dusk grabbed for Jack’s hand and Jack squeezed back without looking. He still seemed distracted, trying to sense things beyond the scope of his immodest range. Dusk recognized the lines of worry on his brother’s skull so he shook his hand, getting Jack’s attention. “shotcuts are different, bro, and your senses haven’t failed us yet so i’d bank on them.” 

“I… I WANT TO GO WHERE I THINK SHE IS AND FIND HER AS FAST AS POSSIBLE.  I DON’T LIKE THIS PLACE, NOW EVEN MORE SO.  IT'S ALL WRONG HERE.” 

Jack sounded more distressed than any time he had to face down an enemy, more distraught by how unfamiliar the environment had become than any injury or immediate danger. The two of them had seen their fair share of horror and lived to tell the tale, so it took a lot to shake them. Ah, but that was before they had this much to lose. They had a family now…a big one too! There were kids and new brothers and a lover. It was more than they deserved and all of it was riding on the success of their mission. 

Dusk found the determination to push through. “We’re going,” he said to his brother. 

Before he could hear any reply or confirmation Dusk punched through the magical domain around them with a shortcut, ripping into space so loudly the hallway compacted like a vacuum into space. It was unlike any shortcut he had ever attempted but he didn’t stop to take notes. Jack held tight as Dusk pushed on, stepping into the howling maw of black space and they stepped out of a scar in the world. This void was different-littered with lights and rolling waves of black ink on a darker darkness. Behind him the wound into time and space collapsed and the dirt and debris fell where it had been.  He stepped out onto the ground and staggered as a new wave of gravity fell over him. 

His brother called out his name and staggered closer to him. They were outside, but Dusk had wanted to be closer to the edge of the property. He could see in the distance where a group of new arrivals had shown up…he recognized them as skeletons but was still too far away to tell one apart from the other. It would make sense for you to be with that group. 

He staggered a little, caught by where Jack still held onto his hand. “Sorry bro, i couldn’t get us closer. the magic here is hella weird. 

“YOU DID WHAT I COULD NOT AND YOU DID IT SPLENDIDLY IN SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES. DON’T WORRY OVER THAT AND STAND UP ON YOUR TWO FEET, WE NEED TO MAKE IT OVER THERE THE OLD FASHIONED WAY.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to pick me up and carry me on your back like a baby bones?” 

FAT CHANCE, BROTHER.”

Dusk’s eye light wobbled with mirth at the pun from his brother. “i’m not fat,” he playfully protested while taking the first step towards the others.

“THAT IS WHY YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND TRUE QUALITY HUMOR,” Jack sighed, walking along his side.

“And you do?”

“OF COURSE, I STAYED WITH YOU ALL THIS TIME, DIDN’T I?” 

Dusk sputtered in his laughter, unable to levy everything he was feeling. He was worried and tired and determined and scared and here his brother was making jokes about him like it was the best day ever. He was full of highs and lows.

They were part way across the field out front, traversing over the burn marks in the ground where you had once fought off that mage with plant based magic, when another sick ripple of magic passed through the pair. Dusk nearly doubled over but Jack caught him and they looked back as one to see what had happened. 

They turned just in time to see reality torn apart, worse than any shortcut attempted out of such a warped domain. The sound was deafening as a pillar of black void ate through the sky, darker than night, surging upwards until it split out at the top like a fountain or some sort of tree. It began to spread, slower now, growing branches out. From where it emerged, mental and foundation alike, was disintegrated. 

“SANS,” Jack cried out in alarm, reverting back to their original names in his panic.

“run for it,” he yelled back, doing his best to push his body forward into a run as more and more of the black branches spread outwards. He tried to create a shortcut for the both of them, but his magic was shot-or maybe it was this field of reality where it wouldn’t work. 

They ran for it, gunning for the edge of the domain where the other skeletons were clustered. Dusk couldn’t see any sign of you but he figured he could get to the edge of the domain and find you there. 

Behind them the ground was starting to crack and further back he could hear the earth around the facility sinking in on itself. Dusk didn’t dare turn his skull to look back and confirm it for himself, not when he was all but killing himself to run faster than he thought possible across the field. Jack was already ahead of him and that spurred Dusk on, knowing that his brother would get to safety first. 

One of the skeletons, Edge maybe, threw one of his non magical bones into the air, far overhead and Dust felt the static more than heard it as one of the black tendrils was beat back, away from where they were running. 

Jack leapt and in one moment he was in a muffle of sound and then it was like popping a bubble, he was free. Dusk crashed through next and ended up tumbling into where this world’s Papyrus was, being caught before he could take any damage. 

Someone cursed out loud and Dusk mentally made a note of agreeing with the exclamation, thankful that he could hear again. He turned over in the dirt and looked back, feeling horror grow as he saw the field of darkness bleeding darker and darker. It was like a snow globe filling with night, vein by bleeding vein.

Jack was up, calling your name and Dusk looked to where his brother was, grimacing when the others pulled back. There were three new monsters and a human he didn’t recognize on the edges of the group. A second later he recognized the Gaster monsters. The human behind them…he looked an awful lot like you and Jack stopped in front of the guy, looking at him like he was looking at a mistake.

Jack called out your name and then started to panic. “WHERE IS SHE? I SENSED HER HERE AND HER SOUL WAS SUPPOSED TO BE IN THIS PLACE. WHERE DID SHE GO?” Jack turned sharply on his heel, tears already gathered in the corners of his sockets. “ WHERE IS SHE ?”

“She was supposed ta be with you, tall stuff,” Red answered first. “Ain’t that what you said, Classic?” 

Dusk nodded along when the other Sans looked to him. “she was, we were all together and then we got separated with a bunch of those goop critters.” Dusk coughed, holding the side of his skull. “…we split up…she went down and then jack here sensed her outside…so we split for the hills before that…she was supposed ta be here.”

“Then what does that mean?” Black all but barked, sounding as angry as Dusk expected anyone to be in the situation. It didn’t make sense and they were all worried about it now. There wasn’t a reason for Jack to have mistakenly sensed a sliver of your soul out here when you weren’t here. 

“NO, WHY IS SHE HERE BUT NOT HERE. I COULDN’T SENSE HER AT ALL BACK IN THAT FACILITY WHEN WE LEFT IT, ONLY HERE. YOU HAVE A PIECE OF HER,” Jack insisted, still crying in front of the human named Raven. Dusk remembers a half beat later that the pair of you were siblings. The similarities made sense now, but not the soul shard his brother was picking up.

“Couldn’t you have made a mistake?” Stretch offered, sounding tired and worn thin. He came up behind Jack and tried to rub a comforting circle into Jack’s back. “It's been rough on all of us.”

“Raven,” Sans called out, stepping forward. “Can’t you contact your sister some other way. The two of you have your magics intertwined somehow.” 

The human, Raven, glanced sideways at the tallest of the Gaster trio and then took a hesitant step forward. “I’ll give it a try. If she’s close I'll be able to speak with her.”

There was something unspoken in the boy’s admission. If she was close…if she wasn’t, didn’t that mean…? Dusk stopped the thought before it could finish, turning harshly to the side to brace against whoever was closest. Red patted his back and it helped. 

The boy stepped up to the edge of the domain and a pair of horns curled back over his skull. His features darkened as black feathers grew out from the places between one hair and the next on his head. His features sharpened and his eyes lost their unique design, pupil and iris were replaced with a shimmering white film that radiated light. 

The rest of the group huddled close, some watching the boy while others fixed their attention on the facility. More and more of the building was sinking into the black, rolling void. More and more of the snow globe was filled in with darkness. No doubt in an hour’s time the entire dome area would be completely filled in with some rasterization of the darker, deeper, wildest layers of the void. 

Black stepped a little away from the group to call his brother, watching the blackness grow as he connected with Rus on a borrowed phone thanks to Edge. He was watching the darkness in time to see it burst. 

Several things happened at once. 

Raven opened his mouth and spoke in a voice that wasn’t his, it was your voice, speaking through him in a tone they all recognized.

“Run!” you screamed through your brother. 

Raven then staggered back, clutching his right eye as he howled in pain, crumpling to his knees as Dee rushed over to catch him. Raven pulled his hand off his face and it was bare, his eye intact and face free of wound, but the way he fell back screaming anyone would have assumed his right eye had been cut or damaged.  

The darkness burst open and a writhing mass of black tethers emerged, multi-colored like the rainbow in an oil spill, still dark and nauseating while being a mockery of colors. All the darkness that had been leaking out seemed sucked back, dropping into any one of the hundreds of tiny, slavering mouths of crooked fangs that opened. A hungry beast, a creature of unshaped mass, struggled to be born in space, littered with eyes like stars and mouths without voices. 

“fuck,” someone whispered out, shaken at the sight. 

Black’s eye lights were spinning as he beheld a dark god being born, neither monster nor mage, but something else entirely;  just like from the prophecies about angels and end times.





Hey young blood, doesn't it feel like our time is running out?
I'm gonna change you like a remix
Then I'll raise you like a phoenix
Wearing our vintage misery
No, I think it looked a little better on me
I'm gonna change you like a remix
Then I'll raise you like a phoenix

Put on your war paint

 

The Phoenix 
FOB

 

 

“You ugly fucker, you were supposed to be better than this-” you gurgled, choking as a new wave of black void almost cut you off. “You were supposed to take care of us-supposed to be our teacher-you were supposed to be better than this!”

Your hands reached him but it was like touching ice as your flames flickered out, unable to stay ignited so close to a burning cold body. But you didn’t care, you curled your frostbitten fingers into the fabric of his shirt and pulled yourself forward and screamed. With all the force you could manage you reeled back and punched him across the face. Instead of reaction the face broke open and you stared into darkness as more and more of his human shell fell away. You felt the chuckle even if you couldn’t hear it.  

The rest of his body fell away and the soul in his hand was sucked out, dragged into the middle of the pit where it hovered for a fraction of a second before imploding. The impact sent ripples throughout the room, shaking the void as it leaked out before a new rush of darkness surged.

 What had once been a pit, open and leaking, exploded into a cylinder of solid black, roaring for the sky as it tore through floor after floor and level after level, eating through metal and plaster like it was nothing until the night sky was visible-but only for a moment because the void bloomed like a tree, branching out to swallow up more and more of the facility until you were staring up at a brand new world with brand new stars.

No

Not stars.

Eyes .

Darkness lapped at your ankles and you felt yourself sink into a new world as everything rippled with the shift in reality. Shortcuts into the void never ventured this deep, and even the few times you had been let down into the void on a harness it had never been this dark- 

Except once.

The eyes opened wide for you, one larger than all others. A wide, open lid was filled in with a multitude of different, crowded eyes, as slit at the pupil and burning with chaotic fire. It translated to literal pain in the brain.

You felt it try to push in, to make your body its house the same way it had with Hightower, to devour you like some crustacean and leave the shell behind to wear among the world of men and monsters.

 

O ̶̨͇̟̦͂̈̔͑̓̋͒̚͜ u ̷̢̧̗̖͇̝̈́̆̑̋̆ r ̵̦̰̖͈̰̹̖͖̘̬̮͂̾̍̈́͆͠ ̸ ̛̤̮͔͎͊̽͒ p ̷̭͙̑̾̀̉̄̋̕ r ̷̛̛͚̤̯̥͉̥͇̹͉́̔̓̀͑̎͒͆̇͜ o ̵͇̭͍̓̾̄̌͐̍͝ g̸͑̄ ̦̤͎̞̲̙͆̾́͂̎̃͘ e ̷̰͇̻̄̅͐̐̉̍͐̃͂̾̍ n ̷̧͈̦̙̪̱̹̃͊͜ y ̶̢̛͕͕̹͎͐̋̾̋͋̍!

