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Frisk spent most of her life in a city devoid of any monsters. The people around her despised their kind, threatening murder to any that stumbled into their territory. One day, Frisk decided that she had enough of these people and began saving money through-out her teenage years so she could move into a monster city. Upon arrival, she noticed monsters shared their hate for the opposing race but managed to live a somewhat better life there.
------------ Frisk hummed a light melody to herself while cleaning the small shot glass in her hand. Sure, the bar was loud and she could barely hear herself think, but she couldn’t help but do it anyways. It was her mother’s favorite, after all. Therefore it was Frisk's favorite.She’d occasionally have to stop her cleaning to send out drinks to thirsty and most likely already drunken customers.Frisk had begun working in this small, but undeniably cozy bar a few months ago. She adored it there, even though she normally got a few ugly looks every so often during her shift, alongside the occasional insult. She was the only human in a big city full of monsters, so it was to be expected that she got a good few glares whenever she showed her face in public.Frisk honestly didn’t mind the disgust that was written all over the monster’s faces. She still kept her smile and continued to wander around, whether it be aimlessly or to actually get somewhere.
Some monsters were surprisingly welcoming and enjoyed her presence. Many had even taken time to get to know Frisk on a personal level and befriended her. One example was her friend Macy, a small opossum type monster she had met within the first week of moving.Frisk had been out buying groceries when the little monster almost collided with her while looking for something in the completely wrong aisle. She looked up right in time, only bumping into Frisk's leg before halting completely. Frisk expected her to do what most monsters did to her, mumble out something along the lines of "Get out of the way!" or glare at her before quickly moving on. But she was caught by surprise when Macy looked into her eyes for a moment as a sheepish smile spread across her furry cheeks and a long apology flowed out of her mouth.That sorry slowly turned into a full-on conversation that Frisk had found herself absorbed in. She was also asked questions about what it was like in the human city and if she enjoyed herself here. After almost thirty minutes of chatting, Macy handed Frisk her phone number to meet up later and left. Frisk stood there, stunned, for a moment before getting back to her shopping.A small smile crept onto Frisk's face. Today was her twenty-first birthday, so Macy and her other friends had decided to come to the bar after Frisk’s shift ended to celebrate with her.
They had convinced her to spend it doing the same thing that most monsters, and some humans, her age would do. Drinking. A lot of drinking.She had declined that option several times at first. She didn’t want to get drunk and run the risk of leaving with someone she wasn’t familiar with in her intoxicated mind. She wouldn’t exactly be able to count on her friends either since they’d get pretty shit-faced, especially Japhire.But after Macy had kindly stepped up to stay entirely sober so Frisk could enjoy herself, and obviously help everyone home safely, she gave in.It didn’t surprise anyone either. Macy wasn’t the type to get drunk on a regular basis. She usually spent her weekend nights out on little dates with her boyfriend or be up all night reading until eventually succumbing to her drowsiness in the early morning.Frisk continued to clean shot glasses and polish the counter while waiting for her friends to arrive.She peeled her eyes away from her duties every few minutes to see what time it was.5:00pm5:17pm5:34pmAnd so on.Her shift ended at exactly six o’ clock. More monsters were starting to enter into the already almost packed bar to get late night drinks.
After looking up, she recognized one that had shuffled his way past the much bigger monsters to make it up to the bar. He was bat-like and slightly taller than Frisk. After lightly pushing some bulkier bull monster out of his way, he slinked up into one of the empty stools.“Hey, Frisk!” He said excitedly. Frisk smiled at him.“Hello, Adrian. Where’s Macy? I thought she’d be with you.” Frisk said while filling up and handing Adrian a glass of water. He gladly took it before passing her a thankful smile.“She’s out in the car, actually. She wants to come in the second your shift ends. No idea why though. Is she this precise with time every time she visits you at work?” He asked in between gulps of water.“Almost. Sometimes she’s five seconds late.” Frisk said with a slightly sarcastic tone. Adrian let out a light chuckle, water dripping a little from his chin.They both stared at the clock, waiting to see if she actually would make it into the bar in time or be “late”.At exactly six o' clock, Macy came barreling through the door, quickly pushing past drunk monsters, and hopped into a seat next to Adrian once she had made it up to the bar counter. It startled him a little bit, but he wore a smile nonetheless.Her speed was always a surprise to everyone, including Frisk. She was faster than all of them even though she had gained quite a bit of weight during the summer.Macy suddenly bent over the bar to pull Frisk into a tight hug. Frisk could slowly feel her lungs running out of air.“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, FRISKY!” She squealed. Frisk let out a shaky laugh and lightly patted Macy on her fuzzy back.Macy eventually let go and straightened out any noticeable wrinkles in her pale blue bare-back dress. Frisk took this moment to bend over and catch her breath. If she had been held captive in that hug for another second, she probably would've passed out. Macy’s big, cheery smile turned sheepish instantly when she noticed the state of her friend.“Sorry, are you ok? I’m just really excited.” She said, reaching her paw out.Frisk nodded and held her hand up in pause, slowly standing straight again and smiling at her friend.“Hopefully the others don’t do that.” She said, her voice still a little broken.After a moment, Macy gave Frisk a once-over and a strange look. Frisk just gave her a confused one back, which made Macy roll her eyes and point at the clock. Frisk looked up at it.It read 6:04pmOh. Right. Shifts over, shouldn't be back here.Frisk quickly removed her apron, hanging up neatly on a small hook attached to the wall, before working her way to the end of the bar to exit the small entrance, slithering out into the crowd and into the stool next to Macy.Eventually, Grillby came back out to the main room, smiled pleasantly at Frisk, and began working the drinks while a different employee went to the back to take Grillby’s place.“Do you lot want anything while you wait?” Grillby said quietly. Despite his soft tone and the other loud, drunk monsters, he could be heard fairly clear. Frisk shook her head.“I want to wait until everyone gets here.” She said. Grillby nodded before turning to the other two. Adrian held up his glass, which was still half-full and Macy declined his offer. Grillby nodded, leaving to the other side of the bar to serve other monsters that had been waiting for a drink.After several minutes of chit-chat, a pair of scaly red hands rested on Frisk’s shoulders, gripping them tightly. Frisk jumped slightly and quickly snapped her head back to look at whoever seemed to want her attention. A dragon monster stood there proudly, knowing he had spooked her just a little. He was tall and skinny and had a sharp, toothy grin. His green and gold eyes glittered with the help of the lights that littered the bar's ceiling. Frisk frowned at him. He always found a way to scare her, whether it be at the bar during her work hours or if they were just hanging out somewhere. The fact he did this every single time they were together made her question herself how she hadn't gotten used to it.Japhire giggled like a little kid and sat down next to her. Frisk's glare sharpened and her lips curled into a deep frown. All he did in response was ruffle her hair. She swore she could feel a burning sensation every time he did that.“Happy birthday, Effdee.” He said. Frisk’s frown deepened.God. Effdee.Oh, how she hated that nickname. Well, she had to admit it was better than his other nickname for her.Run A Risk Frisk.Yep. That one was way worse. He made it up when she volunteered to hold a baby alligator while they were at a reptile exhibit together since everyone there, including himself, even if he didn't like to admit it, were too afraid to themselves.“Effdee? What kind of nickname is that?” Macy chimed in, obviously disliking it as much as Frisk looked like she did.“Ya know, Effdee? Frisk Danen?” Japhire said. It didn’t seem to help make it any better.Macy just rolled her eyes again and took a small sip from Adrian’s water. He didn’t mind by the looks of it. He was fully focused on a food menu he found sitting off to the side. Macy noticed and swatted it out of his hand.“No! Minnie is bringing a cake!” Macy said. Adrian rested his chin on his hand with a huff.“I’m sure those two will be here soon, Adri.” Japhire said while sipping a beer.Frisk perked her head up while a confused expression spread across her face. She chanced a look at Japhire. He was smiling.
“Two?” She repeated. Japhire's smile widened, showing off his teeth.“Yeah, two. Minnie got herself a girlfriend last week. She tried telling you, but you never answered her calls.” He explained.Frisk frowned a little. She was incredibly busy with work the previous week and by the time she had gotten back to her apartment, she’d be way too tired to chat with her friends.
Japhire’s smile faltered a little before he put his hand on her shoulder.“Don’t be upset. She’s not mad at you or anything, she knows how hard work has been riding your ass.” He said before taking a much bigger sip from his bottle, almost draining it. Frisk sighed and stood from her stool.“Hey, where are you goin’?” Adrian asked, raising his head to look back as Frisk waltzed toward the door. Frisk turned her head slightly to look back at her friends before shrugging.“Just gonna go outside for a little. The smell of beer is bugging me.” Frisk said before sending Japhire a side glance. He rolled his eyes playfully.They all nodded with smiles on their faces and started silent chatter amongst themselves. Frisk smiled lightly back and continued walking to the door. She noticed most of the monsters giving her glares and snarls as she walked past them, but she ignored it.Once she made it out of the bar, she leaned up against the wall and took deep breaths through her nose in hopes of getting rid of the smell of alcohol that seemed to linger around her. It worked, until a rather large and obviously overly drunken monster stepped out of the bar laughing his ass off. She was able to smell the excessive amount of beer he drank moments before coming outside while his mouth was wide open.His laughing stopped instantly when he saw her. He puffed his chest and scowled at her before walking away. She couldn’t help but laugh quietly as he tripped over his large feet and swore loudly into the night.Once Frisk stopped laughing and the monster was out of sight, she shot a look over to the packed parking lot and noticed a hot pink car had just pulled in. She didn’t even have to look into the window to know who it was. Minnie.A small, plump cat monster popped out of the driver seat with a large sheet cake in her pudgy paws. She stood in front of the car as she waited for her companion to step out of the passenger seat. The door opened and the monster walked out onto the asphalt.The monster who had tagged along with Minnie was a tall, skinny, and indisputably attractive fox monster. She smiled lovingly at the cat for a moment before walking up to her and wrapped her arm around her as they walked towards the entrance.The cat monster’s small grin stretched much wider than before, showing off all her sharp teeth, once she looked away from the fox and spotted Frisk up against the building. She basically lunged at Frisk, the cake still tightly held in her paws.“FRIIIIIIIISK!” Minnie hollered. Frisk startled. Before she was even able to push herself off the wall to greet the monster, she was face to face with her, her hot-pink eyes glittering with excitement. The fox laughed a little before grabbing the cat’s shoulders and pulling her back slightly.“Relax, Minnie. You could’ve given her a heart attack.” The fox said as she looked up from Minnie's happy face to Frisk's stunned one and smiled. She held out her paw.“I’m Vixen.” She stated. Frisk grabbed her paw and smiled back. Her fur was somewhat rough but still held a fluffiness to it. Her sharp, claw-like nails were painted a bright blue.“Frisk.” She replied plainly. Vixen nodded.“I know your name, Minnie talks a lot about you. She wouldn’t stop rambling about your birthday during lunch.” Vixen said as she nudged Minnie on the shoulder. Minnie smiled sheepishly before looking up at Vixen, shaking the smile off a little.“Can you take this and put it inside with the others?” She asked while holding out the cake. Vixen nodded and took it in her hands.“I’ll see you chumps in there.” She said as she walked inside the building.Minnie looked back up at Frisk, her smile returning to its bigger form. She quickly pulled Frisk into a spine-breaking hug with her now free arms.“I’ve missed you so much!” Minnie squealed. Her smile faltered and her expression turned into one as if she was thinking hard. “Even though it’s only been a week.”“I’ve missed you too, Minnie. Sorry for not answering your c-“ Frisk started before she was released and a furry finger was placed on her lips to shush her.“Don’t apologize. It’s not necessary.” Minnie stated. Before Frisk could squeeze in another word, Minnie grabbed her wrist and pulled her back inside the warm bar.Minnie dragged Frisk through the group she had pushed herself through only moments ago and, again, got more glares.When they made it up to the bar, Minnie forced Frisk into the stool she had been in before leaving while Minnie plopped into the empty seat next to Vixen.Japhire threw a crooked smile at Frisk once she was fully seated. Frisk knew that smile. She narrowed her eyes and leaned away from him a little.“What did you do?” She asked cautiously. He kept smiling before gesturing at a small drink in front of him with his finger. Frisk’s eyes instantly darted to it.It was a bright blue up top and faded into a purple color that resided at the bottom of the glass. The drink glowed slightly and had a noticeable sparkly look. Frisk’s eyes looked back up into Japhire’s after a solid thirty seconds of staring at the liquid.“What about it?” She questioned. Japhire let out a small giggle and slowly pushed it towards her.“Try it.” He said simply. Frisk only eyed the drink more, not daring to touch it. Japhire’s smile faltered a little.“What, you think I poisoned it?” He said with a huff.“Yes.” Frisk said.Macy then reached out her paw and grabbed the drink, bringing it her lips and taking a small sip of the glowing liquid. Frisk and Japhire looked over at her, waiting for a response. After swallowing, she nodded, satisfied with the taste.“It’s not poisoned.” She said before passing the glass back to Frisk. Frisk still couldn't help but glare at the liquid.“Fine.” Frisk sighed, slowly raising the glass to her lips. The drink was incredibly sweet and had a slight glittery texture as it flowed over her tongue. She didn't even get half of it down before she slammed the glass down onto the bar, spilling a little, and began coughing up glitter.“What’s the matter, Frisk?” Japhire asked with a smile as he began patting her back.“Is there actual fucking glitter in there??” She asked as she managed to stifle her coughing and looked up at him. He nodded as he grabbed the drink and downed the rest of it quickly.“Well, yeah. How else would they get it all sparkly?” He said. Frisk glared at him.“Hey, Frisk!” Minnie shrieked from farther down the bar counter. Frisk looked past Japhire and Vixen to see her. She was smiling and holding out a piece of the cake she brought with a candle it in. Frisk couldn’t help but let a big smile break through her glare. Japhire grabbed the plate and placed it in front of Frisk.“Want us to sing?!” Minnie asked excitedly, slightly rising from her seat. Frisk’s face flushed. Did she want them to sing to her? Especially in a bar full of people?Minnie’s face told Frisk that she had to no choice.“Why not?” Frisk said, her smile spreading across her face farther as her cheeks got a little rosier. Minnie squealed happily.All five of them started singing Happy Birthday to Frisk, making her face even redder. At this point, she looked like a tomato that grew a body and limbs. She then began to notice most of the monsters around the bar looking at the group with confused expressions. Her smile would've grown bigger if it could. Japhire noticed and laughed just a little, but quickly corrected his tone to finish the song with the others.They finished soon after, ending it with a very loud “woo-hoo!” and raising their glasses. Frisk giggled and watched as Macy waved Grillby over.“Grillby, could you please get Frisk a gin?” She asked sweetly. Grillby nodded and walked over to the shelf. Frisk shot Macy a confused look. Macy smiled brightly at her while fishing for a few bills.“I want you to try it.” She said. Grillby arrived with the drink and Macy passed him the money with a thankful smile. He smiled back and walked off again to deal with other customers.Frisk grabbed the glass and eyed it for a second before taking a small sip. Japhire gave her a faked heartbroken look, going as far as placing his hand onto his chest since she hadn't questioned that drink as she had with the one he offered. She smirked. After swallowing some of the drink, she placed it back onto the counter. It wasn’t bad, but she didn’t plan on swallowing it in one gulp like Japhire kept doing with his drinks.She took small sips of the drink every so often along with the occasional piece of cake while her friends, all except Macy, guzzled alcohol until they swayed in their seats. Frisk was just waiting for one to lean backward and fall off their stool.This went on for at least another hour before Frisk noticed how fucked up Japhire looked.Despite being as drunk as he was, he kept on slurring his endless demands for more beer, but Frisk and Macy made sure that Grillby only gave him water. He didn’t even seem to notice the difference in the liquids and continued drinking like no tomorrow.“Maybe bringing Japhire to the bar was a bad idea.” Macy whispered into Frisk’s ear. Frisk nodded.“So…” Macy said. “Who’s taking him home?”They stared at each other for a moment before Frisk quickly touched her nose. Macy did the same thing only a second after Frisk did. She frowned and lightly slammed her fuzzy fist down on the bar top while Frisk smiled self-righteously.“Dammit.” Macy mumbled while looking at Japhire before turning back to her also very intoxicated boyfriend. Adrian was hiccupping and giggling hysterically. He also appeared to be having a conversation with the empty stool next to him.Macy let out a heavy, defeated sigh. Frisk lightly patted her on the back.“How much longer do you plan on staying, Frisk?” Macy asked as she looked up at Frisk. Frisk could tell Macy was getting tired.“You can go home and sleep if you want to?” Frisk said, her smile falling a little as she squeezed Macy’s paw. Macy smiled sadly.“I don’t want to go if you’re going to be here alone.” She said, her voice going quieter. “I won’t be alone,” Frisk said gesturing to Vixen and Minnie. “you should sleep.”Macy sighed. “Fine, but I’ll be here tomorrow for your lunch break. I’m taking you out to a cute little café I found the other day. I’m sure you’ll like it.” She said before hugging Frisk and hopping off of her stool.“Sounds like a plan. Call me when you wake up.” Frisk said with a smile as she stood up to help Japhire off of his stool. Macy looked at Frisk confused.“What are you doing?” She asked, tightly holding onto a drunken Adrian who was now waving to the invisible monster he had been speaking to.“I’ll take Japhire home real quick and come back. I’m sure the second I get him in there he’ll pass out.” Frisk replied, trying to make Japhire stand properly."Oh alright. Just... make sure to get back here safely. I know how certain monsters feel about you being here, and being out in the dark with only a drunk monster for protection isn't helping your case any." Macy said, her tired tone growing serious. Frisk nodded.Macy didn't relax at the lack of a reply, but waved anyways and made her way out, lugging Adrian behind her. As Frisk began making her way to the exit, Minnie stood from her seat.“Frisky, where are you going??” Minnie asked. Frisk looked back at her a smiled.“I’ll be right back, Minnie. I’m just gonna take this drunk dumbass home.” She said, now dragging Japhire from his arm-pits towards the door. Minnie frowned a little but nodded and watched Frisk go.“Stay safe, kid.” Vixen said, turning around to face Frisk. Frisk gave her a thumbs up, dropping Japhire a little, before getting him to stand again and making it out of the door and onto the cold streets. She looked over at Japhire.“You better cooperate with me here, pal.” She said sternly. Japhire smiled and nodded before sloppily making an X over his SOUL. Frisk sighed and began walking with him in the direction of his house.After a few minutes of walking with the drunken dragon monster, he almost passed out in her arms, briefly pushing all of his weight onto Frisk. She yelled at him and pushed him back up, making him snap fully awake again.Japhire managed to stay conscious until they made it to the house. Frisk knocked, hoping someone would be home since he lived with his brother, who had friends over often. After a few moments, Frisk perked her head up as she heard heavy footsteps dragging themselves towards the door. She heard a click of a lock and the door swung open with a depressing creaking noise.A tall, green dragon monster stood in the doorway. His red eyes rolled down to look at the much shorter human holding onto Japhire’s drunk self. He shook his head before smiling.“Good evening, Frisk.” He said warmly before pointing to Japhire. “Let me guess, incredibly drunk?”Frisk nodded.“Yea, sorry about that, Draco.” She said apologetically as she passed Japhire over to his brother. Draco easily flung his brother over his shoulder and waved his hand dismissively.“No need to apologize. I’m sure he’ll be sorry enough for his drinking habits once he wakes up with a huge hangover.” He said with a slight laugh.“Yea, guess he will. When he gets up, tell him I said I had fun tonight.” She said with a sideways smile. He nodded and waved once she turned away to walk back to the bar.Frisk finished the rest of the melody she had begun that morning while walking. The humming helped soothe her paranoia that she'd be attacked or killed any minute. She had Macy to blame for that paranoia to grow.God, was she tired. She really needed some sleep. She'd be home soon enough, laying down in her soft, welcoming bed, catching as many z's as she could before morning hit hard and sent her to work.Frisk was already getting spammed with texts by Minnie, only noticeable by the slight buzz tickling her thigh and the small, muffled beeps coming from the phone. She didn’t check them since she’d be there soon.Only after rounding a corner and getting the familiar bar into sight, did she let her fears be swept away and allow her body and mind to relax a bit. She sped up, trying to get to the building as fast as possible.Before she could make it through the door, she spotted Minnie pacing around in front of the bar counter, looking nervously down at her phone. Frisk frowned. Maybe she should've replied to her messages. She wouldn't be freaking out like this if she had.Then she heard three pairs of footsteps in the distance, quickly getting louder. She heard the silent chatter between the monsters nearby die instantly upon seeing Frisk in front of the bar door. She froze.One pair of footsteps started up again, but only for a moment, getting closer to her.“Heya, human.” The voice belonging to those footsteps said. It was deep and had a hint of laziness to it. Frisk wanted to run, but that would be silly. What if the monster didn't want to harm her and just wanted in the bar? After that thought, she felt like a jackass blocking the door.Frisk finally turned her head towards the voice. She instinctively stepped back. Three skeletal monsters stood before her.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Frisk’s heart almost leapt out of her chest at the sight of the three monsters. The only thing she wanted to do right then was get back into the bar, surrounding herself with the warmth and loud chatter and laughter of the drunken patrons, but she couldn’t get her legs to move. She felt like she was glued in place.All the fear that had died out when she spotted Grillby’s came flooding back, drowning out every other thought in her now panicked mind and she could feel her heartbeat’s pace speed up dramatically.The tallest skeleton had a look of pure shock on his face, his jaw dropped and sockets wide. It confused Frisk for a second before she realized the obvious reason why: She’s probably the first human he’s seen in person, and so close up, too.She chanced a look at the one to the left. He was slightly shorter and had two cracks in his skull. His expression was much different. The only way she could describe it was a mix of tired, bored, frustrated, and anxious. His pupils didn’t focus on Frisk for too long before they darted down to the skeleton in the middle of the group and his foot began tapping impatiently.Frisk finally looked at the middle skeleton. He was much shorter than the other two but was still a good two or three feet taller than Frisk. His expression was laid-back; eyes half-lidded and a friendly smile set across his face.Her eyes then landed on their outfits. The taller monsters had your average looking setups; a coat to block out the cold- even if they didn’t have any skin-, dress shirts underneath tucked into their pants, and neat, black shoes.But the shortest one looked like he was from a 30’s movie, donning a fedora and trench coat alongside his own dress shirt, which was lazily left untucked, and black shoes. Frisk scoffed to herself when she noticed one of his shoes untied.She looked back up at the group, not a sound coming out of either of them.After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, the shortest skeleton stepped closer, the sound of his shoes tapping on the sidewalk making Frisk jump slightly.Her once frightened eyes focused solely on the monster to catch any sudden or sneaky movements that he might make that would lead to her getting injured. All he did was smile at her and take his fedora hat off, holding it close to his rib cage.“Uh… sorry there, pal. Didn’t mean to scare ya.” He said as he scratched the back of skull guiltily before swiftly bringing it back down and holding it out to her. Frisk flinched at the quick movement.Once she focused on his offered hand, her eyes narrowed and a frown set itself firmly on her face. She ignored his gesture and looked back up at him. His smile broke a little at her cold look.“I’m Sans. Sans the skeleton.” He continued, his hand still stretched out. “You are…?”Frisk still didn’t make a move to grab his hand, only glaring deeply at him and backing away closer to the bar’s doors.“You can’t trust him.” A voice in her head whispered at her angrily. “He’s probably just trying to catch you off guard so he can hurt you!”Frisk’s eyes glazed over for a second as she pictured different scenarios, all ending in the same way. She blinked to rid of those bloody images and felt her body shiver.She focused on Sans again and her eyes darted all over his body while looking for a weapon. All she could spot was an unopened pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket, and it’s not like she could see his inside pockets.“Even if he doesn’t have a weapon, he can just use his magic!” That voice called.That’s right. Monsters have magic.Frisk sighed inwardly and looked Sans in the face once more. The friendly smile he wore had weakened, most likely from the growing pain in his arm.
Frisk then narrowed her eyes again in focus as she studied his expression.----Sans almost chuckled. He thought it was kind of funny how determined this human was to find some kind of hostility in him. It’s not like he planned on hurting her. As for the other two, Papyrus wouldn’t hurt a fly, and Wingdings wasn’t one for hurting someone… unless they deserved it, that is. Sans went with that logic, too.“If they didn’t do anything to deserve it, they would be let go.” He repeated Wingding’s words in his head, even remembering the unpleasant look on Papyrus’ face.Sans kept his hand offered to the woman, even if it was incredibly sore at this point. He had to hold back the annoyed expression that was trying to force its way onto his face.“Why won’t she just shake it?” He said to himself. “It’s not like my hand is gonna bite her.”Suddenly, a deep, strained sigh came from behind Sans and a hand was placed firmly on his shoulder. He tensed and looked up to see a somewhat frustrated Wingdings looking down at him.Sans let out an irritated huff and turned back to the human, his smiling falling completely. He finally dropped his arm and shoved his hat back on agitatedly, tilting it slightly to cover most of his wide sockets.Wingdings made a satisfied grunt before he stepped forward in front of Sans and pulled the bar door open, letting the monster’s loud chatter and laughter pour out onto the silent and cold streets.When Papyrus walked out from behind Sans, it made him jump a little. Papyrus had been quiet the entire time and Sans honestly forgot he was there.Sans watched his little brother approach the human. Papyrus bowed with his usual large and warm smile in front of her before straightening himself again and marching into the warm building.Sans followed suit, his pupils never leaving the woman’s as he passed Wingdings and entered the bar.As soon as he was visible to the other monsters, he was instantly greeted by almost everyone there. He wasn’t in often, and if he was, it was late at night so the fact he had managed to make so many friends surprised him.“BROTHER!” Sans heard Papyrus call from a booth near the back.Sans excused himself and made his way into the bench across from Papyrus, taking his hat off and placing it on the table.Sans waved Grillby over and ordered a small whiskey. Grillby nodded and walked back to the bar.“What?” Sans asked when he noticed Papyrus’ glare. “Not allowed to get a drink?”“DO YOU REALLY NEED IT? WE AREN’T GOING TO BE HERE LONG.” Papyrus stated.“Wingdi-“ Sans began before Papyrus interrupted.“DAD.” He corrected. Sans rolled his pupils.“Whatever. I can have a small drink before he gets in here.” Sans said as Grillby came up to the booth and place the drink on the table in front of Sans.“Thanks, Grillbz. I’ll pay before we head out.” Sans said. Grillby smiled and turned to leave before pausing and turning his head to face Papyrus, seeing if he wanted anything. Papyrus only shook his head, telling Grillby he could head back to work.----Frisk stared down at her feet, avoiding eye contact with the remaining monster. She could feel his pupils looking down at her as he stood there, still holding the door open.After a few moments of silence, he cleared his throat to grab Frisk’s attention. Frisk’s head shot up at the sound.The skeleton gestured to the open door with a nod of his head. A small smile spread across his face the second Frisk’s cheeks flushed. Now she felt even worse than before.“Oh…” Frisk said, fidgeting with her skirt guiltily. “Sorry.”She managed to mumble out a “thank you” as she rushed past him inside.Frisk didn’t look back as she almost fully ran to the bar counter. She looked around after she sat down on the empty stool in front of her. The first thing she spotted was a blacked out Vixen asleep on the counter with her glass half-empty in her paw. The second thing she spotted was a still incredibly panicky Minnie pacing around in a different spot, a few feet away from where she had been previously.“Minnie!” Frisk called. Her head snapped up in the direction of Frisk’s voice instantly.Minnie’s panicked expression melted into one of complete relief at the sight of Frisk before rushing up to her and wrapping her up in a tight, back-breaking hug.“Frisky! Oh, thank goodness you’re alright!” She cried. “You scared me!”Frisk let out a soft, but obviously strained, giggle as she rubbed Minnie’s back.“I didn’t think you’d get so worried.” Frisk said with a sheepish smile.“Why wouldn’t I?” Minnie asked before she let go of Frisk. “I thought you got hurt!”“It wasn’t that long was it?” Frisk questioned as her eyes darted to the clock on the wall.“I mean… no, but still! You’re my friend, of course I’d get worried!” She declared.Frisk’s sheepish smile turned warm at Minnie's words. They both then turned their attention to Vixen. Minnie sighed.“Looks like I’m going to have to carry her to the car…” She said in a less than happy tone.“Do you need some help?” Frisk asked, getting quickly to her feet, still feeling a little anxious. She really needed to get some sleep.“Yes, please.” Minnie said with a sad smile.The two then hoisted Vixen’s body up off of the stool and dragged her out of the bar. Once they made it to the car, they struggled for a good five minutes before they got Vixen into the seat properly and buckled her up. They both let out a huff and high-fived each other in triumph.“Alright, I’m going to head back inside to pay for my last drink and say goodnight to Grillby.” Frisk said.“Okay, be careful, Frisk. We’ll talk tomorrow, right?” Minnie asked, a hopeful glint shining in her big eyes. Frisk nodded with a warm smile. The two hugged and said their goodbyes before Frisk watched Minnie get into her car, exit the parking lot, and drive down the dark street. Frisk let out another huff as she stuffed her hands into her coat pockets and strolled back into the bar.Grillby was cleaning the already almost spotless counter when Frisk walked up to him. He looked up and smiled at her before he looked back down at his work.“What can I do ya for, Frisk?” Grillby asked softly.“Just wanted to say goodnight before I head back home.” She said as she fished for her wallet, pulling out a few bucks and holding them out to him. Grillby looked up at her again and waved his hand dismissively.Frisk frowned in confusion.“It’s what I owe you for my last drink.” She stated. Grillby nodded.“I know, Frisk. You don’t have to pay.” He whispered.“Why not?” Frisk questioned, not satisfied with his statement.“It’s only five bucks, Frisk.” He replied dully. Frisk huffed.“Just take it.” She urged, leaning forward and lightly whacking Grillby’s cheek with the money. He grunted and took the money after a solid thirty seconds of being hit in the face with it.Frisk smiled victoriously.“I’ll see you tomorrow, boss.” She said as she turned away. Grillby’s kind smile returned.“Goodnight, Frisk. Make it home safely.” He said, a slight pleading tone in his otherwise soft voice.Frisk’s smile faltered a little as she waved and made her way to the exit. As Frisk walked through the drunken crowd, out of the corner of her eye she spotted a familiar smile facing her, following her across the room.Frisk looked directly at the door and sped up, trying her best to avoid Sans’ grin. After making it outside, she breathed deeply. Her lungs felt like they had shrunk and finally let themselves expand when she knew he could no longer see her.Frisk walked home, blocking out every thought she had aside from just getting inside her room and dropping onto her bed. She wanted to get at least a few hours of rest so she wouldn’t be a complete zombie when she went to work in the morning.----Sans let out a low sigh. He needed some fresh air, but Wingdings wanted to talk about their business right at that very moment, so he couldn’t leave.Wingdings had been talking for twenty minutes. Twenty minutes that felt like hours.In all honesty, Sans hadn’t been paying much attention to his father. All he could think about was that human woman.He had only spoken to her for no more than five minutes, how could his mind be fully fixated on her? She obviously didn’t want to be anywhere near him, either. Hell, she didn’t even look at him when she walked past their table. When he saw her pick up her pace, it felt like he got punched in the gut. He hadn’t done anything wrong, why did she act that way?After all, he only wanted to introduce himself, maybe get on her friendly side. Sans was the type of monster that enjoyed making new friends, even if those friendships turned sour immediately and had to be cut off. Most of those “friendships” were work-related and, much to his boss’s displeasure, Sans always gave people a second chance.Anyways, he wanted to have a little chat with the human about what she had gotten herself into when she moved here. She was slowly digging herself into a hole. If she stayed here, she’d have to be prepared to defend herself at any given time.Sans had already heard about a human living in the city a few weeks before actually meeting her that night during his drop-offs and exchanges. Most of the monsters he came into contact with during work talked about wringing her neck out if they found her. Sans would just play along with their aggressive nature until he was far away from them.Why did she think coming here was a good idea?Sans so deeply had the urge to stand from his spot at the booth they were sitting at and march after her, but Wingdings wouldn’t like that at all.Sans had left randomly during Wingdings' talks so many times before it had started to become one of the things that really pissed him off.“Sans!” Wingdings called suddenly. Sans shot his head up at his father’s voice, finally snapping out of his thoughts. Sans grimaced when he noticed the frustrated look on Wingdings’ face.“Were you listening to a thing I said?” He asked. Sans only stared at him in response.Wingdings sighed heavily, a slight growl also escaping from his mouth.“For heaven’s sake, Sans!” He snarled as he stood from his seat. “I’m not wasting another half an hour in here. We are going over this again tomorrow afternoon, and you WILL listen.”Sans slumped down in his seat as he watched Wingdings burst the exit open and walk out. He only stared at the table, not daring to look around the bar. He knew monsters were either staring at the booth or at the door Wingdings had just stormed out of.Sans let out an irritated huff, pulling the box of cigarettes out of his breast pocket and ripping the plastic off. He pulled a cigarette out of the box before stashing it back into his pocket. He stared at it for a little before looking up at his brother.Papyrus didn’t even say anything. He only narrowed his sockets at the cigarette with obvious disgust. He then looked at Sans. Sans forced himself to put on the fake smile that had fallen off of his face while getting yelled at by Wingdings. Papyrus didn’t smile back; he shook his head slightly before standing from the booth, his head bumping the building’s ceiling once he stood to his full height. He grunted and glared at it.Sans had to stifle a laugh.“I WISH YOU’D STOP SMOKING THOSE NASTY THINGS, BROTHER.” Papyrus said sternly.“Sorry, Paps. I’ve been trying to cut back if you couldn’t tell.” Sans replied, gesturing at the small box.Papyrus nodded. Sans really was trying. The boxes he used to buy were much bigger than the one he currently had on him and he’d buy at least two every week. Now he bought the smallest boxes he could find once a week.Papyrus even gave him some kind of gum to help with quitting, but Sans never used any of it. He didn’t plan on quitting any time soon.Without another word, Papyrus strutted to and out the bar doors. Sans took a moment to himself before tossing some dollars on the bar counter and following his brother, still avoiding eye contact with the other monsters around him.After making it into the somewhat empty parking lot, he held the cigarette out in front him, still considering whether or not he should smoke it. His mind was made up real quick after he thought about the human woman and Wingdings. He put it between his teeth and lit it up with a small flame he conjured at the tip of his finger.He took a deep drag before taking the cigarette out of his mouth and letting the smoke seep out through the gaps between his teeth.His brother and father obviously walked back home without him. Sans didn’t mind though, he enjoyed being alone.He took several more drags, finishing his cigarette. He then threw the butt to the ground and walked in the direction he had watched the woman turn after she left.----Frisk kept walking as she breathed in the cold night air and silently hummed another melody she heard her mother play often.It was quiet aside from the occasional car passing through, so her humming, and the clicking sound her flats made, helped fill the silence that followed until another one came flying past.Frisk’s clicking footsteps started to echo and get louder. She ignored it, blaming it on her drowsy mind.Then the echoing went out of sync. Frisk froze and stopped humming, hearing the extra set of shoes for a second before they stopped too. She felt her heart sink.“Just keep going.” She told herself.She picked up her pace when she began walking again. The steps behind her picked up as well. Frisk felt like she’d start having a panic attack. No one ever followed her home before, so her mind was a complete wreck.After several fearful minutes, the complex came into view. Frisk inwardly sighed with relief. She made a sharp turn into the building, rushing up the stairs once the door shut behind her.She reached her floor and leaned against the wall. Her legs were killing her after running up six sets of stairs. Frisk stayed there for a moment to catch her breath and let her sore legs rest before she stood up again and dragging herself to her apartment door. Frisk unlocked the door and flung it open, walking into the complete darkness that engulfed the room. She then blindly felt the wall for a light switch, eventually succeeding.The lights came on and a small smile spread across Frisk’s face as she took in the familiar sight.She locked the main door before making her way into her bedroom. Her eyes instantly glued onto her bed. It looked a lot more inviting than it ever had before.She tossed her keys and her phone on to her nightstand and dropped onto the mattress, falling asleep the second her head made contact with the soft pillows.----A loud buzzing sound started playing annoyingly in Frisk’s ears. She groaned and flung her arm out, trying to turn her alarm off without turning to look at it. After a few swats at the air and several items that fell to the floor, she managed to hit the off button and the beeping stopped.Frisk sat up, her short hair in a frizzy mess after countless tosses and turns from a nightmare she had during her sleep. She wiped away the hair that stuck to her slightly sweaty face as she stood from the comfort of her bed and stretched her arms before looking around in her dresser for an outfit to wear.She picked up the first things she saw: a pair of blue jeans and a bigger duplicate of her favorite childhood sweater.Satisfied with what she found, she made her way into the bathroom and got a quick shower before she had to walk to Grillby’s bar.After getting cleaned up and dressed, she put her hair up into a small bun and took a peek at herself in the mirror. She instantly frowned once she locked eyes with her reflection. She hated her mismatched irises.Frisk had always told herself she’d buy colored contacts, but she didn’t feel like wasting money on something so small.She huffed and strutted into her living room, slipped her flats onto her feet, stuffed her phone and room keys into her jean pockets, and made her way out of the complex.The cool air lightly grazed Frisk’s face once she made it outside and onto the somewhat crowded streets that were full of monsters driving and walking to work. She let out a yawn and began briskly walking to the bar.Halfway through her walk, her phone buzzed. She pulled it out of her pocket and looked at it with slightly tired eyes. It was a text message from Macy.“Good morning, Frisk! I’ll be at the bar in a couple hours to take you to that café.”Frisk mentally slapped herself in the face. She forgot about that during her panic last night but was excited nonetheless. She picked up her speed after rounding a corner and seeing the bar.Frisk walked inside the warm building and passed the small crowd of monsters in for morning drinks. Grillby spotted her and smiled in greeting. Frisk smiled back and made her way behind the bar counter, shimmying behind Grillby to grab and put on her apron.“You look nice today, Frisk. Wearing the sweater again?” Grillby said.“Yep, can’t help it. I love it too much.” She replied. “I should’ve asked last night, but would you mind if I head out for lunch today?”Grillby tilted his head.“Plans?” He asked as he began wiping down the counter.“Yeah, Macy wants to take me somewhere.” Frisk said, leaning against the wall while waiting for orders.“Sounds like fun, better tell me if it’s worth visiting myself.” He said with a smirk as he walked to the back to work on food. Frisk rolled her eyes knowing Grillby wouldn’t go to a place like that and turned her attention to a monster that had come up to the counter.“Enough for the table at the front please.” He said plainly with an awkward smile, placing a stack of bills in front of Frisk. She nodded before grabbing a tray, filling up shot glasses, placing them onto the tray, and walking over to the table with it.----Sans woke up instantly at the sound of Papyrus knocking loudly on his bedroom door.He rolled onto his side, swinging his legs off of the bed, and stood up with a grunt.“I’m up, bro.” He said tiredly.The knocking stopped and Sans watched the shadow of his brother's feet disappear as he marched downstairs to make breakfast.Sans let out another grunt as he stretched and dragged his boney feet over to his dresser. He pulled out a white dress shirt and a pair of grey pants and began pulling them on lazily. He’d straighten them out before he left the house.He opened his door and shuffled down the stairs and into the living room, heading right for his coat, hat, and shoes. He didn’t chance a look at Wingdings, who sat silently sipping coffee at the kitchen table. Sans huffed and put his shoes on.After getting his clothes unwrinkled, he put his coat and fedora on as he walked towards the door.“BROTHER, AREN’T YOU GOING TO EAT?” Papyrus called out before Sans could reach his hand out for the door handle.“I uh… I’m just gonna get something’s to eat at Grillby's later. I’ll be back for dinner.” Sans said, still facing the door.“OH… ALRIGHT, THEN… HAVE A NICE WALK.” Papyrus said. Sans frowned, knowing he upset his brother.Sans waved before he walked outside. He sighed as he looked at his surroundings. The sky was a brilliant blue and barely any clouds were blocking out the sun. More birds seemed to have returned to the town since it was getting warmer.“Alright, human,” Sans mumbled to himself. “time to have a chat.”He checked his watch and began making his way to the busy side of town.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“One more order and you’re off the hook for an hour.” Frisk said to herself as her eyes darted to the clock.11:57pmFrisk huffed and carried another tray-full of glasses through the drunken crowd over to a table near the back. As she made it to the table, the group residing at it stopped their low chatter and looked up at Frisk. One of the men, a short raccoon monster, smiled at her, showing off his sharp and crooked teeth in what Frisk was assuming, and hoping, was his attempt at being friendly.“Thanks, dolly.” He grumbled as he handed her what was owed for the drinks and winked.She shot him a smile back, nodded in thanks, and quickly shuffled back to the counter.“That was uncomfortable.” She thought before glancing at the clock. It was twelve o’ clock.“Finally.” She muttered.She hung up her apron on its hook and stretched her sore arms. They really needed this break, a lot more monsters had come in that morning than they had any other morning this week. Frisk thought she’d be used to the soreness by now, but it still managed to get to her.Frisk made her way out of the small space and into one of the unoccupied stools to wait for Macy. Soon after, Grillby came out of the back door and whistled, grabbing the attention of another worker who immediately went to take Grillby’s place. Grillby smiled at Frisk as he got settled behind the counter.“Work this morning wasn’t too hard on you was it?” Grillby asked. Frisk shrugged.“It wasn’t too bad. I’m sure it was worse for you.” She said.“I can handle it just as fine as any other day.” He said with a smirk. Frisk rolled her eyes at his comment.“Anyways, do you want something to drink while you wait for your friend?” Grillby asked.“Just a water, please.” Frisk replied.Grillby nodded and filled a small glass with water, sliding it over to her before working on other orders.She nursed on her drink while taking a moment to think about last night. Who had been following her? The way the footsteps sounded were familiar.She had an idea of who her pursuer was, but she didn’t want to think about him. That nightmare she had during her sleep was horrible enough, running from the big shadow that had been behind her only minutes before she dropped.----“Frisk?” Grillby said. Frisk’s eyes instantly darted up at him.They looked so tired all of a sudden, and a frown had settled onto her once happy face.“Is everything ok?” He asked. She only nodded at him before her eyes fell back down to her now half-empty glass.The lack of a reply bothered him. He wasn’t stupid. She was making it incredibly obvious something was wrong.“Frisk.” He said sternly. Frisk looked back up at him, fully raising her head this time.“I’m fine, really.” She said.Grillby stared at her, hoping to break her. She kept the same blank expression, clearly not letting herself open up to him. Grillby sighed and began to wipe down the counter. Frisk remained silent for a moment, running her fingertip along the ring of the glass, before speaking again.“How is your niece doing?” She asked. Grillby’s flames died down at that question.“She’s not doing too great. Poor girl can’t even accept what happened to her mother. Thinks she’ll come back someday.” He said softly.He watched Frisk out of the corner of his eye. She looked down at her hands and laced her fingers together as a sad smile made its way onto her face.“I was like that too. It’ll take a while, but she’ll be better soon.” Frisk said, still staring at her hands.“I hope you’re right.” Grillby replied.----Before anything else could be said, the front doors swung open and Macy sauntered up to the counter with a big smile.“Good evening, Frisk, Grillby.” She said sweetly. Grillby nodded and smiled half-heartedly and Frisk stood from her seat.“Are you sticking around for a little or-“ Frisk started but was cut off once Macy grabbed Frisk’s wrist and dragged her out of the building. Frisk looked back to the bar counter and saw Grillby grinning and waving.“Have fun!” He called before Macy pulled her onto the streets and the door closed, blocking her view of inside the bar.Frisk looked back down at Macy. She was looking right back at her with a big smile on her fuzzy face.“It’s right down the road.” Macy said before turning her attention back to where she was going.After several minutes of being yanked around by the little monster, a small, purple café came into view. The sign above the doors read “Spider Bakery” and had several black and purple flower designs painted on it. Very similar flowers rested on the window ledges inside and outside of the building alongside spider webs that were in the corners of the frames.Frisk kept taking in every detail about the building until she almost fell flat on her face after tripping on the curb.“Come on!” Macy said, tugging Frisk’s wrist harder.Macy opened the door and pushed Frisk inside, making her trip again. Frisk spun around and glared at Macy, who ignore her look and shoved her farther into the building.“Go find a table, I’ll get the food.” She said before scurrying off towards the front desk.Frisk hesitated a little before she went to take a seat. After making herself comfortable, she looked around the building. More spider webs, some inhabiting spiders, littered the walls and undersides of tables and chairs.Frisk then looked at the other monsters in the building. Not surprisingly they were all giving her ugly looks or refused to turn her way. Some had even finished their drinks and food as fast as possible and left.