 

 A new voice screamed in your mind. All monsters and mages, made with magic, came from the wild creation that this…thing also came from. Did it take credit for what you were and what your friends all were? Fuck that!

You roared against the psychic push, burning in whispers of smoke in an environment that wasn’t conducive for flames. You were crying from the strain and felt the cold biting at your fingers when they should have been burning. 

Whatever was inside your mind pushed in further with thoughts like feelings, less a language and more an understanding. It impressed upon you hunger , it impressed need , how this was only the natural consequence of nature existing. It was natural for the weak to give way for what was mightier, it was the law of life. 

You scratched out at the darkness, passing through it like clouds or fog, or jello in other parts. You couldn’t manifest anything but there was debris floating in the void that you scrambled for, bleeding blood from both your sockets as the entity tried to push into your brain and eat away more of your will. You found a piece of twisted metal, severed at a point, and used it to stab at the darkness. 

You felt the sense that it was urging you to give in, to give up and let nature take its course through this inevitable outcome. There was nothing you could do to stop it. It was an inexorable fate. 

 

“̸̛̺̯̱͛̉͛͆̒͛U̴̺̼̍̒̌̈̒̽̔l̴̡̢̻̳̳̝̗̰͗̋̾̄̌̎̐̿̆͜t̶̢̊̌̒̌͗͝ỉ̶͙̰̹̖̭̤̜̻̏̾̈́̈́̃̆̅m̶͍͓͇̙͌̈ä̶̮͔́̔̈̓t̶̹̞͎͈̂͂́̋̆͌̿͐̾e̴̻͓̩͇͒̇ ̵̢̨̥̖̜̰͎͐̍̚͘h̴̪̻̞̮̦̯͖̉ö̵̢̱̥͔́̌̍͌̈́͐͐r̵̬͓̯̹̄͐̆̃͋̓͜ͅr̶̨̥̫̠̠͑͂͐̇̑̎͘̚͘͘ỏ̴̤͙͈r̵̨͖͚͎̲̀̄̈́͜ ̷̧̹͕̪̲̥͊̊o̵̖͔͐̐̋͘͠f̶̪̲͈͇̍̾̇̾͠t̷̢̮͈͔͛̾̌e̴͕̲͖̖̐͐̌͝ͅn̶̨̧̛̜̫̰̜̜̯͕͎͐̈́̔͂̈́̅͝ ̴̛͈̤̹͚͗̇́̒̿̎̂̏̚ͅp̸͖̳̲̟̿͆͑͐̆͝a̵̼̖͌̓̈́r̸̮͍͚͋̀̇̋͂̾̅̒͜ͅą̴̧̫̩̹͎̩̫͒l̷̺̦͈̬̳͈̝̩̟͎̒̿͗͑̀̈́̐͘͝ȳ̵̧͔̱̱̩̟̫̤̓̊͜͝s̵̱̯̝̹͕͙͇͑̓̒͗̋̎̌͊̓͝ĕ̸̥͖̦̽́̇̄̈́̚s̵̼̹̯̖͐̑̔͌͊̓͊̅͠͝ ̵͙̏̂ṁ̵̨͖̺͙̟̦̘͇̖̟͆e̸̢̢̝̙͚̩̝̍̔͊̌͌̂̀̀͂͜m̵̨̰͇̪̅͛̄́̏̈́̒o̴̡͈̙̗̰̾̿̔͌͋̅̚͝ͅͅr̶̢̬̤̞̜̼̟̍̀̋͛̋͗̎̕͜͝ỳ̸̢̱̦̩̗̣̗̗̜̙̋̈́̆̆̎̌̚ ̶͙̰̗̍i̵̡̪̗͙͈̮͚̲̲̊̕͜n̸̨̛̦̠̂̏̓͊̈̾ ̶̨̧̡͚̪̺͒̆͗̎̑̌̓a̸͇̭̟͛́̊͜ ̷̖̰̓͐͌̃̓͋̕͝͝m̵̱̣̪̬̓ḙ̶͇̈̀͑͝ȑ̵̹͓̤̪̫͛͝c̷̮̆į̴̡̜͚̭̙̄͆̂̕f̶̖̄͂́̊͐̐̔̌͘ų̵̛͔̩͆̆̏̈́̉̓͠͠ͅl̷̻̲̣͒̿̕ ̷̧̧̛̦̤͍͗̄͝w̸̳͈̝̍̈́̎̀̽͆̇̓͑̕͜ä̶̢͍̭͈͇̘̹̺́́̄̀̓̚͝ý̴̯̰͚̣͕̉̏̽.̵̨̻̖͉̫̦͍̰̮̈́̈́̍͛”̵̝̹̣͍͓̼͇̟̲̅̅̇

 

You staggered at the boom of pain in your brain as more and more eyes opened around you, all fixated on your form. Your ultimate nightmare bloomed right in front of your one good eye, twisting you up in the horror of your situation. Alone and defenseless, you were facing off a literal god in its domain. 

This had been the thing that crippled you in your bravest moments, the nightmare that drove you to sleep walk leagues barefoot in the night. Nothing else in your entire life has ever humbled you like this fear. All other senses fell away and you were rendered helpless and insane through your manic fear. 

This had always been your greatest fear but now it is so much more. 

 

y̵̨̨̦̿͂͆o̴̙͝ǘ̸̲̻̄ ̷̧̠̖͗w̸̲̆́i̵̭̔́̀l̸̬͇̗̚͘l̵̜̂̾ ̵̟̎̇̂b̶̲̭̘̌͘e̸͚͖̐̓͝ ̶̧̼͇̏͘͠t̴̪̪͛h̷̨͓̅̎e̵̗̝͌ ̸͙̼̤̍̃͂d̶̞̔o̵̭͒̋́ơ̵̩̟̯r̶̖̄̊ ̴̜̫͊̎ͅt̵̞̣̀̿̔h̴̰̀̏͘r̸̟̊ǒ̷͈̪̺ŭ̸̦g̴̼̽ḫ̸̝̔̚ ̴̢̰͈̄͊͊w̴̨͓͗̿h̸̖̙̍̋i̶̲͈̩͑c̵̻̟̻̎͝ȟ̵̜ ̴͉̜̉̋̍o̴̱̒u̸͓͔͐r̶̩̩̉̓ ̸͈̍̃ẇ̶͚̭̉͝ȋ̴̧̗̞̒l̵͖͍̹̔͛̚l̵̦̘͆ ̸̲͈͒s̷͖͉̹͘h̷̨̥̎ą̷̑̿ͅl̶̡̹͉̏ľ̴̩̭̓͜ ̸̢̭̮͗͐b̶̡̗͚͒͠ě̷̖͖͖͂ ̵̩̠̈́̿ͅm̵̱͔̿̅̿a̷̰͔̱͛͊͠d̸̬̯̏̆ể̷͍̕ ̴̗̻͇̾m̵̡̃͒̈a̴̤̞̋̐͜ņ̶͇̙̈ḭ̶̮̔f̵͇̲͌e̶̬̥͂́͘ş̷̟͖̑̀t̴̲͓̓̌̊͜ 

 

Now it was fear for your friends and family. If you really were going to become the meat suit it wore as it walked across the earth, that meant it would be your hands that hurt, your powers that destroyed. You would be the killer you always feared you might be. The hero you wanted to imitate would be a hopeless dream. You had only ever wanted to be good. You had only ever wanted to make the world better than you found it, to love and be loved in return. You had tasted sweet paradise and now it would be because of you it burned up and away?

 

g̶͓̠̗̟̟̺̈́ị̶̛͒̐̌v̴͚̯̗̺̰͌͐̑e̴̢̺̲̼̙̦̅͛͆̀͘ ̸͖̲̻̓̒́͛̚͝y̶̢̭̣̲͕͐o̵̯͉̺͚͖̓u̶̪̲͛͌̏̾͝r̸̼̹̻̟̂̍̔̕ͅs̷̮̈̄́̆͒͑ȅ̸̙͖̍͗̌͘ͅl̶̼͒̌̋̂̅͘f̵̠͚͙̏͒̍̒̈́͘ ̴̫̥̈́̃̅̍̚͠͠ṱ̷͇̫̃͛͆̓̕͝o̵̡̬̥̭͔̦̅͋̂̔ ̸̧͎̑͒̃̊̈́̆u̴̫͓̿̎̚͜ŝ̵̢̌̎͐̽

 

Fuck no.

With what little resolve you could manage you pushed back against the blinding cold and a new voice made its way into your brain. You recognized it at once, your brother was there, trying to connect to you. The rest were outside the domain, the boundary limit of this creature, looking for you. Raven, in your mind, saw what you had seen but before he could make sense of all the eyes and mouth around your body while inside this creature’s domain you cut off that feed and scrambled it, the same way you would with your map magic. 

He knew enough to know what had happened to you. He also had a good idea of what would come next and his fear gave you a new sense of strength. Your family, including a brother you were just beginning to get back together with, were there waiting for you. They needed you-not this thing!

RUN ,” you roared in your mind before tearing at your good eye with the curved metal of your salvaged rubble. 

You cut through your good eye and the world went dark through blood and pain. The link to your brother snapped apart and he was forcibly removed from your mind along with the screeching entity that had no other foothold into your consciousness. You were useless to it.  

If it was going to try and consume you then you were going to make it choke first!

You pulled up your magic and manifest a myriad of wings, stretching far before wrapping wide, feathers upon feathers, wing on top of wings on top of wings. You sank into your own magic, letting it break apart your body. Outside the barrier your feathers made, you felt the assault of its concentrated anger, thrashing against your wings again and again, trying to crack you open and get back inside so it could destroy what it could not have. 

You refused. 

You were more than one body. You were the culmination of every hope and dream and bit of love that you were recipient of. Your soul wasn’t even yours completely anymore, you were fixed and remade with slivers of magic from everyone who loved you. When you dipped into it you could feel them there.  

Around you the world surged and shifted. You felt it trying to break out, to bloom into the world without a herald now that Hightower was no more. It would slop and slouch towards its destination but it would not be whole. You had ensured that. 

Yet it would still exist, more massive than a condominium and more deadly than any other creature you or your friends had ever faced before. It would find a different mage to puppet….maybe your brother. Maybe someone else. It would grow and consume more and more of the world, more and more until it was strong enough to do what it was meant to do. You had not stopped it, nearly delayed the inevitable. 

“Please,” you reached out to Raven again. “Please, keep it safe for me. I’ll need it.”

He would know what you meant.  

“I’m whatever the hell I want to be and I’m going to be good , goddamn it! I’m going to be good!” 

Your tears burned like acid on your skin as you cried from within the protective barrier you made out of your wings. You loved your family so goddamn much. 

You loved Sans and Papyrus, how you had fallen for the monster mascot even before you knew him, inspired by the message of peace he championed. With Sans it had been a hard won love that started on rocky grounds, but forgiveness and reconciliation showed you a better future and it was a wonderful future.

Blue had been the first one to find you and you felt the tug to his soul with your own. His awe stuck eye lights for you and the deceptively innocent expressions that betrayed none of his more mature appetites. Stretch might not have been the first to see you or meet you but he saw you deeply. You felt fully and completely exposed in a way you never had because you were safe in the vulnerability. You were safe with all your mistakes and weaknesses and temptations. He saw you and he knew you and he still loved you.

Red and Edge were fragments of your soul, both roaring shards of courage and justice. You were deeply and passionately loved and there was no room left for doubt, neither would abide by that. All three of you had your own set of scars to carry and you never shied away from that, only offering comfort and care. When you were sick Edge was there at the edge of your bed insisting you eat or sleep or do whatever was needed to heal. Red was there too, with kisses and sweet words to carry you through your nightmares. He was always good for a joke or a cheesy pick up pun but that never meant he didn’t mean it. There was nothing but honest in the way he faced you with a soul full of love.  You were so proud of both of them, how they had grown and healed and become better versions of themselves over time. 

Another throb and you felt Black and Rus near and dear. An unlikely pair to grow as close as they did, you wouldn’t have it any other way. With their rough exteriors you hadn’t expected them to be as sinfully soft and sweet but there was never a need to doubt their sincerity. Black’s care for you was just as intense and strong as anyone else even if it came in different ways. He was the father and husband, he was the provider who loved to see you spoiled, to have nice things and always made sure you felt like you deserved it while Rus treasured you in his own ways, in not so shy displays of affection. He loved you wholly and completely even when the rest of the world seemed to scare him shitless. You were what made it worth it. With you….

You felt more pressure from the outside and sank deeper into your own magic, dissolving into it as more and more feathers sprang out, wrapping you up in even more layers of wings. 

Dusk and Jack, your boys…they were in your soul too. Arguably more broken and abused by the world than anyone, they still never lost the core of themselves no matter how grim their situation got. The love they had for each other was a bone that helped them persevere through the long night and stay sane enough to feel love again. Jack with his beautiful, beautiful kindness, still soft in spite of everything he’s been through, in love with songs and stories and the way you speak both to him. And Dusk, in the way he sort of sank into love alongside you, gruff and closed off at first only to fold you into the secret softness of his soul, caring for you on almost an impulse at first and then more critically than he had with anyone before or after his brother. You felt the truth of his love persevering and enduring. 

The world outside shook but you were calm. Determination had burned through you so hot it was at the point of incarnation. You let yourself burn. You let yourself be remade. You let the fire make you new. 

The nature of your magic sank and then shifted, dying for a moment before that death ushered in something new. The nuclear exhale of a sun’s birth into existence shattered the darkness around you. Your body was new, whole and fit. When you extended out of your crouched form you knew you were taller, towering in height and glittering with heat from the fusion nature of your magic. 

The creature shrieked at the sight of you, sinking away. 

 

d̷̠̤̠̯̒̽͌̿̉a̷̛͓̝̲̬̬͋̂͝ͅm̴̨̡̨̗͉̹̂̎͑͆̚ě̸̼̠̩̯͈́̋̏͑͝d̵̨̲̟̉͑̋̅̃ ̷̱̤̣̜̰̒̀͂p̴̧̢̡̝̹̝̠̎̈́r̸̛͚͓͉̫̞͑͆̓̈́͐̚a̷̩̘͈̬͈̭͐̌̔͊̎̈́͘͜ẙ̶̯͓̲̘͙̔̈͠

 

In comparison you were still a fraction of its total form, as it was larger than a shopping mall at the point, but you were bright enough to break its darkness as more and more of your magic hummed with its fusion nature.

More than seven sets of wings stretched out around you, white and gold and red in different parts, timed at the joints with burning eyes that exhaled their own solar flares of errant fire. Through them you saw the world in a way you had never been able to see before. Your own eyes were cut away, and in their place a pair of horns from the sides of your head curled down to cover the sockets before continuing away into gold tipped points. Several more horns curled up and away from you, arranged like some sort of crown or headpiece, totaling ten points in all.  

Your clothing had all burned away, along with the top most layer of skin so that your new body was glittering in transparent ways, showing off the roiling energy of your magic from underneath. You were less a body and more an outline to the magic from within, though your long white hair reached past your ankles and sometimes fell in places to protect what others would consider modesty. 

It attacked, opening up a vertical maw and shooting oil colored energy your way. A bead of white magic between your horns spared and you shot your magic out to meet the attack and in a flash the two canceled out. With that you took to the sky, wrapping half your wings around your body while the others burned their way through the sky. Where your feathers fell the darkness burned away. 

Around your head a halo of light manifest before shrinking into points. You turned over in mid air to miss an arm of blackness reaching for you and threw one of the beads of light down. It became a spear and exploded upon impact, coloring the night world with enough daylight to be noon. 

More arms, some shaped like tentacles and others with hands and fingers, surged up, reaching, reaching, reaching. But nothing could touch you, before they could wrap around you the nature of your magic burned it back and away, turning it hard. 

It threw huge chunks of the rubble at you next and you had to bob and weave through the mess in midair, zipping like the pin prick of light from a laser pointer. You burned more of it away and it turned hard before a new mouth opened and spilled out toxic sludge you had to back away from. 

You retreated and saw again how massive the monster in front of you was. The nature of your magic was effective against it, but it kept growing, healing from whatever damage you did by manifesting new limbs and hands. 

It was learning too; that became apparent after a few more clashes. Time felt like nothing as you dipped and dived, trying to burn away what you could only to realize the fate of such a fight. Maybe it wouldn’t be able to kill you but…

Your brother’s voice in your head made you surge upwards, well out of range as he started talking, telling you to look to the edges. Around the domain of the creature you saw…everyone. They were all paced out completing a circle and Raven was there, a little bit back, half up as he crouched next to a tree. 

“You can do it,” he said. “They’re going to overwrite the domain with an encounter, a single encounter powered by all of them.” 

You almost doubted it but then you saw how big of a space they left for Gaster. A single monster could stretch an encounter space fairly far, far enough to encompass several monsters in a space, but boss monsters could do much more than that- they needed to for their attacks. Still, no single monster could create an encounter field big enough for this creature…it was going to take all of their efforts to trap him in.

“I can take it out then, it wouldn’t be able to heal outside its own domain,” you said, even though you weren’t sure how you knew that-you just knew. 

“One shot at this, sis,” Raven said. “I’ll keep it safe so make sure there’s nothing left for us to clean up.” 

“Good, cause I want to live,” you laughed. Your voice sounded wet in your own ears and you realized you were crying. You could feel their magics in your heart and you were so full- so full - of their love. 

“Go be a hero.” 

The encounter triggered and the dark world went weird as the black and white lines stretched over the void space, erasing the creature’s domain with a monster space. You recognized the inverted world and took up position directly above the creature. 

Wild and angry, it reached for you with writing arms. High above it you pulled your soul out, now visible to your unseeing senses. It was burning like a miniature sun and swirling with beams of different rainbows lights, all shards of your love for others. With your soul exposed you cupped it gently at first and then took it in one hand, keeping it close while you dove deep into the mouth of this abomination. 

You streaked through the sky, burning up the arms and hands as they reached for you until you were within the pit of the creature, reaching for it with your free and extended hand. 

 

FIGHT 

ACT

ITEM 

MERCY

 

 

FIGHT

 

 You reared back in front of the heart of the creature, your soul in one hand, swirling with the very essence of who you were and your determination to keep everything and everyone you loved safe. Your mouth was open to the furnace within as you roared out.

“Heart Attack: SUPERNOVA DEATH BURST!” 

You plunged your soul deep into its heart and squeezed. It burst, destroyed completely in a deafening explosion of light that took the entire interior field within the encounter space with it; dirt, grass, metal, stone, flesh, bone. 

One moment the world was a horror, and in the next there was nothing but white, white, white, white noise. 

 



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Notes:

Hang on, no one's done yet. There's still one last wonderful chapter to go and then this fic is FINISHED. So, I have a favor to ask before I wrap things up in two weeks. If there are any unanswered questions or concerns you have about this series or this world please let me knew in a comment so I can make an effort to answer that in the last wrap up chapter.

 

Text translation:

Our Progeny
Ultimate horror often paralyses memory in a merciful way
You will be the door through which our will shall be made manifest
Give yourself to us
Damed prey

Chapter 85: Real Ones 12

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Raven opened his mouth and spoke in a voice that wasn’t his, it was your voice, speaking through him in a tone they all recognized.

Run !” you screamed through your brother. 

Raven then staggered back, clutching his right eye as he howled in pain, crumpling to his knees as Dee rushed over to catch him. Raven pulled his hand off his face and it was bare, his eye intact and face free of wound, but the way he fell back screaming anyone would have assumed his right eye had been cut or damaged.  

The darkness burst open and a writhing mass of black tethers emerged, multi-colored like the rainbow in an oil spill, still dark and nauseating while being a mockery of colors. All the darkness that had been leaking out seemed sucked back, dropping into any one of the hundreds of tiny, slavering mouths of crooked fangs that opened. A hungry beast, a creature of unshaped mass, struggled to be born in space, littered with eyes like stars and mouths without voices. 

“fuck,” someone whispered out, shaken at the sight. 

DARK

DARKER

YET DARKER

THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING

THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER

Black’s eye lights were spinning as he beheld a dark god being born, neither monster nor mage, but something else entirely;  just like from the prophecies about angels and end times. 

A world eater spun from reality’s last darkness slouched forward, wet from the birthing process and growing through its hunger. All the excess darkness that had spilled out of the void seemed to rush back towards the sky scraping hulk, bolstering it and feeling it. 

Just like the stories said, just like those damed ruin carvings and the faded paintings that had existed longer than the underground itself. Black had seen all this before. He had feared all this before and dismissed all this before and then believed in it again after the accident with Asgore’s kid. That whole mess…that struggling power nearly manifested as an angel in the underground only to fall apart at the last moment, overburdened beyond its limits.  

One day this will come to fruition and there really will be such an end and a new beginning ,” he whispered to the stone faced mother and queen who watched it all from beside him. Her majesty Toriel then ordered the ruins demolished and the cave paintings destroyed. The prophecies were stripped from the records and the rest of the underground forgot. 

Except for Black. 

But that entire spectacle paled in comparison to what he now witnessed. In front of him was something far worse that one seemed to be growing stronger. Your brother struggled backwards, moaning about a wound that wasn’t there.  

“where the fuck is she?” Red growled out, his voice wavering from anger and fear. He stepped closer to Raven and Winn held up a hand, warning the shorter skeleton to stand back but the gesture only made Red curse again, louder than a shout. 

“She cut out her other eye,” Stretch guessed, voice tight as his body was turned towards Raven, even though his eyesights were fixated on the black mass that billowed into shape. He was searching through the blackness for some sort of light-anything that would clue him into your status. 

“That’s what she did last time,” Blue gasped, just realizing it for himself. “But last time…then this time…” 

“Yeah, she’s flying blind,” Edge said. 

An uneasy weight settled on each of their souls. There was still no light int that mess of darkness.

“How are we supposed to stop it now?” Winn asked, shouting over the growing hiss of wind. “Its only going to grow bigger like this once it leaves the domain.” 

There was a barrier, almost like an encounter’s field, that stretched out around the facility and nearby lands. It made up the patch where magic didn’t work as well for the monsters. It was where bone attacks dropped their magic and short cuts turned wonky. 