She had the urge to rush out the doors right then and there, but then she spotted Macy making her way over to the table carrying a bag and two teacups. The woman running the cash register, a tall, thin spider monster, followed Macy after fetching a teapot from a small room behind the desk.“Here we are!” Macy said excitedly, placing the cups down and pulling two small boxes out of the bag.Macy took her seat across from Frisk and the spider woman sauntered up to the table.“So this is the human you’ve been talking about so much.” She said in a sweet voice. Macy nodded.The woman smiled at Frisk and held out one of her tiny hands. Frisk stared at her offered hand and froze.“Frisk?” Macy said, her voice unclear.The small hand grew bigger and lost all its color, slowly becoming more bone-like. Frisk’s eyes darted up to the woman’s face. It was no longer the pretty spider she had seen seconds ago.“Friiiiisk?” She repeated as she snapped her fingers in front of Frisk’s face, bringing her back to reality.The image of Sans disappeared as the woman replaced him, a slightly worried expression on her face.“Sorry!” Frisk said a little too loudly, causing some monsters to look over to the table. “I just… zoned out.”Macy placed her paw on Frisk’s hand.“You are okay though, right?” She asked. Frisk nodded and gave her a forced smile.Macy seemed to relax a little at the reassurance. Frisk looked up at the spider again and offered her hand with an apologetic smile. She grasped it and her own smile returned, albeit a little forced and still showing signs of concern.“I’m Muffet.” She said pleasantly before some monsters came through the door. “Oh! I have to get back to work. I hope you two enjoy your stay.”Muffet then rushed back to the desk to greet the group.“Here.” Macy said, pushing one of the boxes towards Frisk before beginning to pour tea into the cups.Macy’s eyes didn’t leave Frisk as she opened the box and lifted the small pastry up out of its cardboard home.It was a donut shaped like a spider, covered in a thick purple icing and black, heart-shaped sprinkles. The more Frisk looked at it, the more it felt like she was going to throw up. Macy seemed to notice the uncomfortable look on Frisk’s face and frowned.“Don’t you like it?” She asked. Frisk looked up at her, the aching in her stomach growing stronger by the second.“No, it’s fine. I just feel sick all of a sudden.” She replied, placing the donut back into the box and closing the lid. “Do you think I can just take it home?”Macy’s frown deepened. The ache increased dramatically at that look on her friend’s face.“Sure. Can you at least drink the tea? Or would that make it worse?” She asked, pushing the cup towards her.Frisk stared down at the steamy purple tea, the occasional pink, glittery swirl dancing around in the liquid. She didn’t want to upset Macy more than she probably already had. She had to at least try for her. Frisk took a deep breath, raised the cup to her mouth, and took a small sip.Big mistake.A sharp pain stabbed at her stomach, almost making her drop the cup and curling up on the ground. She doubled over and covered her mouth. Macy stood up immediately and rushed over to Frisk.“Oh, shoot! Are you okay?” Macy said in a panicked tone. Frisk looked up at her and shakily nodded.“Can we leave?” Frisk pleaded. Macy nodded and quickly walked over to Muffet, hastily explaining the situation and paying for the unfinished food before running back to Frisk.“Do you need help walking?” Macy asked. Frisk shook her head, grabbed the two boxes, and made her way to the door. She made sure to wave goodbye to Muffet before walking outside.What the living hell was going on?As soon as the cool breeze hit her face, most of the pain went away. She sighed, glad that the aching had died down. Macy came outside and walked up to Frisk’s side.“Frisk?” She said. Frisk looked down at her. She still had a worried look on her face. “Should I take you home?”“No, I’m feeling better.” She said simply.“Are you sure?” Macy asked. Frisk nodded with a smile. Macy smiled but was obviously still worried about her.“Come on, let’s get you back to Grillby’s.” Macy said, grabbing Frisk’s free hand and pulling her back to the bar.Frisk looked around as they walked. The trees had started growing leaves again and the bright blue sky was devoid of any clouds, letting the sun shine warmly down on the city. Children that had just been let out of school early for spring break were running around playing with each other, enjoying the nice day.Frisk’s smile vanished when she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. In an alleyway across the street, she saw a familiar skeleton leaning against a building’s wall. He was staring at her with that wide grin plastered onto his face.She shot her head in that direction, but by the time she had focused her eyes on the alley, he was gone. Frisk’s heartbeat quickened and her expression grew panicked. She could feel the sickness returning, but not nearly as painful as it had been in the café.Macy looked back at her and Frisk tried her best to hide her fear with a big smile. Macy stared at her for a moment before her brows furrowed and she stopped walking.“Seriously, is everything alright?” She asked. Frisk could feel her paw squeeze Frisk’s hand tighter.Frisk honestly hated how much her friends worried about her. Japhire was the worst out of all of them, even if he mostly hid his concern around the others.“Look,” Frisk started, taking a deep breath. “I just heard someone following me last night after I left the bar and-““WHAT!?” Macy squealed, making Frisk jump and other monsters turn their heads towards the loud sound. Frisk looked around, noticing the surprise on the monster’s faces when they realized that the loud voice came from the tiny monster.“Calm down!” Frisk whispered. Macy had a shocked look on her face that was full of disbelief at Frisk’s response.“Calm down!? Why on Earth would I calm down?” She continued. “What if it was someone trying to hurt you!?”“I- just… look, I’m fine. I can handle this. If he wanted to hurt me, wouldn’t he have done it last night? I didn’t even run away from him until I reached the complex, he could’ve caught me.”Macy stood silent for a moment before she huffed.“I don’t want you to walk home alone anymore, or at least for a few days. It could’ve just been your imagination, but I’m not taking any chances and you shouldn’t be either.” Macy said. Frisk glared down at her feet.“Fine.” She sighed.----Sans groaned at those words.“I don’t want you to walk home alone anymore, or at least for a few days.”He needed her to be alone. If the human’s other friends were as protective as that monster she was currently with, he wouldn’t get anywhere near her before he was attacked. Sure, he could easily fight back and win, but he didn’t want to harm anyone.Sans pulled out a small notepad and pen from his inside pocket and began writing."Maximum twenty minutes time in-between number four apartment complex and bar, direct walk, no shortcuts or stops. Eight stories, lives on the sixth floor, room number: unknown- not necessary. Time she gets off work: unknown- will figure out ASAP.”He sighed and shoved the pad and pen back into his pocket and teleported back home.When he arrived, he spotted Wingdings taking a nap on the couch with a newspaper over his face and he could hear Papyrus cooking lunch in the kitchen. He took one step and Papyrus looked up from the pot resting on the stove.“SANS! YOU’RE HOME! JUST IN TIME, TOO.” He said, turning the stove off and pulling three bowls out of the cupboard.“Uh, sorry, bro. Not really in the mood to eat.” Sans said with an apologetic smile. Papyrus frowned.“IS SOMETHING THE MATTER?” He asked.“No, just not hungry.” Sans said, much to his brother’s displeasure.“OH… OK THEN. WILL YOU AT LEAST EAT DINNER TONIGHT?” Papyrus asked, a little glint of hope in his sockets. Sans smiled and nodded.“Definitely. I’m gonna take a snooze before heading back out.” He said as he quickly strolled up the stairs.He walked down the hallway and opened his room door before walking inside. God, what a mess. Was he going to clean it up? Nope. Would it progressively get worse every day? Yep.He plopped down onto his bed and pulled the notes out of his pocket once more, reading them over.“Why am I writing this stuff down?” He asked himself.He sighed and threw the notepad into the self-sustaining tornado in the corner of his room that he had made years ago. Every so often it would scoop up a piece of trash or a dirty sock lying on his floor, so he just named it his “trash-nado.”After watching it swirl around a few times, he laid down and fell asleep.----“Goodnight, Frisk. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Grillby said with a smile. Frisk smiled back and waved as she exited the building and waited outside for a pick-up to take her home since she didn’t want to bother her friends.Five minutes went by before a small, blue Chrysler pulled up to the curb. The light up front turned on and the window rolled down to reveal a white dog monster smiling at her.“You’re miss Frisk Danen, correct?” He yipped. Frisk nodded and opened the door.Once settled into her seat and buckled up, the monster made sure she was fastened correctly before turning the overhead light off.“Would you like a water bottle?” He asked, his head tilting a little.“No, thank you.” Frisk said with a soft smile.She honestly didn’t think he’d be so polite. Whenever she needed a pick-up any other time, the monster driving would either be rude to her or ignore her presence completely for the entire ride. If they were remotely kind to her, it was only because they were forced to or did it for a tip. This monster, however, was being genuinely polite.He nodded and began driving.Halfway through the drive, the monster started panting. It didn’t bother Frisk in the slightest though, she thought it was kind of funny how dog-like he was.When he pulled to a stop in front of the complex, Frisk pulled out more money than she owed the monster for making him drive her a short distance. Before he could even raise his paw fully in protest, she shoved the cash into his hand and stepped out of the car.“M-miss, you don’t have to pay me this much.” He said. Frisk smiled.“Just because I don’t have to doesn’t mean I don’t want to.” She said.A smile slowly formed on his face and his ears perked up. She even heard the thudding from his tail wagging.“Thank you, miss!” He barked happily, bouncing in his seat a little.Frisk had the urge to pet his head but didn’t know if he’d take offense or just flat out bite her.“Fuck it.” She thought and stretched her hand out.She placed her hand in-between his ears and started scratching. His smile grew and his ears folded. He was basically a normal dog that stood on two legs, had magic, and could speak English.Suddenly, his neck extended. Frisk quickly pulled her hand back out of the car.“Oh God- are you okay??” She asked in a loud, panicked voice.“Oh, yes, I am alright! This always happens.” He reassured. Frisk sighed. She thought she broke him somehow.“Thank goodness. Well… thank you for the ride. I really enjoyed your company.” She said. His ears perked up again and he nodded.“You’re welcome, miss! Hopefully we will meet again someday!” He yapped before waving and driving off.Frisk watched him drive off until he rounded a corner and disappeared. She took a deep breath of the night air and turned to walk into the building. Before she made it fully in she heard a deep chuckle. She stopped dead in her tracks and looked around frantically. Nothing.Frisk huffed in frustration. That piece of grinning shit is either messing with her, or she’s just hearing things. She waited a minute before continuing through the doors and up the sets of stairs. When she made it into her apartment, she dropped all of her belongings onto the counter. She yawned and headed to her bedroom.She made sure to check all of her windows before laying down and slowly drifting to sleep.----Frisk woke up to a warm breeze hitting her face but didn’t open her eyes.“Friiiisk.” Someone whispered.Frisk groaned and turned over, ignoring the voice.“C’mon, Frisky. Get up.”She swatted at where she thought the person was, but only hit the air. She heard the person snicker.“Heeeeey!” The voice whispered louder and began lightly slapping her face. She grunted and opened her eyes.“Good morning, sunshine.” Japhire cooed. Frisk glared at him.“Why are you in my room and how did you get in here?” She asked with a stern, tired tone.A crooked smile replaced his soft one as he held up a key that looked exactly like hers.“Where-“ She began before he hushed her by placing his scaly finger over her lips.“Want to hang out?” He asked. “I heard what’s been going on, so I thought you could just take your mind off of it and relax with your best pal.”Frisk only stared at him as she lifted herself off of the mattress and stood up.“Do you think I’m just going crazy or do you actually believe this is happening to me?” She asked with no emotion in her tone.“It’s honestly hard for me to decide. I can’t say both, because it wouldn’t make sense, so…” He replied.Frisk sighed and walked over to her dresser to find another outfit. Japhire followed her and leaned against the wall.“So?” He said. Frisk looked up at him and gave him a confused expression.“Dude, I have work.” She stated as she grabbed a violet blouse from her drawer.Japhire cleared his throat and shifted a little, avoiding eye contact. Frisk glared again and straightened herself.“What did you do?” She asked.“I uh… told Grillby you weren’t feeling good so you could relax.” He said nervously.Frisk stared at him with a blank expression before punching him roughly in the shoulder.“Fuck! The hurt!” Japhire roared.“That’s the point, dumbass! Now get out so I can change.” She said before shoving him out of the room and slamming the door.She returned to her dresser to rummage for a pair of shorts before changing and putting her hair up into a bun. She walked over to her bedroom mirror and stared at herself. Her eyes were a little puffy from yet another nightmare-induced night. She grunted and rubbed them as she walked to the door. When she opened it, Japhire quickly stood from his seat on the couch.“You ready?” He asked, walking to the door and opening it.“Yeah, give me a moment.” She said before strolling over to the counter to snatch up her keys and phone.She spotted the small purple box from the day before and frowned, quickly grabbing it and putting it in the fridge for later.“Where are we going?” Frisk asked after she popped back into the living room. Japhire smiled.“We’re meeting Adrian at the park.” He said.“For what?” Frisk asked as she walked out the door.“Swimming.” He replied simply before locking the door with his copy of Frisk’s room key.“Swimming? Neither of us are wearing swimsuits and the water is probably freezing. Plus, I don’t think you’re even allowed in the river.” She stated.Japhire just shrugged with a wide grin plastered on his face. “That obviously won’t stop me, Frisk. Onward!” He shouted before he looped his arm around hers and began dragging her down the stairs.----“Alright, let’s get this over with.” Sans mumbled before walking into the slightly crowded bar.Many monsters greeted him and tried making small talk, but he only waved at them, not even sparing a glance in their direction.Grillby stood at the counter, cleaning glasses and whistling a jazz tune. The whistling subsided once he looked up and saw Sans approaching.“Oh. Good morning, Sans.” He said with a warm smile.“Morning. Mind if I ask a question about one of your employees?” He asked quickly, looking around to see if he could spot her.“Which one?” Grillby asked.“The human woman.” Sans specified.“Oh, Frisk.” He said.“So that’s her name. Strange.” Sans thought.“She’s not in today, her friend said she was sick or something. Hopefully he’s keeping an eye on her. She’s been acting a little funny lately.” He continued with a concerned tone. Sans tried hiding the guilty look on his face with a fake smile.“I hope so too. Anyways…” Sans said, pulling out his notepad under the counter so Grillby couldn’t see it. “What are the times she comes and goes?”Grillby titled his head.“Why?”“Just curious, saw her here one night and didn’t get to properly introduce myself.” He muttered.“Oh, she comes in around nine in the morning and leaves at six, four on Fridays.” Grillby said.“Ah, thanks, pal. And, uh, mind if I get a drink?” He asked as he sat down on the empty stool in front of him. Grillby nodded.Sans used the time while his friend was turned around to write down the times of Frisk’s shifts. He swiftly stashed the notepad back into his pocket before Grillby turned back around to hand him his drink.“There you go… So, how’s the business going?” Grillby asked, getting back to his cleaning while he still could since more monsters would be coming in soon.“It’s going fine. Wingdings had me in a long talk last night about my next few exchanges. Not real keen on leaving SNOWDIN, though.” Sans said as he sipped his drink. Grillby looked back up at him with a confused expression.“Why do you have to leave SNOWDIN?" He asked.“Got orders to drive up to HOTLAND, wouldn’t tell me who I’m selling to though. He gave me a list of certain areas and times on when to be there.” Sans explained. “I’d show it to ya, but I don’t have it with me. Wingdings took it until it was time for me to go.”“When’s the first exchange?” Grillby asked, probing for more information.“Uuuh… Monday, I think. And since the exchanges are only one to two days apart, I’ll just stay at the resort until I’m finished.” Sans said. “If I run into that fuckin’ robot, I’ll seriously punch myself in the face.”“I doubt he’d talk to you, let alone get near you… no offense.” Grillby added quickly. Sans only smiled and waved his hand.“None taken, hope to God he stays away.” Sans said before swallowing the rest of his drink.“Have you spoken to him before?” Grillby asked.“Oh, yeah. He’s nothin’ but kind to ya unless you get on his bad side. He’s also a real dick to his workers.” Sans responded as he stood up. “Welp, I’ll get out of your hair. I gotta get goin’ anyways.”Sans pulled a few bills out of his pocket and handed them to Grillby.“I’ll see you tomorrow?” Grillby asked. Sans nodded.“Tomorrow.”----“Come on, Frisk! The water’s nice!” Japhire hollered while holding Adrian in an arm lock.“Nah, I’m fine. I’ll just watch you two kill each other.” Frisk said with a slight giggle.“Y-you should really j-join us!” Adrian wheezed. Frisk shook her head.“For the tenth time, I’m not getting in that water.” She said sternly. Japhire’s ears drooped.“You’re no fun.” He said.“I know.” Frisk said with a smirk.“I can just drag you in.” He whispered, loud enough for Frisk to hear. Her eyes narrowed.“You wouldn’t.” She whispered back.Japhire shot her a crooked smile before letting Adrian go and swimming towards her. Frisk quickly stood up and bolted away from the water before Japhire could pop out and grab her ankles. He pounced seconds after she had escaped, missing her and splashing her instead.“Boom!” He said, happy he at least got her soaked a little. She glared.“Thanks.” She mumbled. His smile softened.“Oh c’mon. It’s just a lil’ water, Frisky.” He cooed.“Whatever.” She said with a smirk before checking her phone for the time.5:03pm“Uh, hey, guys?” She said, stuffing her phone back into her pocket. “I think I’m going to go to the bar.”“What? Why?” Adrian piped up as he climbed out of the river.“I’d like to get some work done, maybe stay in later to make up for my absence.” Frisk stated. Japhire’s smile vanished completely along with Adrian’s. The two looked at each with concerned looks.“What?” Frisk asked. Adrian stepped closer.“Macy said-“ He began before Frisk cut him off.“I know what Macy said. She also said it could’ve just been my imagination.” She scoffed.“We don’t think that it was.” Japhire said, much to Frisk’s surprise.“You don’t?” She asked. He shook his head.“If you really want to go back to work,” He said with an eye roll. “then we’ll walk you back, just in case.”Frisk nodded. She really owed Grillby for not being in.“Alright.” Japhire muttered, scooping up his and Adrian’s clothes. “Let’s go.”----Grillby hummed to himself as he worked on drinks for the thirsty monsters that had filled up the bar.Once he heard the front doors open, he inwardly grunted. There were enough monsters in here tonight, he didn’t ne-“Grillby!” A familiar voice called.Grillby looked up to see Frisk swiftly shoving herself through the sea of drunken patrons to get to the counter where he stood.“Frisk?” He said to himself.“I’m so sorry about not being here to help with-“ She looked back at the monsters and grimaced. “-this mess.”Before he could say anything more, Frisk moved past him behind the counter, threw her apron on, and pushed him out of the small area. Grillby watched in surprised confusion as Frisk moved speedily to get drinks ready, stacking them onto trays. She then shot him a soft smile.“Can you go send these out to the tables?” She asked. He stared for a moment longer before nodding and balancing two trays in his hands.“So you’re feeling better?” He asked. Frisk tensed a little at his words.“Uh… I’ll just explain later when this has died down.” She said, gesturing to the crowd. Grillby nodded again and disappeared into the crowd.After almost two hours of working, most of the monsters had left and only a few groups were littered around the room quietly chattering. Frisk sat at the counter explaining everything to Grillby for ten minutes afterward.“That’s why Japhire told you I wasn’t feeling well. He just thought I needed a breather” She finished with a guilty look on her face.“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Grillby asked.“I didn’t know if you’d just shake it off as me being tired at night or if you’d take it seriously.” She mumbled. Grillby placed his hand on her shoulder.“I’m taking it seriously.” He said sternly. Frisk frowned a little despite his words.“What am I supposed to do?” She asked, hopelessness in her voice.Grillby took a moment to think. “Give me a moment.”He wandered into the back on the building where the food was cooked, walking to farthest wall and unlocking another door. He flipped the light switch. Lights turn on one by one and drowned out the darkness that was there moments ago. Grillby sighed and approached his desk as he pulled a tiny bronze key from his breast pocket and shoved it into a locked drawer. He opened the drawer and stared down at the small weapon that resided inside.He never used it. He never had to. If Frisk needed it, she’d have it, and now seemed like a time to have it. Even if she didn’t use it, which Grillby honestly didn’t think she would, she’d have it to feel safe. He snatched it up and walked back out to the main area.When Grillby rounded the corner, he saw Frisk sat at the counter nervously tapping her fingers on the smooth surface while she waited for him to come back. He approached her and put his hand on her back to grab her attention. She looked up at him and tried to smile, but it broke quickly.“Here.” Grillby said, swiftly placing the gun on the counter and watching Frisk’s eyes grow wider.----Frisk stared down at the gun with shock. Her head shot up at him.“What is this for?” She said, pointing at the weapon.“Just in case something bad happens.” He stated. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”“Why? Too hard to find another employee?” Frisk asked with a smirk. Grillby let out a hushed chuckle.“That and because I care about you.” He said with a smile. Frisk smiled back for a second before it vanished.“Are you sure you want me to have this?” She asked. Grillby nodded.“Yes. You have to protect yourself.” He said, his tone now serious.Frisk’s brows furrowed and her eyes darted down to the gun. She continued staring at it for a moment before she gingerly picked it up and examined it closely.“What kind of bullets does it take?” She whispered.“It’s already fully loaded and probably will be for a very long time, knowing you.” Grillby said.Frisk rolled her eyes and kept taking in every detail. After getting her last good look, she stuffed it in her coat, tightly held in between her arm and side. She then shuffled out of her seat and looked up at Grillby.“I’m going to head home now.” She said, wrapping her free arm around him. He lightly patted her back.“Be safe.” He muttered before releasing her. She nodded and waved as she walked to the exit.Frisk could feel Grillby’s worried stare on her until she left the building. Once she made it out the door, she took a deep breath and began walking back to her apartment.After a few moments of walking, she began softly humming one of the many tunes her mother used to sing to her before bed. She could hear her mother’s voice singing the song along with her in her head.“Come stop your crying, it will be alright.” Her mother’s sweet voice sang to her younger self, cuddled up in her mother’s embrace.“Just take my hand and hold it tight.” She continued, tightly squeezing Frisk’s tiny hand in her own.Frisk kept humming the rest of the song, enjoying those old memories that she held so desperately onto. She managed to get through half of the song before she heard heavy steps behind her, making her stop and chasing the memories away. She could feel tears prickle her eyes for a moment before she quickly wiped them away and pulled the gun out, taking the safety off.
She waited for him to get closer. Once he was only a mere few feet away from her she spun around aimed the gun at her follower’s head.Sans stepped back instantly and his left eye lit up like a spark, the white pupil erupting into blue and yellow flames. His boney hands were raised slightly in defense and a few blue, glowing bones surrounded them, all targeted at Frisk.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Woah-ho-ho!” Sans said with a wobbly smile, backing further away from Frisk. “Hold it there, buddy.”Frisk kept her gun raised at Sans and her body began to shake. She didn’t want to shoot him, but she also didn’t want to risk being impaled by the magic-spawned bones that encircled them. Her hands were visibly trembling and the sight of them wasn’t helping the skeleton relax.“H-hey, calm down. If you aren’t careful you could fire that thing… unless that’s exactly what you want to do.” He added after a small pause, shrugging his shoulders a little.Frisk stayed silent, frozen from fear. Sans’ bone-brows furrowed in slight concern.“Uh, you alright?” He asked.Frisk’s eyes focused on him and her grip on the gun got tighter as her fear slowly dissolved, anger and confusion beginning to dominate her emotions. She steadied her stance and trembling hands before speaking.“Why the hell were you following me!?” She yelled. Sans’ flaming iris flickered a little from being started by her loud voice.“I just wanted to talk to you!” He replied, a nervous laugh peppered in-between his words. “I didn’t plan on doin' anything to ya!”Frisk just stared at him, her arms lowering slightly. “Talk about what?”----Sans felt like a weight had been lifted off his chest at the sight of Frisk’s gun no longer being aimed directly at his head.He took a deep breath and attempted getting closer to her. She didn’t raise her gun back to his skull but stepped farther away from him to keep her distance. Sans stopped instantly, hoping she wouldn’t move any further. This would be his only chance at speaking to her privately since she’d most likely go babble to her friends about this moment.“I need to talk to you about your position in this city.” Sans said, trying again to get closer.Frisk didn’t move this time. Sans took this chance to reach slowly for the gun still held firmly in her small hands.She scowled at him.He stopped moving after seeing that irritated look on her face.“What do you mean?” She asked, distancing herself again. Sans rolled his single glowing iris.“Seriously? Kid, you’re a HUMAN in a MONSTER city. Not on-“ “I’m not a kid.” Frisk stated harshly, cutting Sans off. His sockets narrowed as he let out an annoyed huff.He continued, ignoring her declaration. “Not only that, but we got criminals and sickos here, too. You think you’ll be safe? You’ve risked so much coming here.”“I know what I’m risking.” She said firmly. “I just couldn’t stand my old city.”Sans didn’t exactly know how to respond to her. He sighed heavily and took his hat off, rubbing his temple.“I’m sure it was shitty there, but that doesn’t mean it’s gonna be better here. It’s worse for you to be here than it was for you to be in your old city.” He said. “Do you have any idea how many monsters want you dead?”Frisk paused for a little, looking down at her feet before looking back up at Sans. “I don’t care. I’m not leaving.” She said, her tone growing darker.Sans’ sockets narrowed even more as a deep frown set itself on his face. This woman was impossible.“Look-“ He began, stepping closer yet again. She didn’t back away, however this time the gun was raised. Sans’ iris flickered more rapidly than it did before.“I said I wasn’t going to hurt ya.” He said through clenched teeth. Frisk glared at him.“How can I believe you? I don’t even know you.” She said.After a moment, Sans’ smile returned and his glowing iris snuffed out as his while pupils returned. One by one the glowing bones vanished.“Well, you could get to know me.” Sans said, getting even closer.“What?” Frisk said, confusion spreading across her once angry expression.“Let’s,” Sans began, suddenly reaching his hand out and snatching the gun away from her grip. “go for a walk.”Sans almost laughed when he saw Frisk’s eyes go wide and her jaw drop from the move he just pulled. That look quickly died and an even angrier look stood in its place.“Give it back!” She demanded, reaching for it. Sans couldn’t help but let a chuckle out as he raised the gun above his head, far out of Frisk’s reach. She jumped several times to attempt at grabbing it. Sans tilted his head a little and watched her fail to retrieve the weapon every time. Cute.Sans’ pupils went out of focus as he remembered when he and Papyrus were younger, doing this exact stunt. Sans would hold his brother’s favorite book or toy high above his head until he’d start crying, which left Sans feeling like a complete asshole. Since Papyrus was, and still very much is a sweetheart, a hug and apology was enough for him to forgive Sans and entirely forget about the event.After a few minutes of trying to reach her gun, Frisk finally gave up. She looked up at Sans with a snarl, showing off her unusually long and sharp canines. Sans only smiled wider at that look and tossed the gun with one swing of his hand. Frisk watched the gun as it slid into the darkness and out of sight. She turned back to Sans with an expression that looked like he had just slapped her across the face.“So… That walk?” Sans said with a smirk, not taking her angered form seriously in the slightest.Frisk stayed still before rolling her eyes and marching off in the direction of her apartment. Sans watched her aggressively walk away from him for a little. He then smirked and followed her.“Frisk is a funky name.” Sans said after a moment’s silence. Frisk instantly looked up at him.“How did you-““Grillbz told me.” Sans answered as he pulled a cigarette from his breast pocket, already knowing what she was going to ask.“Oh…” She said before her eyes narrowed at what he said. “And ‘Sans’ isn’t?”Sans chuckled, sticking the cigarette in-between his teeth and lighting it up with his tiny fingertip flame. He took a long drag before looking back down at her.“Touché, girly.” He said as smoke poured out of his open mouth. Frisk frowned at his nickname.“Do you really need to call me that?” She asked, obviously agitated.“What? You don’t like it?” He said with a stiffer smirk.“No.” Frisk said sternly, crossing her arms.“Too bad.” He said before taking another drag of his cigarette, much to Frisk’s annoyance.Frisk looked away from him, focusing on the dark buildings, cars, and trees around them instead. Sans inwardly sighed, stomped the remains of his cigarette to the ground, and tapped her shoulder. She ignored him. He narrowed his sockets and tapped her shoulder again. Still nothing out of her except her brow furrowing deeper.Sans stopped and paused for a second before he chanced poking her cheek. She instantly slapped his hand away from her face.He almost growled as he grabbed her wrist, pulling her in front of him. She shot a heavy glare at him.“What!?” She barked, not breaking eye contact.This alarmed Sans at first, but the surprise faded quickly and a serious expression rested on his face.“Can we please talk about your situation?” He asked calmly, trying to hide the annoyance in his tone.“I don’t see the point. I know what I’m dealing with.” Frisk retorted, tearing her wrist from his boney grip.“You know how to deal with a group of monsters coming to hunt your ass down and hurting you? Killing you?” Sans snapped back.“Well,” She began, crossing her arms. “if I still had my gun, I think I’d be fine.”He glared at her before snapping his fingers.Frisk looked at him with confusion.“There.” Sans grumbled, pointing down and walking past her.He could hear her gasp and pick the magically returned gun up. There was silence until he heard her flats clicking behind him.“How did you do that?” She asked when she reached his side again.Sans looked down at her. She was examining the weapon and a curious expression replaced the glare she wore moments ago.“Magic.” He said simply.“Oh. Right.” She said, still looking at every detail of the gun.----They continued walking in silence. Frisk removed her gaze from the weapon in her hands before looking up at Sans. He looked tired and his pupils were dull, having lost most of their light from the drowsiness.“I’ll be visiting Grillby’s tomorrow afternoon. You’ll be there, won’t you?” He asked, his pupils flickering to her. She nodded. “Good. We can keep talking then, during your break.”They arrived at the apartment and Sans stepped out of her way before sticking his hat back on and waving. “Night.”“Goodnight.” She replied.Frisk didn’t take her eyes off of him until the doors closed and blocked her view of the skeleton. She stayed in the same spot for a minute before her body habitually rushed up the stairs, stepping off onto her floor, and walked into her apartment. Like usual, she just dropped her keys and phone wherever and slowly strolled to her room.She opened her nightstand drawer and gently placed the gun inside, closing it firmly and crawling into bed. Instead of falling asleep right away, she stared at the ceiling.Frisk grunted and rolled onto her side, her eyes scanning the smooth surface of her nightstand. They eventually locked onto a small, red, heart-shaped locket that rested in the middle.She reached out and grabbed the gold chain that the heart clung onto and pulled it closer to her chest.“Goodnight, mom.”----Sans watched the light in Frisk’s apartment come on for a moment, only to be turned off again before she went to sleep. He sighed and began walking home.He grimaced at realizing he missed dinner since he was out all night waiting for Frisk.“Papyrus is gonna kill me.” Sans mumbled quietly to himself. He could already picture his brother’s unimpressed expression.Sans could just teleport back home, but he enjoyed late night walks. No one was usually awake at this time, so the streets were empty aside from a car returning home in the early morning. He’d also get time to himself before returning home and being snapped at by his younger brother.He started whistling the tune he heard Frisk humming before he announced his presence, stuffing his hands into his pockets.“She acts like a fussy child when she’s angry.” He thought to himself. “Or at least she plans to around me.”Sans thought it was silly of her to act like that, but it was interesting, to say the least. The only other person he knew acted like that was Papyrus when he was little, rarely nowadays. Wingdings would always have to come to break up a fight in-between doing his work and getting coffee so he’d be able to stay roused all night.Sans would say something along the lines of “wouldn’t us fighting keep you awake?” after the fight was over, but that only annoyed Wingdings. Even if it were true, it would only drive him crazy and wouldn’t let him get anything done.Wingdings’ methods of getting them to stop fighting varied depending on how severe the fight was.If it was just a small argument over some stupid subject, he’d yell at them and leave.If it was bad enough that they’d start hitting each other- Papyrus throwing soft punches and Sans either doing nothing, flicking Papyrus on the arm, or pushing him away with his foot- Wingdings would actually come into the living room (or wherever they were currently at) and slap their wrists.If the argument had been left alone for far too long, they’d be in each other’s face, one screaming that he was right and the other was wrong. This would tick Wingdings off horribly and cause him to yell at the top of his non-existent lungs.The two would separate shortly after being scared to death by their father’s loud voice and dark sockets trained on them. Sans couldn’t help but chuckle at the pissed off look Wingdings wore before marching back upstairs into his study. Papyrus, on the other hand, always shuddered at the memory of that expression.Sans finally reached the entrance of SNOWDIN’s more monster-occupied area and chanced a look at his house. To his surprise, the lights were all off, including the living room lights and the single lamp in Wingdings study.Sans let out a sigh. He was glad he could just go to bed and not have to deal with-“BROTHER!”….Papyrus.Sans slowly turned his skull to the side to see Papyrus strutting up to him from behind with a few bags of food. He looked mad.“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” He asked, placing his gloved hands on his hips. Sans turned around completely to face his brother with a fake smile.“I was just out taking a walk, bro.” Sans replied with a little shrug of his shoulders. Papyrus’ frown deepened.“YOU MISSED DINNER.” He said blankly.“I know, I know. I didn’t mean to. I just lost track of time.” Sans mumbled, scratching the back of his skull.Papyrus huffed and began walking to the house. “COME ON.”Sans followed his brother further into the town, guilty staring down at the snowy ground the entire walk.“You, uh, want me to take those in and put the food away?” Sans asked, gesturing to the bags that hung around Papyrus’ shoulders.“I GOT IT.” He said. Sans frowned.“Really, bro, I can do it for you so you can get some sleep. I wanted to stay up a bit longer anyways and you look beat.” He fussed.Papyrus turned to Sans with a heavy sigh. “FINE.”He handed him the bags as carefully as he could as if they were small, sleeping children. He then turned to unlock the door and walked inside.“Night, bro.” Sans whispered as he closed the door behind him. Papyrus waved and Sans watched him drag himself up the stairs, down the hall, and into his bedroom.Sans lugged all the bags onto the kitchen table and propped the refrigerator door open with his foot, pulling items out of the bags and placing them inside the fridge neatly. After he was finished, he slammed the door shut and threw the bags away and walked upstairs. He stopped right in front of Wingdings’ study.“Please be asleep, please be asleep, please be asleep.” Sans begged in his head as he grabbed and turned the knob. The door creaked open and the soft hallway light flooded into the room.He took a deep breath and stepped inside the dark room. He summoned his glowing iris so he could look around easily. Sans looked to the left, spotting Wingdings sound asleep with his back facing Sans. Sans inwardly sighed and looked to the right.Wingdings’ cluttered desk sat up against the wall, every inch of it covered in papers, documents, coffee cups, a small ashtray, a couple of pens scattered here and there, and a lamp in the corner that was currently turned off.Sans quietly walked over to it, careful to avoid papers that were bunched up on the floor. After making it over to the large desk, he scanned the surface to see if he could find the list of people he had to sell to next week.Nothing.He checked all the messy drawers.Nothing.He growled a little in frustration.“Where the hell did he put it?” He whispered, frantically looking around the room.His pupils stopped dead once they landed on Wingdings’ unconscious form.“Of-fucking-course.” He grunted. The list was right under Wingdings’ pillow.Sans snuffed his iris out, leaving his sockets black and empty, before making his way over to the sleeping skeleton. He stared at his head for a moment, contemplating if he wanted the list that badly.Oh yeah.He leaned down and snatched the paper from under his father’s head as quickly and as quietly as possible. He then quickly shuffled out of the room and closed the door.Sans exhaled heavily and he looked down at the list, his pupils darting around in his sockets as he read it for the second time.“Sans, on the bottom of this page I’ve made a list of the next exchanges up in HOTLAND. Excited? Probably not. Anyways, I’ve listed the days, times, areas, and buyer names as well as how much gold they are required to pay. Now, you’re gonna hate me for saying this, but if they don’t pay what is owed, don’t let them off the hook. I know you have a habit to hand out second chances like its candy on Halloween. You can’t do that this time. At the very least, take the shipment back and give them one- ONE- more day to collect the money. Not a full fuckin week. Got it? Good. If they try stealing it, you have to show them that actions have consequences. And uh, don’t let your old man see the list. I’m not saying he would invade your privacy, but if there’s a chance he does, you wouldn’t be able to go out. He should know you are able to handle yourself.”The boss was right. If Wingdings read the names, he would forbid Sans from doing his job. His son going to HOTLAND itself already put him on edge.Sans’ pupils darted down to the list. All of the info was there.Well, aside from the last one.It only told Sans to call the boss the day after the last written exchange.He didn’t know what it meant, but from what the boss wrote in his letter, Wingdings would know.Sans huffed and shoved the paper in his pocket and made his way into his room.“Just get some sleep, wake up, get to Grillby’s, talk to Frisk, get packed, and head out the next day.” He told himself.He shrugged his coat off onto his already messy floor, kicked his shoes off, and flopped onto his bed.----Frisk felt like a zombie. Her drowsiness wasn’t exactly helping with the number of monsters that came in that morning. She almost tripped twice, bumped into more than a few monsters, and sent out the wrong drink several times. Grillby offered to take her place at the counter until she got awake, but she declined and continued working.How long had it been since she came into work?She looked up at the clock quickly before another monster could come up and order a drink.Frisk had been in the bar for three hours. How she wasn’t yet awake was a mystery to her.She almost grunted when she heard the back door swing open again.“Frisk?” Grillby called. Frisk looked over at him with tired eyes.“What do you need now, boss?” She asked.“Just checking on you to see how you are doing.” He said.“For the thirtieth time today.” She said dully. Grillby rolled his eyes.“You do know it’s twelve right?” He said, gesturing to the clock. She nodded.“Then why aren’t you taking a break?” He asked.“Waiting for someone to get here. Might as well work until he arrives.” She mumbled, filling a glass with beer and handing it to a monster who smiled in thanks and walked back to her table.Grillby smirked. “He?”Frisk’s face went blank at Grillby’s tone. She turned to him with a scowl.“Not like that, Grillby.” She stated.“I know, I know.” He said with a soft chuckle. “You aren’t the dating type. At least, not from what I’ve seen.”Frisk’s expression turned sour instantly as she remembered trying to date monsters when she first arrived. They all ended with Frisk not liking what they had in mind for after the date or them just not sharing the same interests with her. After her several failed attempts, she just gave up, much to her friend’s annoyance. Actually, Japhire didn’t mind much. He didn’t like any of them. Lacy, however, kept pushing for Frisk to get into a relationship.“Yeah, I know.” She huffed, cleaning more glasses while she still could.The door opened, causing all the staff to snap their heads over to the entrance to see what was being added onto what they already had to deal with. Instead of the expected group of thirsty monsters, Sans walked in. All the staff sighed in relief and they got back to work.Sans shoved his way up to the bar and he took a seat.“Morning, Sans.” Grillby said with a smile as he put his apron on.“Morning, Grillbz, Frisk.” Sans said with a smile, his pupils rolling over to Frisk and giving her a once-over. “You look horrible.”“Thank you.” Frisk said sarcastically before hanging her apron up, moving past Grillby, and sitting near Sans, one empty stool in-between them.