Maybe this boundary, this domain , was the ancestral precursor to an encounter. Both were similar in a number of ways, but the domain felt like a watered down, weaker version of an encounter even though it stretched much farther. If all of them tried together, would they be able to generate an encounter field that big? 

Black was too distracted to do the math as he watched the world eating creature turn in on itself and writhe in place agitated with something he couldn’t see. Maybe it was adjusting to the new environment with oxygen or maybe it was trying to grow out? He was straining to see a life, praying for it as he searched into the darkness with his sight. It was a dizzying darkness that made him unsteady on his feet. 

When he staggered he was caught with a second longing, one for his brother. He didn’t want to be apart from Rus in these moments. His brother, the grand unbeliever, the grounded realist…he’d prove all this was fake and none of their worst stories were about to become true. He didn’t want to be apart from his brother as he searched the darkness for your corpse. 

Why was there no light? 

Not knowing why, Black looked to the sky and remembered that even if his brother wasn’t with him, he might be able to see what was going on if he knew to look in the right direction. Sneaking onto the cameras pointed at the ends of satellites had been one of the first things he did once he felt more comfortable on the internet vs the under-net. 

Still, he wanted to know, he wanted to hear his brother and be comforted by that familiar voice, even if he was confident that Rus was up and watching this horror unfold. 

“What the hell is it doing now?” Sans groaned, stepping up to the barrier of the creature’s domain. When Black looked up he saw what Sans meant, as the black mass had begun to invert and thrash. It looked like it was trying to beat out a tumor or something from within. It was enough to give Black hope.

“Regardless of its movements now, we need to figure out how to contain or throw it back into the void,” Dee interrupted, helping Raven to stand. “Its not something we’ll be able to fight so easily.”

“You think tossing it back is going to be any easier?” Edge scoffed. “We can’t even see the exit point it came from. How do you suppose we go about doing something like that?” 

Tactical as always, Black could respect Edge for his mind and way of thinking, even if the situation was dire enough for Black to think his own brain was melting. There weren't a lot of options they could visualize to move on. He knew he couldn’t create a tear into the void that wide and large and hold it open for even a nanosecond, much less however long it took the rest of the group to push that thing in. Was that even possible? To hold open a tear that long? Sure, something like that might hypothetically be created as a permanent structure over time, but it would take years and years and years. They didn’t have the luxury of time.   

“No, we just need to hold it here,” Raven gasped, coming to his senses. He looked shaken but not hurt. “Hold it here and sis will take care of the rest.” 

“What does-” but Red never got to finish his question as a blinding light in the night turned darkness to daylight. 

 There was a star in the center of the field, burning back the edges of the creature closest to it, blinding white and boiling with energy as the process of fusion burned brighter than any flame. Black gave up on standing as his legs gave out on him and the angel in the center of the field spread its wings, eight to twelve of them at least, maybe more. Half of them folded back in to obscure more of the burning body and from so far away he could still see the marks on the wings, rolling open like eyes atop each of the joints. Each wing flapped and left a trail of flames in its wake. 

Stretch gasped out your name and the horror brothers reached for one another, bracing together as the angle in the darkness manifested a crown of horns as tendrils of silver white hair tumbled down past their ankles. Black couldn’t count them all but it was more than four like with Asriel and more than seven-surpassing the limit you had once ascribed to yourself. 

“Get out of there princess,” Sans whispered with worry just in time for the creature to recover from the burns and surge up towards you. It attacked, opening up a vertical maw and shooting oil colored energy your way. A bead of white magic between your horns spared and you shot your magic out to meet the attack and in a flash the two canceled out. 

Blue cheered in approval and even Edge laughed with confidence while others watched on, spellbound or horrified. Black could already feel tears on his face and he never felt more lonely as he wished with all his soul that his brother was next to him for this. He wanted his brother as fate unfurled out in front of him in real time. All the prophecies and the warnings, the temple etchings and the songs….all of them made him think of what he was watching in real time. 

“They’re just silly stories that silly monsters believe in, but there’s an angel that is supposed to bring light into the ‘last darkness’ and end a great evil. Then monsters can build their great tomorrow with its scattered bones and dust.”

Stars, he prayed it wasn’t true. 

In another burst of brilliance you took to the sky, wrapping a new half of your wings around your body while the others burned their way through the sky. Where your feathers fell the darkness hissed and burned away, like something touched by acid. 

“None of the attacks are lasting, it takes damage but nothing matters since it just heals right up,” Stretch said, looking at the Gaster brothers. “What was your plan?”

You think I had a plan ?” Gaster asked, looking down at Stretch with an expression of doubt. 

Stretch sneered, not in the mood for word games. “Of course you did. So what is it? What did you see as our best and only option?” 

Gaster glared down at Stretch but then switched his eyesights upwards and away, watching the fight between you and the creature. Gaster’s features softened to something less pretentious before glancing back at Raven. 

Around your head a halo of light manifest before shrinking into points. You turned over in mid air to miss an arm of blackness reaching for you and threw one of the beads of light down. It became a spear and exploded upon impact, coloring the night world with enough daylight to be noon. 

Contact her, we will set up the barrier ,” Gaster called back to Raven. 

More arms, some shaped like tentacles and others with hands and fingers, surged up, reaching, reaching, reaching. But nothing could touch you, before they could wrap around you the nature of your magic burned it back and away, turning it hard. 

Black watched, transfixed and spellbound as it threw huge chunks of the rubble at you next and you had to bob and weave through the mess in midair, zipping like the pin prick of light from a laser pointer. It was hard for him to track you at such speeds but he was hellbent on never missing you. You burned more of it away and it turned hard before a new mouth opened and spilled out toxic sludge you had to back away from. 

“We better do something fast, wherever it is,” Blur interrupted, tone frantic as he watched the same fight and suffered the same worries. “How do you want us to help out?”

“This field is its domain, its own invisible world less developed than an encounter space. We can overwrite it and that will make the creature vulnerable to damage. That the only chance your sister will have to finish it off,” Gaster explained while looking at Raven, his words almost phrased like a dare.

“She can do it,” Raven insisted as the other skeletons stepped up. 

“You think we can create an encounter that big?” Papyrus asked, speaking up for the first time as he braced a hand on Sans’ shoulder. Unlike his brother Papyrus’ magic levels were low and he considered himself more a melee fighter. 

Gaster scoffed. “ I can cover half that space on my own, it's doable.

“We can get it bro,” Sans interjected before Papyrus could be disheartened. “Together we’re a hella lot stronger.” 

A single monster could stretch an encounter space fairly far, far enough to encompass several monsters in a space, but boss monsters could do much more than that- they needed to for their attacks. Still, no single monster could create an encounter field big enough for this creature…it was going to take all of their efforts to trap him in.

You’ll need to contact your sister, ” Gaster said to Raven before facing Red and the rest of the skeletons. “ And the rest of you will have to move out and set up around the field to cast the barrier inwards .”

 “Papyrus, you and me,” Edge called out, waving to his counterpart before heading for the furthest point on the other side of the domain.

 They all began to scatter but Black could barely stand. With monumental effort, he rose and took up a position apart from the others, intent on creating the largest, longest encounter space he could with what he had of his magic. That was something he knew how to do, something familiar. He decided to focus on that; on what he could do- even though his soul felt like it was shattering. 

“Do it now,” Red grunted from nearby. He was shouting over his shoulder at Raven who stood a little ways back. “Contact her already!” 

In front of them the world buckled, melting and shifting as magic pushed up against magic. Red’s magic in particular was tenacious, surging into the creature’s domain like a knife tearing through silk. In his wings both Black and Sans pushed on and overtook more of the landscape, painting it in negative colors, inverting the sick reality with their own. 

Black almost lost his hold on the encounter when it spread over the first quarter of the beast. There were hundreds of partial and broken souls inside it. Some were fragments others were slivers but the mass was a repository of lost souls, maybe even millions of them. 

“Push on,” Red urged, refusing to slacken at the horrible reveal. 

From behind him Black could hear Raven speaking out loud, even though the bond between you was telepathic. “One shot at this, sis,” Raven said. “I’ll keep it safe so make sure there’s nothing left for us to clean up.” There was a pause and then, “Go be a hero.” 

The encounters touched and like water in a bowl everything came together and created one singular, all encompassing encounter that painted the landscape anew with familiar details. The dark world went weird as the black and white lines stretched over the void space, erasing the creature’s domain with a monster space. 

In the madness Black saw the light you cast and watched as you took up position directly above the creature, brilliantly bright and burning brighter. 

Wild and angry, it reached for you with writing arms. High above it, you pulled your soul out, visible to everyone inside the encounter. The sight of it was enough to make more than just Black falter. It was burning like a miniature sun and swirling with beams of different rainbow lights, all shards of your love for others. It was the most beautiful and intimate thing he had ever seen, and he had seen your soul before, but that was before the hole from the soul pin healed over. For as horrible as that tragedy had been, you only came out of it so much stronger. The things designed to weaken you only became your strength. 

A part of his soul throbbed in recognition, knowing his magic had a home somewhere in your soul- the ultimate show of love a monster could make towards someone else. 

With your soul exposed, you cupped it gently at first and then took it in one hand, keeping it close while you dove deep into the mouth of this abomination. 

You streaked through the sky, burning up the arms and hands as they reached for you until you were within the pit of the creature, reaching for it with your free and extended hand. 

 You reared back in front of the heart of the creature, your soul in one hand, swirling with the very essence of who you were and your determination to keep everything and everyone you loved safe. Your mouth was open to the furnace within as you roared out.

Black heard it as you roared out the name of your attack in a voice that echoed ten times over, “Heart Attack: SUPERNOVA DEATH BURST!” 

Fear nearly made him drop his section of the encounter as he realized what that meant. “ NO !”

You plunged your soul deep into its heart and squeezed. It burst, destroyed completely in a deafening explosion of light that took the entire interior field within the encounter space with it; dirt, grass, metal, stone, flesh, bone. One moment the world was a horror, and in the next there was nothing but white, white, white, white noise. 

 

Black roused a moment later, shaking dust and ash off his skull as he staggered upwards again. The blast had destroyed their encounter as well as everything inside. A pit deep enough to sink a building into was all that remained of the original space. The sky was lit by a budding dawn, showing off the gentle fall of ash and dust. 

The others were rousing too on their own time. Blue was up almost as soon as Black while it looked like the horror brothers would need a little longer to gather their senses. The blast hadn’t done any damage to their HP, but it had done a good job of knocking them back. 

Black staggered up to the clear line in the dirt that divided what land had been in the encounter and what land hadn’t. He stared down into the pit, noticing the sloped sides as the deeper point was in the dead center where you had shattered your soul for the sake of them all. 

But your were determined. You’d be fine. You’d be better than that! You were going to come home and read stories with the kids, take them on field trips to the farmer’s market, talk Rus out of buying exotic chickens, and Blue into trying out miniature golf with his coworkers. What about breakfast? The sun was rising over the far off horizon now and he knew you would be famished once they all made it back.