“What? Am I that repulsive?” He asked with half-lidded sockets.“Can we just get going with this?” She grunted.“Fine.” He said as he stood up. Frisk looked back at him with a confused expression.“What’re you doing?” She asked. Sans ignored her and walked over to where Grillby was.“Can I get two fries to go?” She heard him mumble. Grillby nodded and went into the back, out of sight.Sans looked back over at Frisk. “We are getting out of here. It’s noisy.”Before she could even try to protest, Grillby walked back out with a branded paper bag and handed it to Sans. Sans placed some bills onto the counter and thanked Grillby.“Come on.” He said as he walked through the crowd again to the exit. Frisk got up and made a move to follow Sans, but was stopped when Grillby placed a warm hand on her shoulder.“Sans is who you were talking about?” He asked. Frisk nodded. “Oh..”“What? Didn’t expect something like that or…” She said. Grillby shrugged.“At least I know it’s not someone that’ll hurt you.” He said. “Sans is a good guy. Plus, he knows I’ll kill him if he hurts you.”Grillby flashed a smile at Frisk before letting go of her shoulder and getting back to work. Frisk smiled and rushed up to Sans, who had been holding the door open for her.“Where are we going?” Frisk asked as they began walking.“Wherever you want to go. Where would you be the most comfortable?” Sans questioned back.“My apartment, but I’m not taking you there.” She said. Sans smiled.“Didn’t think so, me bein’ a stranger and all. How ‘bout the park?” He suggested. Frisk took a moment before nodding her head.“Alright.” He said, holding his arm out a little. “Grab on.”Frisk raised an eyebrow and looked up at him. “Why?”“Just do it. Make sure your eyes are closed too.”Frisk sighed and wrapped her arm around his before squeezing her eyes shut. She felt a strong gust of wind and the sidewalk vanished. Seconds later it was replaced by grass and Sans’ arm slithered out of her hold.“Voila.”She opened her eyes and her jaw dropped. What was once only a few feet away from Grillby’s bar was now the middle of the park. Frisk turned to Sans. He was smiling wider than before.“What’s the matter? Skeleton got your tongue?” He snickered.“It’s ‘cat got your tongue.’” Frisk said after a moment. Sans looked down at himself, back and front.“Do I look like a cat to you?” He asked as he removed his hat and felt the top of his skull to feel for ears the might’ve been there. Frisk rolled her eyes and smiled a little.“Not really. You’re too big to be a cat… and they are actually cute.” She said before walking over to a bench.“Woooow.” He said, following suit.After they both sat down, he placed the paper bag in his lap and pulled out a small, cardboard tray filled with fries and passed them to Frisk.“Thank you.” She mumbled. Sans smiled and pulled out his own tray before crumpling the bag into a ball and shoving it into his pocket to throw away later.“So,” Sans began after swallowing a mouthful of food. “you know how to fight back against a monster that wants to hurt you?”“Yes.” She answered simply. Sans raised a bone-brow.“Really?” He questioned. She nodded. “Alright. Tell me how you’d do it.” “…Doesn’t just punching count?” She asked. Sans snickered.“What if they are stronger than you?” He quizzed.“Um…”“Exactly.” Sans said, standing up and taking her now empty tray. “We have a lot of work to do.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Wingdings slouched over his crowded desk, drinking day old coffee and rewriting a list of clienteles and their numbers down in a newer, bigger, and more organized notebook so he could toss out the small one he had from years ago that had no more space left for him to write in.Once he finished jotting down the last name, he closed the notebook and stuffed it into one of his already packed full drawers before grabbing the older one, materializing a small purple flame, lighting the book on fire, and tossing it into his trashcan.Wingdings stood from his seat and exited his room to collect laundry since Sans wasn’t home to do it himself. He strolled to the end of the hall, picked the laundry basket up, and began with Sans’ room, knowing his room would be the filthiest. Might as well get the worst of it out of the way, right?“Dear God.” Wingdings muttered when he entered Sans’ messy room, prodding the building pile of dirty socks with his foot. “How the hell does he even move around in here?”He sighed and placed the laundry basket next to the door harshly before proceeding to scavenge for any dirty laundry lying around in the room.Since Sans had a habit of tossing clothes onto the floor instead of putting them away like any other person would, it was difficult to tell if something was truly filthy or had just been tainted by the dirty clothes thrown on top of them. Not even half of the clothes Sans had thrown off onto his carpet carelessly could fit into the basket without it over-flowing.Wingdings’ mouth curled in disgust as he took one more look at the room. His pupils landed on the small self-made tornado of garbage that resided in the corner of Sans’ room for hell knows how long. “Eck.”He was about to make his leave with Sans’ first batch when he spotted Sans’ work notepad swirling around inside of the ever-growing twister. He carefully placed the basket back onto the floor and approached the tornado, trying his best not to step on any of the trash strewn across the room.Wingdings snatched the notepad away in one quick swipe. He grunted and walked back out of the room with it held under his arm, closing the door behind him.“Papyrus!” He called. Papyrus came running at his father’s call, popping up at the bottom of the stairway.“YES, FATHER?” He said, raising a brow-bone.“Could you please start a load of laundry? I want to check something.” He said, gesturing to the basket in front of him while staring at the notepad. Papyrus nodded with a smile before walking up the stairs, grabbing the basket, and walking back downstairs.“Wait, Papyrus!” Wingdings called before Papyrus was out of sight.“YES?” He said, looking up at Wingdings again.“Do you know when your brother is coming back home?” Wingdings asked even though he already knew the answer. Papyrus shook his head.“SHOULD I GO RETRIEVE HIM?” He asked.“No, no. It’s fine. But if he isn’t here by five o’clock, could you?”Papyrus nodded and continued walking to the back room to start the laundry.Wingdings groaned and leaned against the wall, opening the small notepad. He was surprised to see that Sans actually had been keeping notes of all his exchanges. Each page had the information he received for the jobs beforehand over the phone or from a co-worker sent to give out the info. The area, the person he sold to, how much he got for the supplies, and any additional information. Some things were crossed out, but it was obviously just extra days he had given to monsters that couldn’t pay that had been x-ed out after the payment was collected or the monster failed to pay.He looked through several pages of material before stopping at a page that had a blank sticky-note attached to it. He raised a brow-bone and ripped the note off, only to reveal pen scribbles that it was hiding. The page had details about a building written on it along with times next to it.“What the…?”----“Okay, okay… I’m done… I can’t do this anymore.” Frisk said, doubling over and gasping for air. Sans smiled. He didn’t think she’d last as long as she had.Sans took a peep at his watch and let out a slow, but impressed whistle. It had been around two hours of training.During the first few rounds of dodging Sans’ attacks, she only managed to avoid three or four out of the ten bones he sent spiraling towards her. She demanded that they kept going even after one of the glowing bones almost impaled her in the eye, which Sans had to stop in midair in order for it not to cause damage.After about five rounds of Sans making fun of her poor reflexes, she got better and better just to have the last laugh. Which is exactly what happened when she saw his sockets widen and his mouth open a little from the surprise. She even encouraged him to make his attacks faster, leading to one ugly gash in her arm but otherwise a perfect performance.“You lasted much longer than I thought you would, girly.” Sans snickered. Frisk looked up at him, now glaring.“How long did you think I’d last?” She asked, her voice still unsteady from all the movement she had made.“Let’s say about a generous ten minutes.” He said. Her eyes narrowed even more when she heard him call that a generous amount of time and that in reality, he expected far less. “But you’ve proved me wrong, so congrats.”Sans stood up and walked over to her. She continued glaring at him until he grabbed her arm and pulled her closer to him, examining the wound that was still bleeding profusely.“Yikes.” He said, now placing his boney fingers over it. Frisk flinched at his touch. “Hold still.”Sans placed his hand over the injury, covering it completely, and focused on summoning any kind of healing power he had in him. Soon, green magic started swirling around Frisk’s upper arm, slowly healing her wound.His pupils darted up to her face. He couldn’t help but smile slightly at the interest, curiosity, and amazement that glittered in Frisk’s eyes.After several minutes of using his magic, he removed his hand to show off his skills. Frisk stared at her now perfectly healed arm for a solid minute before looking up at him.“I didn’t know you could do that.” She whispered. “Well, by that I mean monsters in general. My friends can’t do that.”“It’s not all that common, so that doesn’t surprise me. My bro is way better at it.” Sans stated. “Anyways…”Sans walked back to the bench and grabbed her coat before tossing it over to her. Frisk caught it, put it on, and followed him.“Are we going to continue tomorrow?” She asked. He honestly didn’t expect her to want to do it again.“Well… not tomorrow. I got stuff goin’ on.” He said. “I’ll be gone for a week or two.”“Where are you going?” She asked.Sans paused. He couldn’t really tell her the answer to that. Not only was it private information, what would she think of him for doing that kind of job? A job where people can be killed if it turned sour?“I just met her. It doesn’t matter what she thinks.” He thought.“You still shouldn’t tell her.” A voice in his head replied.“I’m pretty sure after we are done with this training she’ll just leave and forget everything about me.” He argued.“You act as if you wouldn’t care if she left.” It said. “You know how quickly you make friends. You want to keep them around as long as possible. She’s no different.”Sans inwardly grunted at his mind’s statement.“I’m going to HOTLAND for work.” He managed to spit out. Frisk’s eyes widened a little.“That’s really far away.” She said. Sans nodded.“Yeah. I don’t exactly like it since I’ll be away from my family but that’s life I guess.” He muttered.“I’m sure they’ll be okay while you are gone.” She said, smiling up at him.“Yeah, I know.” He responded, smiling back at her. “Howzabout we head back to Grillby’s now? You gotta job to do, don’t’cha?”Frisk nodded. “Are you going to stick around or just drop me off?”Sans’ mind went blank. He couldn’t believe she actually asked him that. Before he could answer her, his phone started buzzing. He groaned and looked at the caller. Great.“Hey, dad.” Sans mumbled. “What do you need?”“I’d like to ask about what you have written in your notepad.” Wingdings said.“It’s just the information for work.” He replied.“No, not that. The stuff that sticky-note was covering up.”----Frisk saw Sans’ smile fade and his pupils darkened. “Oh… that.”After a minute of silence, most likely Sans listening to what his father had to say to him, Sans’ sockets narrowed.“Yeah. Fine. I’ll be there soon.” He growled and hung up the phone, stuffing it bitterly back into his pocket.“Is everything okay?” Frisk piped in after another minute of silence. Sans grunted again and nodded his head.“Yeah. Listen, I gotta get goin’, so I’ll just walk ya back to the bar and head home.” He said.“Oh. Okay, then.” Frisk said, obviously disappointed. She surprisingly enjoyed his company that afternoon.Once they arrived, Sans held his hand out to Frisk with a smile. “Ya think I can get that handshake now? Ya know, before I have to leave.”Frisk smiled a little back and grabbed his hand, which swallowed her much smaller one completely. “I’ll see you when you get back, maybe?”Sans nodded and waved as he turned to walked away. Frisk stood there and watched him for a moment with her hand on the door handle before walking inside the crowded and noisy bar. She realized now how much she hated drunken singing and laughter ringing in her ears. She pushed past the intoxicated monsters up to the bar.When she got into the small opening between the crowd and counter, she spotted Grillby running the drinks while chatting with Japhire. She sauntered up to them and poked Japhire on his back, causing him to spin around with a confused look that melted into a smile instantly.“Frisk! I was wondering when you’d get here!” He said cheerfully, pulling her into a hug.“Uh, are you alright? You never hug people.” Frisk stated, lightly patting his back while looking at Grillby with her brow raised. Japhire let go and nodded.“I’m fine, just happy.” He said while gesturing to the empty stool next to him, indicating he wanted her to sit down.“What’re you so happy about?” Frisk asked as she sat down.“Draco said he was going up to some party in HOTLAND tomorrow night and I could come along. I’ve never been there before!” He explained. “Which is weird because that’s where my parents live but-““Did you say HOTLAND?” Frisk interrupted. He nodded.“Yep! I don’t really care about the party, though. I’ll just be checking the place out. I also, obviously, want to see my parents since they always drag their asses down here to visit us during the holidays.”“Huh.” Frisk whispered, leaning forward on the counter a little.“Anyways, I came to ask if you’d like to go with us? We are staying at my parents’ house and they have a guest room, so you could stay in there.”Frisk instantly perked back up and automatically nodded her head, not giving his words a second thought. Japhire smiled even wider, showing off all of his sharp teeth.“Great! I promise to make it one of the best weeks you’ll ever have.” He said proudly, crossing his SOUL. “There are a lot of fun places to go there.”“Can’t wait” was the only thing Frisk managed to get out before Japhire had to get going so he could pack his things.“Make sure to pack a week’s worth of clothes tonight!” He called as he rushed out of the bar. “We’ll pick you up tomorrow afternoon!”Frisk sat there, somewhat stunned. Grillby waved his hand in her face, making her squeeze her eyes shut from the bright light being fluttered directly in front of her eyes.“Oops, sorry.” He said with an apologetic smile while she rubbed her eyes and made her way around to where Grillby was.“I’ll finish up my shift being leaving if you want me to?” She said. Grillby looked like he was about to decline, but Frisk didn’t want that answer so she just pushed him out of the small area and slipped back into her apron. Grillby looked back at her with an irritated look.“You can just go home, Frisk.” He said. Frisk only shook her head, already busy with mixing and serving drinks to approaching monsters.Grillby continued to get her to go get her stuff ready and get some sleep for a solid ten minutes before he gave up and went to work in the back.Frisk honestly wished she took up Grillby’s offer once she saw the raccoon monster from yesterday start shuffling up to the counter. He sat down in the stool right in front of her and leaned in a little. When he noticed her looking at him, he smiled. It looked more like a snarl to her.“Why, hello there, dolly.” He cooed, placing some bills on the counter. Frisk inwardly grimaced at his tone. “Spot me a gin, would ya?”Frisk nodded before quickly turning to fill a glass up for him. She could feel his eyes on her and it was making her incredibly uncomfortable. She turned back to him and slid the drink his way as she grabbed the cash he left for her.She made sure to count the money before putting it into the register, finding out he had given her much more than owed. She turned her head slightly in his direction to see him still smiling and his eyes wandering as he sipped his alcohol.“Oh, dear God, why didn’t I just leave?” She whined to herself.Thankfully, another monster walked up to the bar and she could turn her attention onto him. On the plus side, he ordered both several drinks and a large quantity of food for the group he was sitting with, so Frisk could even go to the back room and hide for a minute.She heard the raccoon mumble in disappointment as she left his view to get the other monster his order. She walked up to one of the workers and handed him a slip of paper with all the food. He nodded and got to work straight away.Frisk hung out in there for a little before readying herself for that raccoon’s stare and walking back out into the main area to prepare the drinks. Frisk saw his ears stick up at the sight of her and the bored expression he had died. The hungry look in his eyes and his smile returned bigger than it had been when she last saw him minutes ago. He didn’t say anything to her, but kept watching her move around as she filled cups with liquor.“This should be all the drinks, the food will be done momentarily. I’ll just bring it to you when it comes out.” Frisk said to the monster who had waited patiently for his order. He smiled and nodded, handed her money for the drinks, and walked back to his table with all the glasses.Frisk tried keeping herself busy so she wouldn’t have to be forced to talk to the raccoon, who was still watching her. Unfortunately, he seemed to catch on and decided to begin a conversation.“So, dolly, what made you want to move to this shithole town?” He askedShithole town? It wasn’t a shithole in Frisk’s eyes. It was a rather friendly town, aside from the occasional dick who passed Frisk’s path and cussed her out for living there.“Just didn’t enjoy living in my old home.” She said simply. He nodded in understanding before a devilish smile took over the snarled one.“Ah, I see. But you livin’ here comes with risks.” He stated, running his finger along the rim of his glass. “Lots of monsters would just love to get their hands on you.”Frisk tensed. She hated when people brought up how she’d be killed one day because of her choices, but when he said it, it sounded like he meant in more ways than just to murder her.“I know.” She replied, not knowing what else to say to him.Before he could keep going, Grillby came out of the back with a tray of the food and handed it to Frisk with a warm smile. “Here you are.”His smile turned into a heavy frown when he saw the raccoon monster’s eyes darting up and down Frisk’s body.“Uh… how about you get going after this order?” He whispered. Frisk couldn’t help but sigh at his words.“Yes, thank you.” She whispered back with a weak smile as she began her walk over to the table.After delivering the food and having a small, pleasant chat with the monsters residing at it, she made her way quickly back to the counter, sloppily hung up her apron in a hurry, and let Grillby take her place.“I’ll see you next week, Frisk!” He called out as Frisk shimmied through the crowded room. She waved to him before exiting the building and swiftly jogging back home.----“What is this for?” Wingdings asked, waving the notepad in his hand. Sans sighed.“Work.” He mumbled.“And what is this?” Wingdings asked again, now holding the notepad in his face while turned to the page that Sans had written Frisk’s information on.“Not work.”“Exactly. Now, do you mind telling me why you wrote this down?” Wingdings continued. Sans inwardly growled.“It’s none of your business.” He spat. Wingdings’ sockets narrowed.“I think it is. Does whoever this woman is know you wrote this down?” He asked.“No, but I was going to trash it anyway. I didn’t need it.” Sans muttered. “Can I go to sleep now or what?”Wingdings huffed, knowing he wouldn’t get anything more out of Sans, and threw the notepad to the ground before walking out of Sans’ room and slamming the door behind him. Sans waited a moment, making sure no one else would burst in before he bent over and picked up the notepad, shoving it into his nightstand drawer.He then proceeded to kick his shoes off, toss his jacket onto the ground, and drift to sleep.----Sans woke up at the sound of his alarm blaring into his ear cavity. He slammed his fist down onto it immediately and sat up. He didn’t feel fully rested and the warmth of his bed and darkness that still absorbed his room wasn’t helping him want to get up and around to leave.He grunted and turned his light on as he stood up to get changed. Once he was fully dressed in clean clothes, he double-checked to make sure all of his clothes and essentials were packed into his suitcase before closing the bag up again and heading downstairs.When Sans made it down the stairs, he tried being as silent as he possibly could to avoid waking Papyrus and Wingdings up. He made it to the door when suddenly he heard a pot clink against the stove behind him, making him stop.“Papyrus?” He whispered without turning around.“MORNING, BROTHER.” Papyrus whispered back. “WOULDN’T YOU LIKE TO EAT BEFORE YOU GO?”Sans sighed and lightly dropped his bag. “Sure, why not?”Papyrus smiled brightly at his words and placed an omelet with spaghetti sauce on it in front Sans. “THERE YOU GO!”“Thanks, bro.” Sans said as picked up a forkful of the strange food and shoving it in his mouth, eating relatively quickly so he could get going sooner than later. Papyrus’ smile fell into a grimace.“SANS, YOU’RE GOING TO CHOKE.” He said. Sans only waved his hand dismissively, finishing up his last bite before standing again and handing his empty plate to Papyrus.“I gotta get goin’ now, bro.” Sans said with an apologetic smile. “I’ll call you when I get there, alright?”Papyrus’ frown deepened as he took the plate from Sans. He stared at it for a moment before nodding. “YOU’LL BE CAREFUL WON’T YOU?”Sans’ smile fell a little. “I will. Promise.”Papyrus put the plate in the sink and bent down to hug Sans goodbye. Sans chuckled softly and pat his little brother’s back. “It’s not like I’m leavin’ forever, Paps.”“I KNOW. I JUST GET WORRIED SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN. WE ALREADY ALMOST LOST YOU ONCE.” Papyrus said, now looking Sans in the sockets. Sans’ already broken smile dropped completely.