Not bothering to wait, he slid down the sloped side and started to jog towards the center, panicking at the nakedness of the terrain in front of him. He almost missed the center and would have run past it if there wasn’t some degree of gradient shift. But he skidded to a halt and turned about on his heel, looking for some sign of you. The ground was packed and when he struck at it with a bone attack it barely dented. 

there’s an angel that is supposed to bring light into the ‘last darkness’ and end a great evil. Then monsters can build their great tomorrow with its scattered bones and dust. ’ 

Oh no, not his angel, not his family, not his world. This wasn’t that tomorrow, this was-this-it wasn’t…

His thoughts were a manic static as he touched at his face and brushed away the tears as well as the ash. Oh stars no, not…only monsters dusted but you hadn’t been-it couldn’t be…this wasn’t it! No.

He crumpled sideways, shocked and alone. He wanted his brother, he wanted to know Rus was safe, he wanted his kids, he wanted you, he wanted his family.

“What the hell, that hadn’t been the plan!” Red roared with a voice that sounded wet and angry. 

Black didn’t doubt the other Skelton was crying over the same thing. There was someone else in the crater behind him but he didn’t bother to say anything to Edge or Blue who were pacing back and forth, nervously trying to understand what they were seeing. More voices joined in and someone launched a bone attack that went nowhere. 

“She’s not dead,” Papyrus insisted, sounding horrified and lost. “She was just here. She was stronger than anyone.”

“Bro.” Sans didn’t say anything else but the pair of them reached for one another and found support there. Blue was already sobbing into Stretch’s sweater as the orange clad Skelton failed to comprehend what he was seeing for once in his life. 

“This is ridiculous, I still have plenty of magic left. I can go-I could have, I’m…” Edge struggled with the words and gripped nothing with his hands but still tensed like he was wrestling with something physical and not just his emotions. 

“We have to find her. She’s just not here. The blast must have sent her back so far and that’s why we’re seeing…anything here,”Jack said in a weak voice as he limped up with his brother. The pair of them looked more wrung out than the rest of them, but not by much. 

Dusk didn’t say anything, but stood under his brother’s arm, offering silent support. 

When Black looked up he saw across the way your brother, holding something bright in his hands. Raven’s eyes were glassy with a sheen of purple tinted magic. Poor guy. What was he- 




FourB Lv1 XXXX:XX



Continue  Reset

 

[Reconstitute]

 

[are you sure]



?

 

 

[Yes] 




1 year later 

 

Rus kept the oddest hours of all the other skeletons in his extended family. Sure, Stretch could give him a run for his money, but Rus was a gremlin of chaos and caffeine that didn’t have a fancy 9 to 5 factory job at some chemical power plant.  Some of Rus’ work was time sensitive, relying on him reacting to breaking news, or it was there for him to get to whenever he could. 

He was catching up with the recorded CSPAN footage of another racist anti- monster / anti- magic bill fall apart without the votes. There was a dedicated effort for something nasty and invasive to get pushed but it was a fringe belief that not enough people were willing to support. So for one more night Rus felt better about sleeping in and not worrying about who would come to their door. 

A year ago it had been pretty busy, with the news and reports pouring in about a near world ending even that finished before it could stop. Watching satellite feed made it look like a storm was fighting a sunbeam-both were forces of nature. Shortly after that your name and face started to surface and then rolled in the obituary notices. Not just you but several other MAGE operatives who  were no longer children were formally acknowledged as deceased. 

Raven became, oddly enough, the voice and face for the dwindled faction of people who were magic sensitive. Not enough people could be clarified as mages without the ritual, but if Raven had things his way that would never be an option for anyone. Like the monsters had their mascot, the precious few magic using humans had theirs. 

Things weren’t perfect, but after a year of work, things looked better.

“A great day for monsters and our magic allies,” a pink monster on the computer screen chirped out before Rus turned the screen off.

“Enough of that,” he yawned. Now it was time to sleep. Never mind the hour or the crashing sunrise, it was his time to sleep.  

He stepped out of his boots and left them where they fell, pulling back the door to his bedroom in the basement with only a little more care. From the doorway he could make out his clingy older brother, sleep atop the sheets he hadn’t managed to tangle himself up in. A year later, Black was still as devoted to his family as ever. 

“And yet,” Rus scoffed while tugging off the rest of his day clothes. He climbed into bed with just his boxers and undershirt, pushing aside the oversized comforter duvet and picking over a number of pillows. Black claimed there were too many but Rus was right when he argued that one could never have too many pillows- especially when the bed was being shared. 

His soul fluttered a little as he tugged away the last layer of sheet and saw your face. Black had a good old hand but you had curled up around his whole arm on your own. With the movement you stirred and started to roll away from Black. He let you detangle your arm but your hand might as well have been cemented to his. There was no way- even in sleep- Black was going to let go of you. 

You opened both eyes and yawned, reaching for Rus with your free hand. “Are you coming to bed finally?” You croaked in a small voice.

“Of course. Couldn’t keep my angel waiting, could I?” 

“I’m going to sleep all day then,” you yawned again, trying to make it sound like a threat but Rus could only be delighted at the prospect of your idea. 

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, lover. My bonely heart can’t take no more teasing.” 

You grabbed a fist full of his shirt and pulled him down so that he was close enough to kiss. He sighed against you and whispered all his promises anew, how he’d keep you safe and secret, how he’d make sure you felt loved, how you would be happy all the rest of your days. 

“Us,” Black gently corrected, rousing from his sleep to slide up closer and spoon you from behind. He was too tired for more but he managed a stern enough look with a voice to match. “We will both ensure your enduring love and safety. You will never know the feeling of wanting to be with us.”

“Then snuggle,” you sighed atop the nearest pillow, letting both your eyes drift shut. Somewhere outside the world began to color with life as the sun finished blooming over the horizon. 

Somewhere outside Jack was up to tend to his early riser chickens and collect their eggs for the next time you came to visit him and Dusk. He had a few exotic breeds that were colorful and noisy but he loved them all passionately and could no longer stomach the idea of using them for anything but eggs. They were his babies. Dusk had filled up another sketchbook with bird sightings and he had begun taking up painting with Black and Edge, hoping to do some of his favorite sightings more justice.

Somewhere outside Blue and Papyrus were warming up at the starting point to their favorite racing spot. Next time you were free you had promised to try and keep up with them, but they both understood how you had some trouble maintaining their speed without the aid of your overwhelming magic.

Somewhere on his own, Sans worked on another proposal for the Blackberry property renovations he had been encouraged to pursue with your blessing. It brought him no small measure of joy to know that you would be thrilled with the new park he had been petitioning for. He’d get to sleep in a little bit and then maybe nap some more if he needed to. He always did his best work at night. 

A few floors up in his room Stretch sprawled across his bed, tired from late night tutoring with the kids. Tron was preparing for his last year of middle school and wanted to really impress his teachers. Stretch had helped Wendy and Peter as well, but between the three of them, he had been the most useful to Tron. Maybe that was why he and Blue had never moved out. The funds had come in time and they had the means to buy or build their own place, but something always came up and it was actually way too much work to pack up and leave so why not just…hang out for the rest of the foreseeable future? 

Somewhere a pair of brothers were sleeping in, excited about the late night call with their adopted mothers who were planning another visit out soon. Edge and Red had expanded and built on to the guest house, giving Mini and Ma more room to relax whenever they took a vacation to kick it with their favorite monsters. Edge was renovating the interior of the guest house’s additional wing and was looking forward to your insight into his fashion choices. You had even promised to go shopping with him soon. Red had offered to do all the heavy lifting in exchange for a little sugar. 

Elsewhere in the world Raven woke up and kissed the shoulder of his wife before getting out of bed to make a pot of coffee. By the time he made it to the kitchen he was exhausted and had to rely on his walker, but he made it all on his own. Some of his bruises had started to fade but others would be with him the rest of his living day. 

Dee was already there, making food and Winn wasn’t far off. No one really kept track of Gaster but he folded up on his own and worked on his own science and math while the rest of the house lived a little more. To the best of their knowledge he didn’t do much to try and have a relationship with any of the other skeletons, but he and Sans had a mutual understanding of some sort that their lives were their own, and neither was going to be held down by the constraints of the past. However…most recently Gaster had begun to step out and inquire after the health of Sans family and Papyrus in particular-for no special reason, just curiosity. Sans had his suspicions, but none of them were nefarious. He had been close enough with Alphy to know what a tsundere was. Things weren’t perfect but they were healing, and for some that was a lifelong process. 

Since the eve of reconstitution eleven months ago things had been different. 

 

Eleven and a half months earlier…

 

You drifted in the dark, alone and lost. If whatever came after life had a name you could understand you’d subscribe to that being where you were. Time felt wrong, like it had never existed in such a place. You had been here forever. You had just got here. You were ancient. You were young. 

You drifted without body or function or form. 

Thought seemed impossible and you figured that maybe that was how things were supposed to be because you didn’t have a brain, you didn’t have eyes or hands or feet. How could you think to move, much less think your thoughts? There was nothing to grab onto so your musings drifted as easily as your sentience. 

In the darkness you remembered a poem Hightower often would recite to himself when he was idle in his work. You hated the thought of him, but also mourned the thought of him, knowing his potential for something truly good and great had been perverted before he even had a chance to begin. 

Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber, Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night, I have liv’d o’er my lives without number, I have sounded all things with my sight; And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright .” When she remembered the poem it was in Hightower’s voice, but it wasn’t the Hightower you knew, it was a kinder, softer Hightower-the one who would have loved you like a father if given the chance to-because as passionately as you hated him you wanted that unreachable relationship all the more. What childless soul didn’t desire a parent’s love? “ I have whirl’d with the earth at the dawning, When the sky was a vaporous flame; I have seen the dark universe yawning, Where the black planets roll without aim; Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name. ” 

The world split open and there was a shard, a fragment glimmering in the gloom, bleeding red light like a dwarf sun. You saw it and it felt like being shot, something had harpooned you through and even though you had no body that could suffer such injury, you were still dragged forward towards the light until you were sucked into a swirling mass of gas and glittering flame. 

The wild matter of the universe pulled itself together out of chaos and beyond the creation you saw a pair of thin hands shaping something out of this star. Your brother. With the fraction of your soul he had taken from you so many months ago-when he pulled out your false eye and permanently docked your health. With a portion of your soul, a fraction of your being, he began to craft a new form for you.

And he wasn’t alone. 

You felt everyone who had ever loved you pouring their magic into this ritual, just like when your soul nearly collapsed from the pin, this time too you found salvation in the love you fostered and shared with your family. 

It had been worth it. It had all been worth it. Even if you had failed to return it would have been worth it because you loved them all so gods damned much.

When you opened your eyes again they were healthy and bright. The scars and wounds from a different body had no place on your new form. You were naked and exhausted, like some freshly birthed child, but you had enough energy to cry in joy when you saw your family around you. 

You couldn’t be called a MAGE anymore, not really. You still had enough flickering magic to heat a cup of tea, but nothing more. And that was fine. You didn’t need that sort of power anymore. You just needed to love and be loved. 




End Story 



 

Bonus

 

“So you don’t want me at your book signing?” you teased, watching Stretch flush. “But you’re okay with Edge going? You want him there but not me?”

“It’s not like that,” Stretch tried again, nervously sweating. “It’s not the sort of book that is…popular.” 

“Excuse me if you think I don’t read erotic like an occupation, sir!” you snapped with a hand on your hip. “Don’t think you can keep this to yourself any more. I already know what you’ve been about, I have a Goodreads and your pseudonym isn’t slick, Paul Clementine.”

Stretch made a noise of embarrassment while Black and Edge cackled in the background. He glared back over his shoulders at the both of them. “You said it was a good human sounding name.”

“Yes, but never once did either of us imply it was good . Just good enough to pass as human with the racist publishing house,” Edge answered easily.

“And you have to admit, it is far superior to,” Black began to say.

“don’t.” 

“Volcano Sunrise.” 

When you laughed it was enough to humble stretch into a puddle of embarrassment.  

 

Notes:

Is it appropriate to scream right now? I feel like I need to, or like I should. This has just ben such a 'monster' of a fic to produce and get out there on a faithful schedule for over a year. With all the chapters and all the the arcs and all the weeks that went into it, I'm glad to stand at the summit and finally rest. It's a good feeling, but also a bittersweet one. This fic was published in September of 2019, but I started writing it that summer and now, two years later, I'm closing out this adventure.

The boys and their reader all get a happy ending together. It might not look as glamorous as others and it may feel a little lackluster, but I hope it satisfies. Their story ends but in my mind there are plenty more shenanigans they get up to. (I was so tempted to write a post end chapter about reader freaking out over her first menstrual cycle in a new body and sending the rest of the family into a panic until Black shows up and is like: I have been trained for this- I'm a dad, don't worry. And then the rest is just hurt comfort and love and fluff.) But yes, they all get happy endings together. It's messy but it works.

Thank you for being along for the ride. Thank you for every wonderful, lovely comment. Thank you for all the questions that you asked. Thank you for all the love and support expressed. For a first fanfic in the Undertale fandom I've been so warmly welcomed and am grateful for the experience.
I don't know what (or if) I'll try my hand at next, I have two other idea I've been flirting with, one being reader surviving on an island with Black and Rus and some mystery others. The other one is less traditional with reader starting out in the Dusttale universe only to be the one that does the world hopping from one timeline to the next. Regardless, nothing is going to get written for a while since I need a little rest.

Thank you for all your kindness! Ta~

Chapter 86: Heaven's Gate: 1

Notes:

The epilogue chapters of what happens to the characters after the world gets saved and all that jazz.
TW mentions of mensuration for the sake of spoiling skeletons and fluff. Skip the last 1/3 if that's not your scene.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

 

One look from you
And I'm on that faded love
Out of my body
And flying above

 

If there were any more left of me
I'd give it to you
And I'll tell you that I-I am fine
But I-I'm a missile that's guided to you ooh ooh hoo

 

Heaven’s Gate

by Fall Out Boy


 

Nothing was obvious but you felt a subtle unsettlement when you woke up. You weren’t sure what it was, but you knew something was wrong.  You hesitated a moment then stretched out your legs, arms, hands and toes, but nothing felt hurt or agitated. When you inhaled breath filled your lungs easily and left just as easily. The only thing limiting your movements was the body curled up alongside your back but that wasn’t new.

“Babe?”

“It’s nothing, go back to sleep,” you whispered around a yawn. The morning was still thin and you knew it was earlier than either of you wanted it to be. It was going to be a lazy morning to make up for how busy the afternoon would be. You had a full schedule. 

It had been a little over a month since your brother brought you back. Your body had gone through a process called reconstitution and as a result, something was made from nothing. You were whole again after imploding like a star upon the creeping evil that tried to slip free of the void and stain this world. It felt like a lifetime ago, but the nightmares kept it fresh.

“C’mere,” Red slurred, stretching out enough to pull you back into his arms and turn your head to rest atop his shoulder instead of the pillow. “Yer cold again.” 

“I get like that sometimes,” you whispered.

“Lemme keep you warm.”

You couldn’t help but smile. Red couldn’t even open his sockets as he slurred his words through the haze of sleep and waking, but he was aware enough to make you and your well-being a priority. How lucky could a person be? Who could ask for more?

One of his hands reached up to rub up and down your back while you ducked your head down to nuzzle against his collarbone. He pulled you closer and flared his magic, warming his bones. It was summer time but you were so far north in the mountainous landscape that the early mornings still got chilly. Plus, you didn’t have the same furnace of magic or fire to internally heat you. It was a hard thing to adjust to, but now you were always cold. 

“I didn’t hear you tossing,” Red whispered against your hair. 

“I didn’t have a nightmare this time.”

“Good.” He kissed the crown of your head. “That’s what I like to hear.”

You looked up over his opposite shoulder and noticed the emptiness on the other side of the bed. It had been late when Edge came back home last night but you remembered seeing him before falling asleep next to Red, exhausted but sated. “Where did Edge go? Isn’t it too early for him?”you asked.

“It’s bro ,” Red laughed. “You tell me.”

You twisted to look for the digital clock left on the nightstand and saw it wasn’t nearly as early as you thought it was. Edge liked to rise before dawn to run and train before coming back to freshen up his bones and start breakfast. If you listened to it you could hear the muffled sounds of a body in the kitchen. Normally you would be all over the opportunity to help out in the kitchen with breakfast, but your body was heavy today and you were too warm huddled up alongside Red, so you nuzzled against him and curled up a little more. 

Less than half an hour later you heard the footsteps coming up and then the soft tap at the door before it was pushed open. Edge caught your eye and grinned teasingly.

“Oh good, the two of you are decent,” he chuckled. 

“When are we not?” Red snorted, cracking open an eye socket for his brother. 

“Last night.”

“Take that back. Sweetheart is always decent, no matter how much or how little you catch ‘er in.”

“Decent is an inaccurate adjective for our lover,” Edge smoothly deflected.

He approached the bed with a tray and you moved out of the way so he could set it down and lean over it. You moved up, keeping the covers close to your bare chest while you reached for his cheek with your lips. He hummed in appreciation before turning his head around to kiss you back.   

“I am sorry I came home so late last night,” he said, pulling away just enough to form words before you closed the distance with your lips again. He made a sound of pleasure that broke in his throat, bracing a hand against your shoulder to help him pull away. “But…there are many more nights. You should eat something.” 

Edge took one of the extra cloth napkins and tossed it at Red’s face.

“Hey, what was that for?”

“You should be the one doing this.”

“I can’t do it any better than you though.”

“That’s obvious, but you should at least put in some effort.” 

“What can I say, my bro is the coolest and I couldn’t ask for anyone better,” Red deflected, grinning wide in a way that only made Edge’s expression turn from exasperation to disappointment. 

“I don’t know why I bother with you sometimes, Sans.”

“Cause you love me?”

Edge picked up a pair of discarded pants from off the floor and tossed those at his brother’s face with enough force to knock Red backwards out of bed. Edge took up the free spot in bed next to you and pulled the tray closer to you, making sure you were warm under the covers before snuggling in up against your side. 

“I am spoiled,” you laughed, digging into the spread Edge had put together for you to enjoy in bed.

“Get used to it, I don’t have any plans of accommodating my behaviors to sub par human dating standards. This is the minimum I can do.”

“I don’t know, this is what I’d consider a lot after the honeymoon phase of a relationship,” you explained before stuffing your face full of food.

Red stood up with a pair of pants back around his waist, halfway closed before he made his way back into bed to sit under the covers alongside you. When he tried to steal something to eat off your tray Edge slapped at his hand with a towel. 

“C’mon, I’m hungry too. I’ve been working out.”

“More like I’m working you out,” you muttered under your breath, setting off a laughing fit from Red while Edge could only roll his eye lights. 

“I’ll forgive the crude language because it only highlights my point from earlier, how you, brother, should be doing more. You’re physically taxing our lover and where is the follow up? How embarrassing.” 

“Ain’t that why you and I are such a dynamite duo, bro?” Red teased.

“Insufferable.” Edge turned his attention to you, wiping at some excess syrup on your face with the corner of his thumb. “Do you see what I have to endure and work with?”

“This is amazing, thank you for breakfast,” you said instead. All of Edge’s fake frustration bubbled away at your words and the stiffness in his posture eased when you kissed at his skull again.

 Red snuggled in closer and this time when he tried to sneak a piece of food Edge didn’t bother to beat him back, but he did watch carefully to make sure Edge didn’t eat more than you. For a short while the three of you sat in comfortable silence, able to pretend that you were no different than anyone else and the trauma and terror you had all persevered through weren’t still haunting your lonely nights. 

“What made you so late last night?” you asked after you were finished eating. Red took that as his cue to gobble down everything left behind on the tray. 

“Honestly, I got caught up and lost track of time with Stretch. I hadn’t meant to stay as long s I had but his work is actually starting to show real promise. He’s been improving steadily, but don’t tell him I said that. It wouldn’t do him any good to let this go to his head.”

“I’m glad you have something fun like that to work on together. Was Black helping this time too?”

“No, he was up late with one of the kids, I’m not sure which. Stretch and I worked in the basement so as to not make any unnecessary noise.” Edge snapped two of his phalanxes like he had just remembered something. “That reminds me, I have to text Rus a little later and see if he remembered to check on his cat house beta.”

“His what?”

“Rus is designing a cat house video game,” Red explained before Edge could. “He asked me to help with some of the math last week. Didn’t he tell you about his project for therapy?”

“That’s what it was?” You gasped. “I can’t wait to see it once it’s finished.”

“He is beta testing it with a cohort of unaffiliated developers. He asked me to remind him to reply to their feedback in a timely manner and I promised to help hold him accountable.” Edge shifted slightly to pull his smartphone out of his back pocket. “I am sure he would love to have you play it once the kinks are all worked out.” 

“It’s Rus , that could take a while,” Red snickered. A second later you realized what the joke was and snickered into your hand while Edge shot the both of you a dry look. 

Eventually you felt awake enough to shed your blanket covers, grab a robe, and make the excuse that you needed to shower before starting the day. When Red offered company Edge interrupted by shoving the tray into his brother’s arms and barking at him to take it down and help clean up the kitchen for once.

Alone, you turned on the water as warm as it could go and waited for the steam to come. Next to the shower was a tall mirror where you could see your face and most of your body. You had cut your hair the way you liked it and colored it to suit your tastes. It was stark white otherwise. 

Staring back at you from the mirror was a human with two eyes and a body free of scars and stories. You remembered losing your eye the first time, you remembered all the other times when something had hurt you deep enough to leak a mark on your body like a canvas. There was no longer any evidence of abuse but you remembered all of it. It was still so jarring to see yourself in the mirror and almost not recognize the person staring back. Your wounds had been such a big part of who you were for so long, it felt odd to not have them. Your body was, essentially, brand new thanks to Raven and his ability to reconstitute matter from memory.

The room started to steam so you stepped in and washed your face and body clean. 

Half an hour later you felt refreshed and dressed and ready for the day. There was still an odd weight you couldn’t identify, but it wasn’t anything serious enough to waste time worrying about. You were getting older, it was probably a symptom of that. 

“What do you have planned for today?” Red asked once he saw you coming down the stairs. 

Red was still washing up some of the last dishes before setting them up in the drying racks alongside the sink. Edge was at the kitchen counter, scanning through the weekly grocery circulars, looking for coupons to cut and save while also making his weekly shopping list. There was an untouched mug of honey and lemongrass tea next to him in front of the empty seat he was next to. You knew instinctively it was meant for you.

“The kids are still at camp this week so I have a lot of free time.” You accepted the mug and took a sip, humming in appreciation as the warm liquid trailed down your always-cold insides. Edge didn’t look up from his couponing but you caught the coy curve of his smile when he heard you. 