“It won’t happen again.” Sans stated firmly before grabbing his suitcase again. “Tell dad I said bye. I’ll be back by at most two weeks, can you try not to drive him crazy with your worry?”Papyrus’ smile returned and he nodded again, standing back up and handing Sans his hat.“Thanks.” Sans said as he put it on. “C’ya later.”Sans made his way to the front door, waving the entire time he exited the comfy safety of his home. Papyrus didn’t move until the door was only a sliver open.He sighed and had one more good look at the house before he walked to the car, packed his case into the passenger seat, and hopped in. He buckled up and ruffled around in his coat pockets, fishing out his phone and clientele list. He read the first exchange time and area.10PM, Alleyway behind the local pub.He had plenty of time to just settle in and relax when he got there.It was only four-thirty.It took four hours to get there.He’d have at least a good twelve hours to chill out since he’d need to take a little nap before heading out to do his job.With that, he started the car and drove off.----A loud car horn went off, startling Frisk awake. She sat up and clutched her hand to her chest. She felt like she just had a mini heart-attack.Next came loud thudding footsteps down the hallway and stopped at her door. She heard it being sloppily unlocked and kicked open before even more thudding came rushing to her bedroom door, which was also kicked open.“Frisk, are you up yet!?” Japhire yelled as he popped his head through the door. Frisk just stared at him with a bewildered look on her face and nodded slowly. “Come on! We have two hours to get this show on the road! I’ll get some of your things to speed things up!”Japhire then began running around her apartment, looking for anything he thought she’d need for the trip. Frisk sat stunned for a moment before her eyes darted down to her alarm. Oh shit.It was ten-thirteen. She had forgotten to set her alarm the previous night.Frisk quickly got out of bed, brushed her hair, and picked out what she was going to wear. All the while Japhire continued running around the apartment rooms gathering things up and throwing them onto the couch for her to sort through once she came back out.After she pulled her pale yellow dress on and slipped her black flats onto her feet, she shoved some clothes into a bag that was residing in her small closet along with her brush and her phone charger.She exited her room with the bag over her shoulder and saw Japhire bouncing on his heels, waiting impatiently for her to grab what she needed or wanted from the large pile he made. She proceeded to snatch up her necessities and stuffed them into the extra pocket in her bag before dropping it on the floor and rushing down the hall with her toothbrush and toothpaste.“Give me a minute!” Frisk called as she entered the bathroom and began brushing her teeth. She heard Japhire groan peevishly. “Oh, hush! It won’t take me forever.”Once she finished brushing her teeth, she shoved her toothbrush into a plastic bag and ran back out into the living room before placing them into the bag and closing it. Japhire grabbed her bag and threw it over his shoulder and throwing his arms out with a smile. “Want me to carry you down the stairs?”“Tempting, but no, thanks.” Frisk said, grabbing her phone, wallet, and keys. Japhire made a pouty face and ran his claw down his cheek to imitate a tear falling as he walked out the door.Frisk rolled her eyes and followed suit, closing and locking the door behind her.After making it down all the stairs and out the door, Japhire threw her bag into the trunk of Draco’s car and they both hopped into the back. Draco turned around and smiled pleasantly at Frisk.“So glad you could join us, Frisk!” He said as he started the car. “It’ll be a long drive, I’m sure you know that, so you can take a snooze if you want. We can stop somewhere up in WATERFALL to get some food.”Frisk nodded and settled in. Japhire, on the other hand, kept bouncing in his seat, causing the car to bounce a little with him. Draco glared at him, but ultimately failed at stopping the hyper monster.“Please don’t tell me you’ll be doing that the whole drive?” Draco huffed.“No promises.” Japhire said with a wide grin. Draco grunted and began driving.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sans huffed as he pulled up to the flashy resort that was currently filled to the brim with monsters that were just as showy as the building itself.He parked his car into a space he managed to reserve a few days beforehand, hopped out of the car with his luggage, and made his way to the front doors. The second he walked in, most of the monsters turned their heads in his direction before sneering and turning their attention back to whatever it was that they had been doing before.Sans rolled his pupils and walked up to the front desk where a woman sat, filing through different stacks of papers and signing some of them with an incredibly glittery pen. She looked up from her work when Sans arrived and a smile popped up onto her once bored appearance.“Good morning, sir! How may I help you?” She asked in an overly cheery tone.Sans didn’t say anything back, only handing her a small card his boss had given him with the list of monsters he was going to be selling to. The woman’s eyes lit up at the card and she quickly strolled to the farthest wall, grabbed a key off of a hook, and returned to the window.“Here you are, Mr. Gaster.” She said, sliding the room key towards him. He smiled in thanks before swiping the key up and heading towards a long hallway filled with room doors. The other monsters continued looking at Sans like he was some slimeball that just crawled out of the sewer.After hunting down his room number, he unlocked the door, walked inside, and instantly threw his bags onto the floor.“Alright.” He mumbled as he slammed the door behind him and plopped down onto the couch before pulling the list out of his pocket. It was all crumpled up. Must’ve gotten crushed when he shoved his phone into his pocket yesterday.Sans straightened it out enough so it was readable and stored it underneath the couch cushion for later use. He took a minute to himself before reaching back into his pocket and pulling his phone out. He dialed in Papyrus’ number and waited.……“HELLO?” Papyrus’ voice came booming through the receiver. Sans jumped a little at the sudden loud sound bursting through his ear cavity.“Hey, bro.” Sans replied after the ringing in his skull had died down. He could practically see the smile spread across Papyrus’ face.“BROTHER! YOU’VE MADE IT THERE SAFELY!” Papyrus exclaimed. “HOW IS IT?”“Not too bad, the rooms aren’t as painful to look at as I thought they’d be.” Sans said as he looked around the almost completely pink room. “The people here are incredibly stuck-up though.”“WHAT DID YOU EXPECT?” Papyrus asked. “YOU DON’T EXACTLY DRESS YOUR BEST IN PUBLIC AREAS ANYHOW.”“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Sans mumbled. “I don’t see the point in it. My clothes are fine.”“YOU DO REALIZE THE ONLY NICE THING YOU HAVE IS A TUXEDO YOU’VE NEVER WORN?” Papyrus stated.“My dress shirts aren’t nice?” Sans asked, looking down at the one he currently wore.“THEY ALL HAVE STAINS ON THEM SOMEWHERE, SANS.” Papyrus huffed.“They get covered up by my coat, it’s not like people will see ‘em.” Sans shrugged.“THAT DOESN’T MATTER, IT’S STILL GROSS.”“Eh.” Sans said, receiving a slightly annoyed sigh from his brother.“I HAVE TO DO WORK AROUND THE HOUSE NOW. FATHER SAID HE’LL BE EXPECTING A CALL AFTER THE EXCHANGE LATER TONIGHT.” Papyrus said.“Alright. Talk to ya later, Paps.”“GOODBYE, BROTHER.” Papyrus said. “PLEASE BE CAREFUL.”Sans paused. Without another word, the phone call ended. He stared at the phone screen for a few minutes before sighing and putting it on the small coffee table in front of him. He then leaned back and rubbed his sockets, repeating the time he had to be at the exchange location over and over in his head.After a solid three minutes of repeating “Ten o’clock” to himself, he stood up with a grunt.“Might as well get cleaned up.” He told himself before walking over to his suitcase and pulling out a clean pair of pants and a dress shirt.After making sure the door was locked and he had what he needed, he sauntered into the bathroom to take a shower.----Otis hastily ran around Mettaton’s office, looking for important files he had been ordered to find while Mettaton was out at a meeting. The boss told him he had about an hour, which was when he’d be back, to find what he wanted or else there would be consequences. Harsh consequences.He only failed to obey the robot’s instructions once before and that was a mistake he wished he hadn’t made. Not only had his weekly pay been deducted, Mettaton also had the guards that worked out front come in and beat him up, which led to him having to wear an armbrace for around three weeks.Otis began panicking at the thought of what would happen if he failed Mettaton this time. He only found a little less than half of the files he needed to get and he had half an hour to find the rest before Mettaton made it back to the resort.Suddenly, the door swung open and Otis could feel the fur on his back stick up and his claws protract instantly. He swiftly turned around, calming when he noticed it was only the receptionist.“Mr. Mettaton, I have a file you as- Oh. Hello, Otis.” She said once she looked up from a file in her hands, not expecting to see the frazzled cat standing alone in the room, but smiling at his presence nonetheless.“Where is the boss?”“H-he’s out at a meeting.” Otis replied, throwing his paws behind his back to hide his claws. “He’ll be back in thirty minutes.”“Oh, okay. Thank you.” She muttered as she turned to leave.“W-wait, Jenny!” Otis hollered. She turned back to him with her brow raised. “Uh… do you know where the files Mettaton wants are at? I can’t find them.”“Of course! Which ones is he looking for?” Jenny asked. Otis shoved his paw into his breast pocket and pulled out the piece of paper Mettaton had given him with all the file names written on it.He held out the paper and Jenny strolled up to him and took a long look at the names. She then nodded her head and walked around the office in an orderly fashion. Otis felt himself relax even more knowing he would be able to get his task finished.After twenty-five minutes had gone by, Jenny hopped off of a ladder that had been leaning up against one of the shelves with a couple files in her hand.“That should be the last of them!” Jenny said with a smile, adding them to the pile in Otis’ paws. He couldn’t help but smile widely at her and wrap his arms around her as best as he could without dropping the paperwork.“Thank you!” He blubbered. Jenny lightly patted his back.“No problem.” She said after Otis backed away again. “It was a bit more difficult than I thought. Seems like he moved them out of their designated spots.”Otis’ eyes narrowed slightly at those words. “What? He moved them?”“I said it seems like he did. Maybe it was just an accident.” She said.Before Otis could speak another word, the doors burst open, hitting the walls violently and causing a loud crash to fill the office space. Mettaton stepped inside and threw the doors closed behind him, producing another loud crash, and angrily strutted up to his desk.He sat down in his large swivel chair and wore an expression that made it look like he was about to throw all of the objects resting on his desk onto the ground or through the window. Otis and Jenny looked at each other with slightly fearful eyes before they both approached the steaming monster.“Boss? Is everything alr-“ Otis began, only to be cut off by a gloved finger in his face.Mettaton looked up and focused his pink eyes on Otis. “Did you gather the files?”Otis nodded and handed the large stack to him. Mettaton grabbed them and began picking them up one-by-one and placing them in another pile to make sure they were all the ones he asked for. After a few moments, Mettaton’s irritated expression softened. “Thank you.”A sideways smile spread across Otis’ once nervous appearance. “A-anytime, sir!”Mettaton then looked up at Jenny with his brow raised. “And what are you here for?”“Oh, right!” She said, placing the file she had arrived with onto the desk. Mettaton swiped it up quickly and his eyes darted across it. Both of his eyebrows rose and his eyes widened before shooting back up at Jenny.“Sans Gaster is here?” He asked. Jenny nodded. “I thought he wasn’t due for a visit until next week. I must’ve read the date wrong.”With that, Mettaton handed the file back to Jenny and stood from his seat and began briskly walking to the door, his lengthy boot heels clicking noisily as he took each step. Once he reached the large door, he turned back to the two still standing in front of his desk. “Jenny, dear, once you return to your post, could you cancel all future meetings with that filthy rodent I chatted with earlier?”“Do you mean Devin?”Mettaton nodded with a charming smile. “I would greatly appreciate it.”He then proceeded to walk out the door and make a sharp turn towards the main lobby and out of sight, the door slowly closing after him.----Frisk stared out the window of Draco’s car, mesmerized by all the nature and pretty sights WATERFALL had to show off. She had been doing this for around an hour after they stopped to eat at a little restaurant in the area. Japhire was looking up places they could go to while they were in HOTLAND on his phone and would every so often jab Frisk’s arm to get her to look at the places he found.“Hey, gang, we’re almost there.” Draco announced.Frisk perked up immediately and tore her gaze away from the window to look at him. “Wait, really?”Draco nodded and gestured to a large sign off to the side of the highway farther up ahead. Frisk scooted over to the middle cushion and pulled herself up in-between the driver and passenger seats to see the giant sign reading “HOTLAND” in flashing red, yellow, and orange letters growing closer by the second. She could feel Japhire attempt at doing the same thing, leaning over her and crushing her slightly.Frisk watched as the darkness of WATERFALL faded away and the glowing flowers and trees ceased, gradually being replaced with warmer colors and lots of buildings built above an ocean of bubbling lava.As they drove farther into the large city, Frisk noticed lots of the buildings were either pink, glittery, or both. She wanted to look away from them, but couldn’t for whatever reason until another building caught her attention. It was a large laboratory with several tubes connected to the ground underneath and smoke puffing out of several pipes that stuck out of the roof’s surface.Before they made it into the monster inhabited area of HOTLAND, Frisk spotted a castle in the center of it all that was far bigger than any of the buildings that occupied the rest of the big city.“Who lives in there?” Frisk asked, still looking at the fortress. Draco’s smile at seeing a familiar place turned into a steady frown when he followed her gaze.“That’s where king and queen Dreemurr live.” He grunted. Frisk raised her eyebrow at his tone.“Are they bad?” She continued.“No, no. They are actually pretty nice people. Their kids cause lots of trouble here though.” He explained.“What do they do?”“They destroy other people’s property, steal things, and hurt people…” Draco said, staring up at the castle for a moment before snapping his gaze to the road ahead once more.Frisk looked away from the castle and at Draco. “Did you hear that stuff in the news?”Draco chuckled a little and shook his head. “Some things, yea, but I first found out how they were because I went to school with ‘em when I was younger. They even threatened me several times. Well, sorry, not both of them. Just the one. The other looked really uncomfortable and tried to walk away from the other, but he was forced to stay.”“Not to sound like an ass or anything,” Japhire began, his lower jaw slightly bumping Frisk's head as he spoke. “but it was the human one that liked to start shit, wasn't it?”Frisk looked up at Japhire with a confused expression and Draco sighed and nodded his head. “Yep. He was a brat. Probably still is, actually.”“They adopted a human?” Frisk asked, curiosity lacing her voice. Japhire sat back down in his seat, allowing Frisk to breathe properly again.“Yeah, like, a year after their monster son was born.” Japhire said.“Oh.” Frisk said, pausing slightly before she continued to prod for more information. “Why didn’t they just stop them from doing those things?”“Oh, trust me, they’ve tried. They have been locked up several times for their actions, but the queen always whined about them not being in the castle with her so the king would bust them out with bribery.” Draco explained. “Unless they managed to bust themselves out first and hurt even more people in the process.”Frisk slowly leaned back into her seat again and stopped herself from asking more questions about the two criminals, knowing the answers would just get worse and worse. After a minute of the uncomfortable silence that followed, Draco started to hum a melody that Frisk knew. She couldn’t help but let a small smile take over her frown as she listened to him.Japhire nudged her in the shoulder and winked once she turned her attention to him. “Well?” He mouthed to her, not wanting to interrupt his brother.Frisk’s cheeks flushed a little. “No.” She mouthed back, receiving a grimace from Japhire.“Why not?”“Because I don’t want to sing.”“Bullshit.”“Okay, I do, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to.”“But you sound so pretty.”Frisk’s cheeks reddened deeper and she turned away from him, folding her arms and focusing her gaze out the window again. She heard Japhire grunt in defeat and start tapping his claw on his phone as he continued his search for places to go.Shortly they entered the town full of houses that were lined up neatly together. Some kind of flower Frisk hadn’t seen before littered the ashy-colored grass. It glowed softly and had small, white particles clouding around them.Draco noticed the glitter of interest in Frisk’s eyes and stopped humming. “Fire-snappers.”Frisk looked back at him. “What?”“They are called Fire-snappers.” He repeated. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”Frisk nodded. “Very.”“I agree.” He said. “You should see ‘em glow at night. They kept me awake when I stayed here a long time ago since mom decided a big batch of them had to be planted right outside the window. The lack of curtains didn’t help either.”“They also make crackling noises if you rub the petals.” He finished.That sparked even more of Frisk’s interest and both dragons seemed to notice. Japhire leaned closer to her and rested his arm on her shoulder. “We can get you a few when we are out tonight, yeah?”“Yes!” Frisk nearly shrieked. Japhire startled and moved back from the surprise.Draco chuckled as he pulled into a small driveway and hopped out of the car before rounding the vehicle to open Frisk’s door. “Hey, how about you and Japhire go inside so he can introduce you? I’ll be right behind you with the bags.”Frisk nodded and stepped out, shutting the door behind her and walking up to the porch as she heard Japhire follow suit.“You’re gonna love them, Frisk.” Japhire said as he caught up to her.“I’m sure I will.” She replied. “But what if they don’t like me?”“I seriously doubt they will, they like everybody.” He reassured. “And anyway, who could dislike you?”“Uh… lots of people.” Frisk said after she paused and pretended to think about it. “I’m pretty sure more than half of SNOWDIN’s residences don’t like me.”Japhire rolled his eyes and rushed up ahead of her so he could pull the door open. She stopped in front of the door and gave him a look of uncertainty, but didn’t seem to have much of a choice as he shoved her inside.Almost instantly a scent of cinnamon hit her nose and the white particles that danced around the small kitchen space floated past her face, making her nose itch a little. That was when she noticed all the Fire-snappers that were strewn across the entirety of the kitchen. She felt Japhire come in behind her, gently pushing her father inside the room.Japhire rested his chin on her shoulder and placed his claws on her arms as he began shuffling his feet forward, making her walk with him into what Frisk assumed was the living room. “Come on…”Once he managed to get her into the warm and well-furnished living space, he lightly pushed her onto one of the large couches. “Alright, I’ll go get my parents, just stay here and relax.”Frisk’s uneasy form loosened up a bit and she watched Japhire dart around the corner and up a set of stairs she couldn’t see. She let out a heavy sigh and leaned back into the sofa, hoping the comfy cushions and pillows would help her calm down.After sitting there for a moment, the front door opened and closed, announcing Draco’s arrival. Frisk quickly stood up and walked into the kitchen to help him with the bags, but when she noticed it wasn’t the big, green dragon monster, she froze. It was a smaller pink dragon. She was shorter than Japhire, had long, silvery hair, small curled horns that looked somewhat like the upper half of a heart to Frisk, large icy-blue eyes, and droopy, shoulder-length ears with two piercings in each.She stood at the door with two frilly shopping bags and just stared back at Frisk with the same surprised look she wore. A big smile erupted onto her face and she carelessly dropped the bags before rushing up to Frisk and hugging her tightly and closely to her, squealing in her ear with excitement. “You’re here!” She howled, now jumping up and down.Frisk was too stunned to reply and heard footsteps run back down the stairs after the dragon had screamed. Frisk turned her head as far as she could to see who had just rounded the corner. Japhire laughed nervously and hurried into the kitchen after he spotted Frisk being embraced by the overly-happy woman.“Hey, be careful!” He said, shoving his claws between them and trying to separate her from Frisk’s body. “You could hurt her!”With that, the dragon let go and stepped away with a sheepish smile. “Sorry, just excited. I’m Caeri.”She held her claw out to Frisk and her tail started swaying like a dog’s did when it was happy. Frisk smiled a little and grabbed Caeri’s hand to shake it.“Frisk.” She said plainly. Caeri’s sheepish smile turned even friendlier then it looked before.“She’s so pretty, Japhy!” Caeri whispered loudly as she looked up at Japhire. “Just like you said!”Frisk didn’t even acknowledge the part about Japhire calling her pretty. She only grinned childishly at the nickname “Japhy” that Caeri had just used. Japhire knew why Frisk was smirking and looked away with dusted cheeks and a huff. “Don’t call me that, sis.”“But you love that nickname!” Caeri exclaimed, obviously disappointed he didn’t want her to use it around Frisk.“I know, not right now though, please.” He said quickly. Caeri made a pouty lip and Frisk smiled even wider.Before another word could be exchanged between them, the door opened again and Draco walked in, carrying the bags over his shoulders, including what appeared to be more shopping bags, and shooting a playful glare down at Caeri, who smiled like a child who was playing innocent. “Thanks for helping with the bags, Caeri.”“You’re welcome!” She said. Draco rolled his eyes with a grin and looked over to Frisk, raising his brow at her expression.“What’s that look for?” He asked. Japhire quickly looked over at Frisk with a warning glare.“Oh nothing, just having a nice conversation with Caeri and Japhy.” She mumbled. Draco’s small grin extended ten times more as he looked down at Japhire and laughed.Japhire groaned and strolled into the living room, no longer wanting to hear the nickname being tossed around. Caeri flashed a smile and wink at Frisk before following after him. Frisk felt Draco’s heavy hand clap down onto her shoulder.“Come on, I’ll take the bags upstairs and then we can introduce you to the parents.” He said, now leading her into the living room again. “You’ll love my mom. She’s a sweet gal.”Frisk nodded and sat down next to Japhire once they walked in. They all watched Draco walk quickly up the stairs with the luggage effortlessly. After Draco was out of sight, Caeri turned to Frisk from her chair across the room and smiled brightly.“So, when are you guys heading out?” She asked. Japhire shrugged at her and leaned back into the couch cushion.“I think Draco said he wanted to leave around eight-thirty. Why?”Caeri’s eyes widened a little. “Eight-thirty? How long are you going to be gone?”“Depends on how long Frisk wants to stay at the pub. Draco can leave whenever he wants, but I’m staying with Frisk.” Japhire stated. “I don’t want anything bad happening to her.”Frisk looked over at Japhire and smiled softly at him, placing her hands on her cheeks. “D’awww. You really care about me that much, Japhy?”Japhire grunted and smirked as he looked down at his hands. “Yeah, I do. Dork.”Frisk’s smile widened and her eyes darted back up at Caeri who was now watching them both intently, causing Frisk’s smile to vanish. She straightened herself and looked around the room for a bit, avoiding eye contact with the dragon. Silence filled the room for a solid five minutes before Draco’s heavy footsteps rumbled down the stairs again, followed by a pair of lighter steps, those of which were followed by steps even heavier than Draco’s.All three looked back at the living room entrance and Draco rounded the corner. After him came a purple dragon a little taller than Caeri and a blue dragon taller and bulkier than Draco, who Frisk could only assume were the three dragon’s parents.Frisk watched Japhire spring up from his spot next to her and swiftly stride over to his parents and was instantly embraced by them. She smiled at the scene, but her smile faded rather quickly as her eyes glazed over, picturing herself at a young age as her parents held her in their arms just like that.She could remember every time she arrived home from school or work and they would come up to her as fast as they could just to hug her close to them and tell her how much they missed her. It didn’t matter if she was gone for a few hours, a day, or a full week. It didn’t even matter when she got home. They’d only go to sleep once they knew she was safe and sound in their home.Frisk abruptly stood up from her spot on the couch once she felt tears drip down her cheeks, causing Japhire to turn his head towards her, and walked up to Draco. “Sorry, but uh, where’s… where’s the bathroom?”“Up the stairs, third door on the left.” He said happily, oblivious to Frisk’s sudden sadness.Frisk nodded in thanks, quickly ran past him and up the stairs, locked herself in the bathroom, and slumped down to the floor with her back to the door’s surface. She began to silently weep and curled her arms around her knees.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“That’ll be 300G, Mr. Gaster.” The tired looking orange cat said as he pushed the wrapped up Legendary Hero towards Sans. Sans nodded and handed him a large stack of bills.Sans grabbed the sandwich and inwardly smirked when the cat’s bored expression turned to one of surprise. “Sir, this is a little more- no, a LOT more than you had to pay.”“I’m aware. Just keep the extra bills.” He replied dully, unwrapping and taking a first bite of the sandwich. “Don’t tell that robotic fuck or he’ll get all pissy ‘bout it.”The cat nodded his head frantically, put the owed money in the register, and put the rest into his pocket. Sans chuckled as he waved his hand and strolled back to his room. Before he could reach the door, however, someone stepped right in front of him and blocked his path. He grunted and an irritated expression spread across his face.“Hello, hello, Mr. Gaster!” The figure in front of him exclaimed. Sans’ pupils rolled up to look at the robot standing in front him, but his skull remained in the same place.To no surprise, Mettaton was in one of his showiest tuxedos, sporting a pair of incredibly expensive, glittery high-heeled boots, and had his hair slicked back with a heavy amount of hair gel. Sans could see the great pains Mettaton was taking to hide the fact he despised Sans’ taste in clothes. Sans, on the other hand, wasn’t trying to hide his own dislike for Mettaton’s flashy clothes or the robot in general.“I thought that work trip of yours wasn’t until next week!” He continued even though Sans ignored him the first time. “Do tell me when that big final meeting takes place!”Sans almost walked around the robot mid-sentence, but stopped dead when he heard the last words come out of his mouth. He finally looked up completely at Mettaton and his sockets narrowed slightly. When he spoke, it practically sounded like a growl. “How do you know about the last meetin’?”Sans’ glare turned into a deep frown once Mettaton’s smile turned into a devilish smirk and he placed his hands on his hips. “Your boss told me.”“Did he actually tell you for his own reason, or did you just pay him a shit ton of money for information that won’t come useful to you?” Sans spat at Mettaton.Sans watched in smug satisfaction as the fucker’s smile dropped and his pink eyes turned darker. “I don’t care if it isn’t useful as of now. I’m just a curious man.”“More like a snooper.” Sans mumbled before taking another bite of his sandwich. Mettaton’s frown deepened and he bent down to Sans’ level so they made direct eye contact.“Oh, hush. It doesn’t affect you, so it shouldn’t matter.” He said.“I could be saying the exact same thing to you, pal.” Sans replied. Mettaton quickly straightened himself again and loudly stomped his foot onto the floor. Sans hoped the heel would’ve snapped in half, but sadly it didn’t happen.“I can do what I want, skeleton.” Mettaton huffed before beginning to walk back to his office. “Good luck on that exchange tonight. You’ll need it.”“Nighty night!” Sans called as he watched Mettaton disappear after turning the corner and strolling back to his room.Sans walked into the room, shut and locked the door behind him, plopped down onto the couch, and finished off his late dinner. After tossing the plastic wrap into the trash can, and nearly missing, he glanced up at the clock.7:45pmHe grunted and snatched his phone up, setting an alarm to go off in thirty minutes so he could take a small nap. After he set the alarm, he threw his feet up onto the coffee table, pulled his arms behind his head, and rocked his head forward so his fedora would cover his sockets.Before he could shut his sockets, his phone started buzzing and playing some funky, distorted tune, resulting in him jumping to his feet, seizing the phone, and answering the call.“Hello?” He said, obviously still a little jumpy.“Hello, Sans.” Wingdings tiredly croaked into the phone.“Uh… Hey, dad. You don’t sound too great, is everything okay?” Sans asked. He heard Wingdings groan and the sound of him shuffling a stack of papers on his desk.“I’m fine. Are you ready for the exchange?” Wingdings asked.“Yeah, dad. Alley behind the local pub at ten o’clock.” Sans responded. Wingdings made a satisfied sound and loudly dropped the now neatly stacked papers onto the floor.“Good, good. Remember I will be calling again later to hear what happened.” He stated.“Actually, I think you should get some sleep. You can just call me tomorrow.” Sans suggested, receiving a grunt from his father.“Sans-““Just listen to me, dad. There's no reason for you to keep yourself awake.” Sans said sternly.There was nothing but silence for a moment, then a defeated sigh came from the other end. “Fine. I’ll just go to sleep. You better call me if something bad happens, got it?”“Yep, I will. Love ya, pops.” Sans said.“I love you, too. Goodnight, Sans.”“Night.”Sans hung up the phone and shoved it into his pocket. He inwardly cursed himself for looking at how early it was again before walking over to the door, using the wall to balance himself to help get his shoes on. He then pushed the room key into the lock aggressively and flung the door open. He didn’t bother locking the door again since the only thing he brought with him that had any actual value was his phone and wallet, which he had on him at all times.Sans almost had the urge to run out of the building when he spotted Mettaton out of the corner of his socket talking to a staff member and turn his head when he saw Sans walking through the lobby. He didn’t want to talk to the robot more than he already had that night. Or ever again.“Mr. Gaster!” He hollered, leading to some other monster’s to turn their head towards Sans. Sans inwardly screamed at himself to keep walking even though his body decided he was going to stay and chat to the sparkly pile of bolts.He slowly turned around to face Mettaton, but didn’t attempt at putting a fake smile on for the robot. Yeah, he was pretty good at it, but he didn’t give a care in the word if Mettaton knew how much Sans hated him. He noticed that the closer he got, Mettaton's, what some people would call charming, smile progressively faded.“Whaddya want now?” Sans muttered with an obvious hint of annoyance in his voice. Mettaton’s smile reappeared in the form of that devilish smirk from before.“I just have some wonderful news and thought you should know.” He whispered, bending down to Sans’ level again and focusing his pink eyes on Sans’ pupils.“Okay, first off, personal space.” Sans said, backing up a little so he could no longer feel Mettaton breathing. “Secondly, what news?”Mettaton looked like he was about to explode from excitement. “There’s a human in HOTLAND! One of the town residents saw it and took a photo!”“Um… did you actually see the photo?” Sans asked.“No, and I know what you are thinking. I didn’t believe him at first either, but then other townies started coming to me about the human, said it was walking into a monster house earlier this morning or something.” Mettaton said. Sans rolled his pupils and reached up to pat Mettaton’s shoulder. He thought it was funny that Mettaton flinched at his touch like a dirty rat just walked up to him and touched him.“Just don’t get your hopes up, pal. I gotta get goin’ and quite honestly I don’t want to put a bookmark in this conversion, or any for that matter, so don’t bring it up to me again. Thanks!” Sans said quickly before turning and walking out of the building, only noticing the death glare and clenched fists coming from the robot through the glass door’s reflection.----Frisk wrapped the large, fuzzy towel around her body and stepped out of the shower. After having a breakdown for about ten minutes, she decided to get cleaned up a little before they headed out. She walked over to the sink, hoping she wouldn't get water all over the floor in the process, and looked at herself in the mirror with a sigh.Maybe she could just wear sunglasses to hide her eyes?Maybe she could do her hair a certain way to cover them up?Maybe-KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!Frisk jumped and squeaked at the sudden, loud noise. The door opened slightly, sending a small gust of colder air into the steamy room.“Frisk, are you done?” Caeri whispered through the crack in the door.“Y-yeah, do you need something?” Frisk asked. Caeri opened the door wider, making the gap just big enough for her to slip into the room and shut the door again.Frisk thought she’d be way more uncomfortable with Caeri being inside the bathroom with her, but she honestly didn’t mind. Okay, she didn’t mind at first, but that changed instantly when she saw what Caeri had brought inside with her. She was holding two bags in her arms, both large and glittery and obviously filled way past their limit with whatever they held.Caeri smiled brightly at Frisk and waved the bags in her face. “Wanna do your makeup?”“Uuuuhhh..” Was the only thing Frisk managed to say before Caeri grabbed a small stool from the closet, placed it in front of the sink, made Frisk sit down, and grabbed her supplies from the bags. Frisk quickly stood back up and turned to face the enthusiastic monster.“Haha, okay, shouldn’t I get dressed first? Wouldn’t want to smudge the makeup while I’m getting my clothes on.” She stated. Caeri seemed to agree instantly and made Frisk wait in the bathroom while she fetched her outfit.Instead of just bringing the yellow dress back into the room, she opened the door again and handed Frisk a white dress with red flowers printed on the bottom half of the fabric. “Here, try this one on!”Caeri closed the door right after Frisk took the dress so she didn’t have the chance to complain about it. She huffed and started pulling the dress on.The first thing she noticed about the dress was that it was the kind that fitted to the wearer’s form to show off any curves. Frisk didn’t exactly approve of that feature on herself but continued on with it anyways.The second thing she noticed, it had a built in bra, so thankfully she didn’t have to struggle taking the damn thing back off and on again to put one on.The third thing she noticed, it was see-through on her shoulders and right above her chest. Great.The fourth and final thing was a small, red heart charm that was built into the dress right in the middle of the chest. She smiled down at it, reminding her of the heart locket her parents gave to her.“Is it on?” Caeri called.“Yep!” Frisk called back.Caeri opened the door fully this time with her eyes covered up by one of her hands so she could surprise or utterly disappoint herself with how Frisk looked in the dress. The former seemed to be the case as she removed her hand and began squealing and clapping her hands together. “You look amazing!”Frisk couldn’t get a word out since Caeri brought her into a back-breaking hug before she could. After a moment of the embrace, she let go and forced Frisk down into the seat again. She then grabbed a dark red lipstick out of the mess of makeup on the sink and was right in Frisk’s face with a look of complete concentration as she applied the lipstick, making sure she wouldn’t mess it up.After getting it onto Frisk's lips and looking satisfied with her work, she puffed a little blush onto Frisk’s cheeks and put mascara on her. Frisk wasn’t used to having this much makeup on. It wasn’t a lot, but she never used more than a very light coat of lipstick that was about the same color as her skin. Caeri finished off the makeover by drying Frisk’s hair in such a precise way so her makeup wouldn’t get ruined and putting it up in a messy bun with her bangs still hanging in her face.“Ta-da!” She said, turning Frisk around so she could look at herself in the mirror.Caeri smiled at the surprised and impressed look on Frisk’s face. “Wow.”“Do you like it?” Caeri asked. Frisk turned to her with a warm smile and a head nod.Caeri squealed again and hugged Frisk for a split second before grabbing her hand and dragging her down the stairs. She brought her to a small cubby next to the back door and started hunting around inside.“What are you looking for?” Frisk asked as she watched the monster grunt in annoyance and move all around the cubby.“Some red heels that match the dress.” She said. Frisk grimaced.“I’m not a big fan of heels. I can just wear my flats.” She said, only for Caeri to ignore her and squeal when she found the shoes, shoving them towards Frisk.“Come on, they aren’t even that tall!” She urged. Frisk sighed and took them a little more bitterly than she wanted to.The two walked into the living room and Caeri watched Frisk plop down onto the couch and slip the shoes onto her feet. The shoes felt comfortable and even had tight straps around her ankles so they wouldn’t slip off.“Well?” Caeri said, bending down to make sure Frisk had them on properly.“They work, but I’m still taking my flats just in case.” Frisk stated, standing back up and walking back upstairs to get her flats and her purse. She could hear Caeri groan at the thought of Frisk wearing them with the dress instead of the stubby heels.When Frisk made it back downstairs, Japhire was standing around the corner, wearing a black button up with yellow flames and black shorts. When he spotted her, his eyebrows raised and a smile popped onto his face. Frisk felt like running away and hiding.“You look great, Effdee!” He exclaimed. “My sister’s a pro at that junk.”“Yeah, good thing she was here.” Frisk said with a nervous laugh. “I have no experience with this stuff.”“That’s not true, there’s a little something there.” He said with a smirk. “Come on, Draco’s ready to get goin’.”Japhire held out his arm and wiggled his eyebrows. Frisk rolled her eyes and laced her arm around his as he began walking to the kitchen. The second they made it inside the room, the four dragons standing around chatting turned their heads to look at the two.“Aww! Look at you two!” The purple dragon cried. She walked up to them and pinched Japhire’s cheek. “You look adorable!”Japhire flushed from slight embarrassment and swatted his mother’s hand away. She giggled and turned to take in Frisk’s appearance. She smiled warmly and rubbed Frisk’s arm. “You look lovely, dear.”“Thank you.” Frisk muttered with her own smile and somewhat reddened cheeks.“Alright, gang, time to head out.” Draco piped in, opening the door before turning to his parents. “We’ll be back later tonight… or early morning depending on when Frisk wants to go.”“Alright, please be careful out there you guys.” The purple dragon said. “If you see… them, you get your rears back here.”Frisk could see the desperate look in the mother’s eyes when she said those last words. Draco nodded and hugged both of his parents and little sister and Japhire followed suit shortly after. As Frisk followed behind Japhire out the door, she felt a claw grab her arm gently and pull her back. She looked back to see the brothers' mother staring down at her with that desperate look. “That means you too, Frisk.”Before Frisk could say anything, she was pulled into a small hug by the monster. Frisk smiled, remembering how her mother and father used to be protective just like this towards her. Eventually, the dragon let go and pat her head. “Now, go have fun.”With that, Frisk waved goodbye and once again walked onto the porch and chased after Japhire and Draco who had already made it halfway down the street. Once Frisk had caught up to the pair, they all walked a good distance out of the small town area and into the city side of HOTLAND, grabbing a taxi after Japhire complained about walking for ages when it had been no longer than fifteen minutes.“Alright, ya big baby, get in.” Draco said to Japhire, who glared at him before hopping into the vehicle, Frisk and Draco settling themselves in afterward. “Can’t believe you are whining about that when you have sneakers and Frisk here is wearing heels.”Frisk listened to the brothers babble for most of the ride, only snapping at them to knock it off when she noticed how badly it irritated the driver. For the rest of the ride, there was only the sound of Japhire scrolling through his phone while complaining more under his breath.“Thank you, miss.” The driver said happily as he grabbed the money from Frisk, alongside a tip for annoying the shit out of him. She waved as the car drove off before following the brothers into the pub the party was being hosted at, and, much to Frisk’s surprise, the place was filled to the brim with monsters.“I’m gonna go catch up with my friends!” Draco called over the noisy building and pointed to a small group of monsters chatting happily with one another in a booth. “You two be careful and come get me if you need me!”“Okay! Tell Buzz I said hi!” Japhire called. Draco held a thumbs up as he disappeared into the crowd of monsters.Frisk only had a split second view of the building before Japhire grabbed her wrist and dragged her to the bar where it was less packed, meaning less chance to be squished by roaming monsters. They both plopped down into empty stools together and Japhire ordered them something to drink.“Okay, didn’t expect this.” Japhire said, gesturing to the large number of monsters.“Neither did I.” Frisk said with a slight laugh.Frisk leaned backward in her stool to see past the large monsters residing at the bar counter. She looked at the back of the building and noticed a small table with several monsters sitting at it and doing what Frisk assumed was some kind of drug. She scowled, getting Japhire’s attention and making him look back to see what she was throwing a dirty look at.“Oh. Yeah. Just ignore that.” Japhire said with an apologetic smile. “People do that a lot here from what I’ve heard.”“Ah.” Frisk said plainly, sitting back up and looking at Japhire and smirking. “So what do ya want to do, Japhy?”His smile curled into a frown and his eyebrows furrowed. “Don’t.”“But I want to.” Frisk said with a childish grin. “You give me nicknames.”“Hmm… fine. But don’t use it in public. I don’t need more people calling me that." He muttered, his smile reappearing. “Here you are.” The bartender said, sliding a glass of gin towards Frisk and a beer to Japhire.