Red chuckled, putting the last of his dishes away. “I’m still surprised the old fart agreed to it. The kids are still in stripes but he let them go away overnight.”

“It’s only for five days and he never would have been okay with it if Blue and Papyrus weren’t both camp counselors,” you said. 

You remembered back to hearing about Papyrus’ post celebrity plans and how his fame still carried some sway when he aspired to volunteer his time or take some part time work. The camp director had been over the moon to hear the former monster mascot was interested in a residency as a councilor. They were struggling to market and reach their monster kid demographics as monster families were, comparatively, more protective of their young ones and less willing to put them out in harm’s way. Having a boss monster on camp grounds did a lot to alleviate some monster parents of their fears.  

Blue got a similar treatment ‘ sans ’ the celebrity worship, since he was also a boss monster with enough energy and personality to keep up and control the kids. Blue looked bubbly and cheerful to the unknowing eye, but that didn’t mean he was a pushover. You trusted him with your kids and you knew Black did too.

“I think you would have made a fantastic councilor,” you said, leaning over and looking at Edge. He paused in his cutting and glowered, making you smile more. “I know you don’t like to hear it, but you’re really good with kids.” 

“Now you’re just teasing me,” Edge grumbled, looking back at the flyers and cutting out a new coupon. 

You didn’t want to push him to the point of agitation, but you felt compelled to push against Edge’s misconceptions about him being terrible around kids. He was nervous with children and had been working through some issues in therapy related to past traumas, but he still didn’t believe he was good with children. In spite of his beliefs, you knew Peter, the middle brother, idolized Edge while his twin sister, Wendy, had a substantial crush on the skeleton.  

And beyond all that, you knew all the Papyrus personality types had a soft spot for children. Edge was the only one who denied it.  You didn’t want him missing out as he refused to believe in himself. You cared too much to let him persist in that false narrative. 

“When you’re ready for it, of course, but I still think you’d be amazing with the kids. They’re still talking about that one time you came to sub on the little league team. It’s legendary.” 

“I don’t understand what they’re all so confused about. I just yell at them,” Edge grumbled, avoiding your eyes.

“Kids are funny like that, especially at that age when they’re growing into their personalities and developing sass.” You reached out to run his arm, a nonverbal cue that this was the end of your push in the conversation. “I just think they have great taste. But I have to wait two more days before I see my munchkins so I was planning on heading back to the main house for today.”

“Ah, I heard the suits were having talks today. You’re not planning on getting wrapped up in that, are you?” Red whined.

“Sans and Black are going to be talking about community development with Jack and Dusk,” you gently corrected. “That’s not so terrible.”

“Yeah, they tried pulling me and Stretch in on that but there’s no way I’m wasting away over a stack of legal docs that don’t make no sense.”

Don’t make any sense, you’re using double negatives, brother,” Edge absently corrected.

“And I’ll use triple negatives if I gotta. That stuff is almost dry enough to make me cry.” Red leaned over the counter, reaching for your hand. “Why not just stay with us the rest of the day? We’re loads more fun.”

A magical red bone bounced off Red’s skull, harmlessly knocking him a half step over. Edge sipped at his tea without looking up, feinting ignorance. 

“As much as I would love to agree with you brother, we have integrity. Your turn was last night. Plus, you have work today, and so do I.” 

“I am my own boss, I can take off when I want. What’s the wurst that could happen?”

You snickered at the pun while Edge silently forgave his brother. 

“Can you drop me off when you’re done?” you asked, looking up at Red.

He rounded the counter to grab you by the hips and pull in. “Always, sweetheart.”

Edge looked up when it sounded like you were leaving and leaned over, cupping the side of your face in one hand while also guiding it closer to his. You brushed your lips against his cheekbone and whispered your promise before being tugged back by Red. 

Before you could blink you were elsewhere. The familiar interior of Edge and Red’s cabin in the woods melted into darkness that reformed as familiar walls and floors and furniture you had visited so many times before. You were back in Black’s kitchen, the house he shared with his brother, Blue, Stretch, and four growing children. 

“Steady, sweetheart. Don’t need me rocking your world any more.” He joked. The corner of his smirk tugged down when he saw you had a harder time righting yourself after the shortcut. They always made you a little dizzy but this time around you felt worse off. “Hey, you okay? Do you need to lie down?”

He tugged you out of the kitchen and into the living room just as a pair of footsteps were coming down the stairs from one of the upper levels. You fell back onto one of the smaller couches just as Stretch entered. 

“Thought I felt a jumper. Hey Red, hey honey.” Stretch waved to Red but then hurried around to the other side of the couch to press his skull against yours and nuzzle. He pulled back and squinted, looking you over. “Are you fevered? You’re warm.” 

“It just kinda flares up, I’m warm for a moment and then I’m cold but I don’t have a fever I don’t think,” you said, touching your own forehead. 

Stretch told you to hang on then took a shortcut out, returning moments later with one of the newer thermometers to check your temperature with. He rolled it across your forehead and hummed when it read normal. “Okay, that was weird.”

“I’m fine, I don’t feel sick,” you chuckled. “Just tired, but can you blame me?” You reached up to playfully slap at Red. “I was with this one yesterday.” 

“Guilty as charged,” Red chuckled, wagging his brow bones while looking your way, doing his best to be suggestive in front of others. “But before I take off, you sure you don’t need me? What about water? You want some water?”

“I can get myself water,” you laughed. “I’m not an invalid. I swear, I’m fine, just a little dizzy from the shortcut but that’s not unusual.” You then turned your attention back to Stretch. “Where is Phil? He’s still home.”

Stretch smirked, jabbing a thumb down towards the basement. “Hanging out with Rus, or as I like to call it, sleeping in until criminal hours on a water mattress.”

“Since when did the smokestack get a water mattress?” Red asked, sounding jealous.

“It’s an impulse purchase. We’re taking bets on how long it will last. The kids were freaking obsessed with it when it came in.”

You frowned to yourself, wondering why you couldn’t remember that detail. It didn’t feel like  a surprise to hear about the mattress so you assumed you had been there and knew about it when it came in, but something felt off in your head. Your brain felt foggy and tired. 

“Do you think Phil will hate me if I go down to bring him up?”

“He needs to eat breakfast, it’s late enough. I was heading down there anyway,” Stretch said.

You pushed up off the couch and smiled when the room didn’t swim. “I’m not dizzy anymore, I’ll follow you.” 

Red left soon after with a kiss goodby and a directive to do good at work from you. Alongside Stretch you followed the stairs down to the basement where Rus hung out. Off the main living space there was a bedroom on the side where Rus was snoring away. A different door, further down and out of the way, was kept locked and was strictly off limits to the kids. It was rare they were let downstairs at all. 

Inside the bedroom, you spied Phil wide awake, wriggling across the waterbed like a sea sponge with his arms and legs firmly pinned to his sides. He would arch up his butt and then push himself across the surface, giggling madly at how it made the rest of the bed wriggle. Rus, on the other hand, was dead to the world. 

“Enough of that,” you said before picking up Phil. He protested but didn’t complain loudly and you knew that was because he was staying quiet to not wake Rus up. What a good boy!

Stretch and you took Phil up to the kitchen and made a late morning breakfast. You set up a tray after asking who all Black was inviting over for meetings. You knew Sans would just shortcut in, the guy was allergic to front doors, but you weren’t sure when or what time Jack and Dusk would be joining. If they were coming over soon you’d double the recipe and make extra. Those boys could put it away. 

Stretch offered to check while you enlisted Phil into helping you dump the ingredients you had already measured out into the mixing bowl. Together the two of you made a mess and some bread by the time the front door got its first knock. 

Stretch got up to answer it and you heard from the kitchen as Jack and Dusk greeted him back. You heard them shuffling in. Jack saw you first as he was ahead of his brother. The spiffy brass spectacles he was sporting made his expressions all the more exaggerated, (which was the cutest thing ever in your opinion). He called out your name and you opened your arms to accept the hug before his brother shuffled in.

Dusk gave you a hug too, but hesitated with his face next to your hair. You hear him give a loud sniff and then pulled back with an unhappy expression.

“Something wrong?”

His single red eye light wobbled a bit before going still in his socket, fixated on you. “Nah…it’s nothing much. Thought I smelled blood but it’s just bread.” 

“I’m planning on bringing it up later, once the rest of my spread is set up.”

Dusk’s eye light pulsed a little as his grin grew wide and soft. “thanks.” 

Stretch led the pair of them upstairs while Phil helped you make up a charcuterie board and a separate tray of breads with spreads. It was in-between breakfast and lunch but it was a nice little something that would help tie them over. 

You were right to have assumed Sans shortcut straight into Black’s office, as he was there along with the horror brothers when you arrived. Phil carried a stack of disposable cups that could be used with the water filter unit Black had in his office room. 

The middle most table had been stacked with different files and papers, some protected in plastic sleeves, others not. There was an empty space at the end of the table you went to, setting up alongside Phil. You felt the stares of affection but pretended you didn’t as you set the different trays down. 

Black came up alongside you first, kissing Phil on the forehead and then you before handing a palm to the curve of your backside, out of the child’s view. “You know how to make a monster ravenous.” 

“I thought you could all use a little pick me up.” You kissed his forehead. “How long have you been at it?”

“Only a few hours,” Sans answered, reaching over to grab a slice of banana nut bread to drop into his mouth. “Most of this stuff is pretty dry , but you couldn’t relate.” Comically, he licked at his teeth with his echo tongue, making Phil giggle. 

“As long as you’re getting along and doing good work I don’t think I need to worry.” You reached behind you and placed a hand on top of Black’s, communicating your appreciation of the touch. “I’ll see you later, so work hard.” 

“It’s a promise I vow to keep.”

Sans rolled his eye lights but didn’t make any comments about how ‘ cheesy ’ Black could be. He just held up a slice of pepper jack and chuckled. 

You glanced at some of the papers on the table, spotting some with pictures and artistic drawings of what the empty plots would look like once they were transformed into community gardens. It was a wonderful project you wished you could help out more with. 

It hadn’t been long enough for people to forget about the incident, with a girl on fire imploding within the boundary of encounter with enough firepower to classify on foreign and domestic radars. There was only so much Rus could do to scramble the events but thankfully it seemed like the exodus of ink creatures from the mountain was sufficient cover with the right narration. 

In another year maybe you’d be able to go back out and show your face a little more. Until then you were planning on laying low and helping out the kids when they were home. 

You took some of the empty plates and left the rest of the food before heading down, suddenly feeling exhausted. You felt so much older even though your body was supposed to be perfectly healthy and fine. Were you getting sick? You didn’t have a fever but you felt warm all over for a moment until it passed and you were back to being cold. 

“You okay honey?” Stretch asked, walking up alongside you. 

“Yeah, why are you asking?”

“You look like you’re dragging your feet. I know Red must have given you a workout but it ain’t like you to be kept down like this a day later. How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy, if I’m being honest.”

You didn’t miss it when the lanky skeleton’s eye lights flashed in delight. “I can help with that.” 

He grabbed at your hand and instead of shortcutting you down to it, he walked you over to his room on the same floor and dragged you inside. Before you could complain about the mess he had picked you up in his arms and twisted so he fell backwards into his unmade bed. You giggled, grabbing him around the neck just in time to land beside him atop a pile of pillows. 

For a moment you’re warm again and then it passes, but you don’t care about that. You’re sleepy. He was right and now you’re in between the bedsheets, Phil was with his dad having snacks, and you could afford a short snuggle. 

You blink and the world dims with the light from an early afternoon. Stretch was dead asleep beside you, his legs intertwined with yours and one arm wrapped snugly around your waist. 

You felt sluggish and heavy but you needed to pee so you pulled away and rolled off the edge of the bed. Stretch’s room didn’t have his own bathroom so you crossed the hallway, hearing the conversations still going on from upstairs. 

And then that’s when you noticed it. 

When the kids in the MAGE program got to puberty age, those assigned female at birth were altered. Years later you still didn’t understand how it happened, but none of you had the ability to have kids and you never had a period that could slow you down in a fight. 

This was your first one.

Your eye hadn’t been the only thing your brother restored when he brought you back it seemed. 

“Shit,” you whispered to yourself when you noticed how much blood there was. You hurried to try and clean up what you could while avoiding the possibility of making a worse mess and found it frustrating work. But plenty of people went through this sort of thing, and it was super normal for half the people on the planet. You would be fine. 

The house shook when Stretch screamed your name. You heard the chaos from overhead as the doors to the office were opened and a half dozen skeletal feet landed outside Stretch’s room. Someone tried asking Stretch what was wrong but got cut off.

“She’s hurt, there’s blood on the bed!”

“Where?”

“How did this happen?” 

“Where is she now?” 

And then you heard the pounding on the door to the bathroom from Dusk. You didn’t need X-ray vision to know it was him on the other side, panicking. No one else was that tall or physically strong to be pounding on the top of the door.

“I’m fine!” you shouted back, more likely to die of embarrassment than anything else. “Don’t panic over it, I’m perfectly- ugh -fine.” You stifle a gasp as a crap made you want to bend in half. It was seeing and it came from nowhere.

“You’re hurt,” Dusk bellowed. You could imagine him reeling back, getting ready to punch the door down.

 “No, I’m fine.” You grunted into your arm, muffling the sound. “Please, it’s just my period. This is normal.”

“Is it normal to be in pain?” Jack asked, voice pitched high with panic.

“Yes, please don’t come in, I-I’ll be fine.” 

Then you heard the scuffle and the slip and slide of bodies being shoved on the other side of the door. Someone was cursing and swearing but then there was a new knocking that you recognized just as quickly. Black was purposefully elegant with his rapping. 

“Lover, do you need a change of clothes and sanitary napkins?” Black called out through the door, sounding a little more put together.  Of course it would be Black. He and you had a daughter so even if it was way out in the future of course he would be the one more prepared to deal with it. You wouldn’t be surprised if he already had feminine hygiene products on hand. 

“Yes, please, but not…I need a few minutes alone, first. Just until….huh, the craps calm down.”

“Of course. We’ll acquire those for you now. Do you have your phone on you?”

You pat at your pants, left discarded on the floor next to the tub. Your phone was still in the back pocket alongside the stains. Ew. That had been a close one.

“I got it.”

“Call or text when you’re ready. The vanilla one already left to pick up your pajamas. I will get the other things.”

“Thanks,” you mumbled, resting your eyes as another jolt of pain ran through you. It was an unfamiliar sort of agony. You were used to pain and were even pretty good at dealing with it, but this was something worse. It was inside you and it kept coming. Was this worse than when you had been starved and left alone in a cage or electrocuted?

Another cramp made you whimper. 

If these didn’t stop soon you were sure this would be the worst experience in modern history.  

“Peaches?” You heard Dusk outside the door and this time the intensity and urgency from earlier was replaced with warbling concern. “You’re….really okay?”

“Yeah,” you hissed out. “Just getting through this. It’ll be over soon.”

“I want to be next to you.” 

“I know, I’m sorry. When…when I get on top of this I’ll be out.”

“When will that be?”

You hissed out in pain and sucked in a new lungful of air before replying. “I don’t know when…soon.”

There was a grunt outside and then you heard several objects clattering to the ground. Dusk grunted in annoyance and might have kicked something over for how it sounded through the door. 

“What did you bring?” Jack asked, speaking up.

“These are sanitary napkins and pads. I have a stockpile in case they should ever be necessary.”

“Necessary for who?” Jack asked. You heard the cardboard of a box popping open.

“Whoever may need it. Wendy won’t need these for years but that doesn’t mean there might never be the day when a friend or visitor might need something from the bathroom. It’s common courtesy to have something on hand, even if the house is filled with people who don’t menstruate. My only folly was in not stocking all the upper floor rooms.” 

“Hey, I have the jams and panties,” Sans interrupted, appearing again. 

There was a softer knocking at the door that you recognized as Stretch. “Honey, can someone come in to help you please?”

“Two seconds, please,” you huffed before forcing yourself to move. 

Your pants were in the bath and you knew you needed to soak them to get the red stains out. You tossed your underwear in there too and tugged your oversized shirt down as long as it would go, trying to preserve your modesty in front of a group who you really didn’t need to hide from. It wasn’t like it was anything they hadn’t seen before but this time it felt different.

 You cracked the door open a jar and reached out to accept the clothes, but hesitated when you spied the short mountain of sanitary pad boxes. Had Black bought one of every size and style? You took the top box and vowed to make it work before closing the door again to finish getting ready. There was a whimper on the other side from Dusk that damn near broke your heart but you needed to get stuff done. 

With your dirty things soaking you followed the directions and got redressed, hating how it felt to have to walk and move around with something new between your legs. It almost made you cry to imagine living the rest of your life with this. Once the pain train was over you were looking into alternative options. 

“Peaches?”

“I’m fine now,” you called out, knowing the door wasn’t locked, only closed. A lock would do less to keep them out than your words.

 With your permission given, there was a crackle as Black materialized next to you the same second the door was pushed open. He reached for your wrist and turned it over to feel your pulse, frowning at whatever he found. Behind you Dusk descended on you, wrapping you up into a smothering hug while Stretch and Sans squeezed in via shortcut so Jack could fold himself in through the doorway. 

“You’re a little anemic but that’s to be anticipated,” Black said.

“What does that mean?” Stretch asked, looking more lost and panicked.  A few steps back Sans paused, glancing into the tub where your dirty things were soaking.

“It just means the body is a little weaker than normal, nothing, some rest and over the counter painkillers won’t help. I have things for this,” Black said, sounding so matter of fact. 

“You should get to bed then,” Sans said, tearing his eye lights away from the blood. “Dusk, you gonna carry her over to her barn?”

“She can use my bed,” Black protested, shooting Sans a look. “It’s close and large enough.”

“Guys, I’m fine, this is normal and I’m gonna be okay. Black I don’t want to ruin your sheets by accident. I’m fine going to my place.”

“You think I care about sheets?” Black scoffed.

“Maybe for the peace and quiet then,” Sans said. “We can come to you when you want us and leave just as fast. As normal as this may be, it doesn't mean it ain’t a pain .” 

You groaned, half from pain and half from how bad the pun was. “Not funny,” you chuckled. 

Sans shot you a pair of finger guns even as Black rounded on his counterpart with a look of disgust. “Have you no decency? Fine, your bed will suffice but someone should be close or nearby. This is your first time experiencing this so you don’t know what to expect.” 

“We have no plans,” Dusk growled, pulling you closer just as Jack stepped up. 

“Fine,” Black said, slapping his heels together military style. “Stretch, see to Phil. He’s napping but I need to know he’s fine. I’ll procure the medications and meet you there. Vanilla Bean, you’re in charge of updating the group chat.”

Sans frowned at the nickname but pulled out his phone. “I can multitask.” 

“It’s not a big deal,” you mumbled in embarrassment, turning your face into Dusk’s shoulder and wrapping one of your arms around his neck. “This is supposed to be normal.” 

 He wordlessly scooped you up against his chest with one arm, reminding you of months and months ago when he did the same thing in order to carry you out of a shared prison. This time Jack was nearby and he leaned over to rest a hand against the side of your face, pushing back a few loose hairs that had stuck to your face from sweat. Since when have you been sweating? 

“Just like what’s happening to your body is normal, us taking care of you is normal too,” Jack said, voice and expression equally soft. “Why shouldn’t we do all that we can to care for the human we love when they are in pain?”

You closed your eyes and nuzzled against Dusk’s collarbone, trying to hide your blush as you were carried out of the bathroom. “It’s not such a big deal but I’m not going to complain about it cause this is nice.”

Dusk purred in contentment, nuzzling you as he walked you back to your barn detachment where a wide open bed was waiting for you. Jack toed off his boots and climbed in ahead of you but Dusk was close behind and between the two of them you felt snuggled. Black appeared with a glass of warmed water, some pills for the pain, and instructions on what you could expect. Sans showed up a few seconds later with a steamed hot water bottle he fit over your covers as you helped him find the right placement. 

“It might take a while for those pills to feel like they’re working so I’m leaving the bottle here on the nightstand. Avoid cold foods and icy waters for the next few days. I’ll also see to it that your bathroom is stocked now that we know what to expect.”

“I brought entertainment,” Stretch said, appearing out of seemingly nowhere with a fully loaded laptop ready to play something you had mentioned wanting to see.   

Jack moved around to somehow accommodate a fourth body in the bed as Stretch followed you in. The laptop was set on a lap desk and the movie began to roll as Black saw to the lights being dimmed and the bathroom being stocked. You heard him and Sans in the foreground whispering amongst themselves before Sans broke away to reach over the others and kiss the side of your face, then excuse himself. Black didn't bother maneuvering around the others, but made sure you saw him go. The way he watched you was full of meaning and it helped ease you into a sense of comfort.

"Rest well," he said, and then he was gone.

Halfway through the movie Stretch got up to excuse himself and call his brother, as was their evening ritual to do so. In his absence Jack took the opportunity he saw and moved you up into his lap, curling around you protectively. When you grumbled about being gross he rubbed the edge of his thumb across your lips to shush your complaints.

"Let yerself be loved, Peaches," Dusk encouraged.

You didn't protest after that, but before the movie was over you felt yourself drifting off again. Someone had replaced the old hot water bottle with a new one and the extra warmth was likely what did it for you as you submerged into dreamless sleep once more, ferried on by the soft humming of a voice that would break into the lyrics of a lullaby for a lover before easing back into soothing hums. Someone's hands brushed back your hair and strong arms never let you go. 

Oh man, you really were loved. 

 

 


POV of the boys…coming soon? 

Notes:

So, looks who's back!

Hey, the bonus chapters are in the works. I have no set schedule and no promises for when and what comes out, but I was thinking of writing only a few of these based on what people were in the mood for. Next chapter will be a POV so if there is a boy you want to see shout out in the comments below. Any other scenarios you're dying to see?

Notes:

Behold my self indulgent, wish fulfillment, monster romance story.
Reader in this fic started out being as a 'blank' reader insert, but I couldn't keep it that way. I just wanted to write something and have fun with it, so I poured a lot of my self indulgent wishes into this fic. I blame my partner in crime Jaylene for leading me down this path. I just wanted to write fluffy things and emotional hurt/comfort but I wouldn't have gotten so far without her encouragement. (So if you end up enjoying it blame/thank her.)

If you have any questions feel free to ask, otherwise, read, enjoy, and lurk to your heart's content. Hope you have fun. You can find me on tumblr but it's all sorta just random stuff: 

http://vesperlionheart.tumblr.com/

 

 

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