“Thanks.” Japhire said as he handed the worker some bills.The bartender was about to walk away to serve another patron, but he turned his attention back to Frisk and she watched his eyes widened a little. “Hey, you must be that human people have been talkin’ about!”“What?” Frisk asked. The bartender pulled his phone out, aimed it right at her, and took a picture. The flash from the camera blinded her for a second.“Gah! Why is the flash on!?” She asked, rubbing her eyes.“So I could get a clear picture!” He said. “Everyone’s been talking about you. We haven’t seen another human in ages aside from Prince Chara! We thought all humans looked different.”“Huh?” Frisk said, removing her hands from her face and looking back up at the monster. “We do look different from one another.”“You do? I don’t see much of a difference. You two look very similar.”“Can you show me?” Frisk said, her interest now peaked. The bartender nodded and brought up a picture of Chara.He was tall and skinny, had shoulder-length brown hair that was a tab bit lighter than Frisk’s, had rosy cheeks, red eyes, and dark circles under his eyes. Next to him in the picture stood a slightly taller goat monster looking down at his feet, not wanting to make eye contact with the photographer. Chara looked flat out demanding and cold while the monster looked nervous and appeared to not want to be close to the human next to him at all.“They don’t look that alike.” Japhire said, peering over at the picture. The man looked in-between the picture of Chara and Frisk multiple times, ultimately giving up, shrugging, and going back to work.Japhire and Frisk glanced at each with confused expressions before taking a sip of their drinks.----Sans grunted as he walked down the slightly chilly streets and watched as the sky slowly faded to pink, to purple, and then finally to black. To Sans’ disappointment, there weren’t as many stars as there were in SNOWDIN, but it didn’t surprise him either.He paused for a moment, pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, lit it up with his finger flame, and stuck it between his teeth, taking a small drag from it as he continued walking again.Why did this guy have to schedule the meeting for ten o’clock? Sans had nothing to do before then aside from sleeping, but he was too awake now to even try to catch some z’s. If the guy arranged it to be before then, they could’ve easily gotten the exchange done and over with and Sans could just go back to the resort, eat dinner, and go to sleep.He grunted again and took another drag from his cigarette, puffing out the smoke in circles like he saw some guy done once. The farther he walked, the more he thought about this damned job, the more he wanted to just turn around and drive back home to be with Papyrus and Wingdings. He could even see that silly woman again. Sans couldn’t help but smile at the thought of Frisk. She was a dork. In the short span of time that they had known each other, Sans became quite fond of her.Sans huffed and took a final, deep drag of his cig, in hopes of forgetting about her for now so he could focus on the meeting, before throwing it to the ground and crushing it with his shoe a bit more violently than he intended. He needed a drink, but it would have to wait. Wouldn’t want him fucking shit up during the exchange because he was drunk.He checked the time again on his watch.8:59pm“Fuck it.” He said to himself. “Gonna be right outside the damn place anyway.”Sans continued walking until he found the pub he’d be doing the exchange at and walked into the building. The amount of people didn’t get much of a reaction out of him. It was HOTLAND after all and there probably weren’t many pubs this close to the town, which in turn would make it easier for them to get as shit-faced as they want and have an easier time getting back home since it was close to their home.He sighed and took a seat at an empty booth, looking out the window until a staff member served him. It took a while before someone was able to come get his order but that was to be expected. Sans watched out of the corner of his socket as the staff member slinked his way through the large crowd of monsters and over to the booth.“Sorry for the wait, sir. What would you like?” He said.“Just a whiskey, please.” Sans muttered, pulling his wallet out and handing the waiter the owed money.“Alright. Strong?” He asked after taking the money and attaching it to his clipboard.“Strong.” Sans repeated with a grin. The waiter smiled and nodded his head before walking off to get Sans’ drink.As Sans waited, he looked around the building as opposed to out the window since nothing was really going on outside that caught his attention and would for a full hour. He saw what he expected to see.Druggies taking shit in the back of the room.Tons of drunk dancing, singing, and laughing monsters.Some people starting small fights.“Here you are, sir.” The waiter said as he placed the drink on the table. Sans got somewhat startled by the man. He hadn’t even seen him walking up to the table.“Now you know what it feels like when you do that to other people.” A voice teased in his head.“Thanks, pal.” Sans replied. The waiter smiled one last time before walking back through the crowd of monsters.Sans took a large gulp of the alcohol. It was a bad idea to be drinking right now, but he honestly couldn’t help himself at this point. His pupils instantly darkened, telling him to put the drink down or else he’d blackout. He slapped himself in the face several times, hoping his pupils would regain some of their light.He closed his eyes and sighed again as he leaned back in his seat. As soon as he did, he heard two people chattering as they walked past the table and one of them sounded way too familiar. He shot his sockets open and looked around. Nothing.His mind was probably just playing tricks on him.The moment he tried relaxing a second time, he could hear the voice giggle loudly from the middle of the pub and shot his sockets open again, but couldn’t see who it was past the thick wall of intoxicated monsters.Sans stood up, leaving his drink behind, and slowly shoved his way past all the monsters. It was much more difficult than he thought it would be. He was a pretty big guy, too and most of these monsters were half his size. After squeezing through half of the crowd, he heard the voice giggling again and chattering loudly, albeit unclear from where he was standing. He pushed past a few more monsters and finally, he saw her.That silly little woman he hadn’t expected to see in weeks was standing right in front of him. He didn’t make another move towards her. He only stared, watching her dance with one of the monsters she befriended.“You idiot! She’s right there! Go!” The voice in his head screamed at him. He ignored it and kept staring at her, waiting to see if she’d just disappear, being nothing but an intoxicated vision.That thought died instantly as soon as it popped into his head once she turned her gaze a little and spotted him in the crowd. She stopped dancing and stared back at him.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

The two stared at one another for what felt like hours, but had only been mere seconds. Sans wanted to get closer to Frisk, to touch her to see if she was even really there in that pub, looking at him from across the room full of drunken patrons. She didn’t make any movement aside from the occasional blink of her eyes. Sans looked down to his feet, closed his sockets, and took a deep breath.“Just do it.” He told himself. “It’s not like she’ll be there forever.”He looked back up at her to see she had gotten slightly closer and her expression was still twisted into a look of surprise, but now had a hint of curiosity. She was obviously questioning herself the same thing Sans was questioning himself.He took another deep breath and began taking small steps towards her. She followed suit shortly after. It reminded Sans of when they had first met, except this time Frisk wasn’t backing away or shooting hateful and suspicious glares at him. This time she was willingly getting closer to him as he got closer to her.It was almost like she was prepared to reach out and suddenly he wouldn’t be there, just an image in her brain. Sans, on the other hand, wasn’t going to let that thought take over so easily.Once they had gotten to the point where they were only a few feet apart, Sans watched as Frisk stretched her arm out slowly towards him, hesitating for a moment in hopes that he’d be there a little longer before he faded away, before placing her hand on his chest.Sans could feel the warmth of her small hand gently rest on his ribcage and when she realized he was actually there, an enormous smile bloomed onto her face and she looked up at him with excitement in her large, mismatched eyes.Sans hated this pub the second he walked in, but he had to admit, seeing that smile had made it worth going into.He couldn’t even get a word out to her before he saw her lean forward and wrap her arms around his torso. Despite her small form, her hug was rather strong and was proving to be slightly uncomfortable. Sans managed a chuckle and looked down at her, careful not to move much in hopes that the little sliver of discomfort wouldn’t increase. He placed one of his large arms around her so he could pat her back.“I’m so glad you’re here!” She squealed after stepping away from him. “I didn’t think I’d see you in a place like this.”On one hand, Sans was happy to see her again too, even if it had only been a day without her, but on the other, he knew he shouldn’t be encouraging her visit to this nightmare of a city. Sure, there were some areas of the city like this where one could have a nice, quiet time, but in the more major parts of the city, people got mugged, hurt, killed, or worse constantly. What made things even worse was the fact she was a human. That augmented the chance that it would happen to her just for that reason alone.“Me either, girly.” He muttered. “But-“Frisk grabbed his hand and started pulling him towards the monster she had been with moments before. Sans actually tried digging his feet into the floor to make her stop dragging him along with her, but it didn’t do anything aside from making him trip behind her.“Frisk-“ Sans began, pausing when they came to a sudden halt.She let go of his hand and turned to face him. “Stay here.”She then ran off to the monster she was dancing with earlier, grabbed his attention, and pointed to Sans while saying things to him that Sans couldn’t make out over all the other noises that engulfed her voice. For the first few seconds of her speaking to him, he looked confusedly between the bouncy woman and Sans. For the other half, his confusion faded away and was slowly replaced with an ever-growing, hateful glare being shot directly at Sans, making it pretty damn obvious she was telling him who Sans was.“Oh dear God.” He muttered to himself.Sans wanted to teleport out of the building as fast as he possibly could, but before he could even think of a place to go, Frisk came rushing towards him once more with the dragon stomping after her. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her back when she made it half-way there and started speaking to her again, making the occasional gesture in Sans’ direction.Sans swallowed heavily when the monster huffed angrily and continued walking up to Sans with Frisk. When he made it up to the now nervous skeleton, he looked up at him and threw his hand out aggressively. Sans could see the anger and hate burning in his gold and green eyes.“Japhire.” He said plainly, some smoke rising out of his mouth and spreading into the air as he spoke.Sans wanted to leave even more than he already did. It wasn’t as if Sans was afraid he’d get the lights knocked out of his sockets, the monster was shorter and skinny and looked as if he hadn’t worked out a day in his life. It was more or less the way the dragon acted towards him. It was clear he didn’t want Frisk near him, and Sans didn’t exactly want to have her taken away from him……Even if this monster’s reason was somewhat justified. Sans, in this guy’s eyes, was just some creep who followed Frisk home more than once and most likely would’ve continued if she hadn’t aimed a gun straight at his forehead that night.“Sans.” Sans managed to spit out as he grabbed the dragon’s hand and shook it slowly. Japhire nodded and his eyes narrowed.After a moment, Japhire let go of Sans’ hand and stepped away from him. He only stared at Sans with those angered eyes. Sans glanced over to Frisk. She only shrugged her shoulders with a nervous expression. She then stepped closer to Japhire and placed a hand on his shoulder. That look of pure hatred ceased as he turned towards her and a confused look took its place.“How about…” Frisk piped in, looking around the pub to find something the three could do. Her eyes lingered to the bar up front. “we just go get a drink and relax?”Japhire looked back to Sans, narrowed his eyes more, scanned his body, and nodded his head again. He made his way towards the counter with his hands shoved into his pockets. Frisk watched him disappear into the crowd before looking up at Sans.“I’m… I didn’t think he’d be like that.” She said, now looking down at her feet. Sans looked at her upset expression for a minute before sighing and smiling at her.“It’s fine. Really.” Sans muttered to her, nudging her arm slightly. “C’mon.”He strolled up to the counter, looking behind him every-so-often to make sure Frisk hadn’t gotten lost in the horde of drunken monsters as she sauntered after him. Whenever he looked, she’d look up and smile at him for a second to see if she was still walking straight behind him, only to look back down at her feet and slowly go off track again. Sans sighed and grabbed her wrist so she wouldn’t end up going completely astray or bumping into someone and pissing them off.Once they made it up to the crowded bar, Sans loosened his grip on her wrist and pulled three unoccupied stools into one spot with his free hand before letting go and stepping aside so Frisk could sit down. He even tried getting her to keep that smile on her face by acting as if he was some kind of butler. It worked, but only for about five minutes.Sans huffed and ordered her a drink to see if that would help. It came and she took an occasional sip, but didn’t seem to lighten up. Her brows furrowed sometimes as she told herself things that Sans couldn’t quite make out, only catching a few inaudible whispers, and would eventually rest at their normal spot as she gave up on the idea she came up with.He chanced a look at Japhire and noticed he was doing exactly what Sans was doing. They continued watching her for a while until he closed his eyes, sighed, and opened them again to look up at Sans.“So…” He began, his eyes darting around as he tried thinking of something to say. “how long are you staying in HOTLAND?”The tone in his voice was awkward and strained, making it clear to Sans that he didn’t want to start a conversation with him and was only doing it in hopes that it would make Frisk perk up again. “Up to two weeks.”“Just here for fun? Visiting family?” Japhire pushed on with the conversation.“Nah. It’s for my job.” Sans answered as he pulled a cigarette out of his breast pocket and put it between his teeth. “What about you two?”“My brother said he was coming up for a party,” Japhire said, gesturing to the ruckus going on behind them. “and said I could come along. I thought Frisk would’ve enjoyed coming too, so I invited her.”Japhire then placed his hand on Frisk’s back and smiled down at her. She didn’t look up at him, but a smile still spread across her face and she took another sip from her glass. Sans stared for a moment before he turned away with an inward grunt, waved the bartender down, and ordered another whiskey while Japhire took the chance to order a beer.“What do you guys even plan on doin’ up here?” Sans asked, finally conjuring his finger flame and lighting the cigarette still tightly clenched between his teeth and taking a drag from it.“Well,” Frisk chirped. “we’re here for the week, and Japhire said he found some places to go, so I guess we got some idea of how to keep ourselves from getting bored.”Sans nodded his head and took the cigarette out of his mouth, letting the smoke leak out of the gaps in his teeth as he looked towards the clock.9:27pmGreat. Only half an hour more of this and then he could just say his goodbyes to Frisk and waltz out like nothing had happened. Problem was, he still had to finish what he was trying to say earlier and she seemed a little distracted at the moment. Sans grudgingly turned his head and looked out of the corner of his socket. The two were talking and laughing like they had been before Sans approached Frisk. He didn’t want to interrupt that.With that, Sans stood up and walked to the door. He needed a break from all the noise that seemed to become louder with every passing second and the lights flashing everywhere were making him feel nauseous. He ignored Frisk when she tried reaching out to grab his arm, merely grazing the surface of his coat sleeve, and call him back. It was so hard for him to not look back at her.He only ever fully ignored someone like that when he really wasn’t in the mood to talk or be seen for that matter. The last time he did that was when he was younger and Papyrus had gotten absolutely pissed at him for reasons he couldn’t remember, but knew must’ve been worse than he’s ever done to get Papyrus so upset. He felt so bad that he refused to come out of his room or answer Wingdings when he came knocking.Once Sans made it outside, he took a deep breath and leaned up against the wall of the building and continued wearing down the cigarette until it was nothing but a butt he could throw to the ground, which was exactly what he did after he finished it off. He looked down at it with unfocused pupils before he snarled a little and stomped his foot down on it hard enough that a small amount of pain entered his foot from the impact. He sighed and leaned his head back. Now he felt like a pile of garbage and didn’t know why.He could hear someone shuffling past him and stopping so they could lean on the wall next to him. Instead of looking back down, he ignored it, assuming it was just some random individual who was just taking a break from whatever they were doing prior or something like that. Sans didn’t know. He didn’t plan on asking.Seconds later, he could feel a small hand rest gently on his arm, causing him to recoil away from the hand and shoot an irritated and confused expression down at the person who touched him. Frisk threw her hand back immediately after seeing that look on his face and was now obviously in regret about choosing to come outside to check on him. When Sans saw it was only Frisk, the anger fizzled away as quick as it came.“Oh.” He muttered. “Sorry. Didn’t know it was you.”Frisk continued staring up at him as she rested her arm at her side and scooted away a little. Sans let out another sigh and returned to leaning up against the wall. After a moment, she joined him again but didn’t touch him this time. He looked down at her. She was staring off into the distance, looking at all the large buildings and their overwhelmingly bright lights being emitted from them.“Nice view, eh?” Sans said, nudging her a little. She smiled and nodded.“Yeah… it’s really pretty.” She mumbled before looking up at the crimson sky. “Too bad there aren’t that many stars here. SNOWDIN is full of them.”Sans hadn’t really noticed the lack of stars in the sky above them. She was right. There was only a couple dotted here and there, whereas every inch of SNOWDIN’s sky was covered in stars and little streaks of green and blue light occasionally flying past during the long nights. They kept watching the stars slowly move across the sky, some, but very little, popping up as the sky became darker. Some of them even vanished as more building’s flashy signs and lights shined them out.Sans heard a small huff come out of Frisk. He looked down to see her staring at her feet with her arms crossed. He couldn’t help but smile at the pouty look she was making and tilt his head. “What’s the matter? Really that upset about some stars?”“No.” She said. “Just thinking about stuff.”“What kind of stuff?” He asked. “If you don’t mind me asking.”“Just silly little things, nothing important.” She said with a small smile that, despite her best efforts, appeared sadder than the happy look she sought.“Oh... alright.” Sans said.Minutes had passed and the two hadn’t spoken a word to each other. A voice in Sans’ head kept telling him was the time to address what a stupid idea it was for her to come here, but he chose to let it ramble on as he focused on his surroundings. She was safe as long as he was here with her.“Where’s your friend?” Sans asked. Frisk smile became more genuine and mischievous when Japhire was mentioned. “Oh boy. What did you do?”“Just brought a girl up to the bar for him to talk to.” She said before placing her hand on her chin. “Mostly to see how much he’d mess it up. It was worth it for what I saw.”“Wow.” Sans snickered. “Why’d you do that?”“I don’t know.” Frisk shrugged. “Just felt like it. Anyways, it kept him distracted so I could sneak out here. Hell, maybe she likes big dorks who act tough and they’ll hit it off.”“Maybe.” Sans repeated, now smiling a bit. “Now I’m curious, though.”“So am I…” Frisk muttered.They looked at each other for a moment before giggling like little kids and rushing inside to see how it was going so far. They sat down at a table close to Japhire and the woman’s seats at the bar and watched intently at the scene laid out before them.Japhire was sweating like he had just finished running around the building ten times and hardly spoke as the canine woman chattered to him happily. The more the conversation went on between them, the more Frisk and Sans focused. They had gotten so fixated on what was going on to the point they were barely blinking and their eyes stayed locked onto the two monsters, hoping to not miss anything sudden.After ten minutes had passed, the woman stood from her stool and pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of her purse. Sans and Frisk glanced at each with goofy smiles plastered onto their faces. The woman wrote down what they could only assume was her number and handed it to Japhire. She then pecked a kiss onto his cheek and walked out of the bar with her tail wagging swiftly.“Holy shit.” Frisk said with a laugh.“I’ll have to start calling you the love witch.” Sans teased. Frisk lightly whacked his arm before she stood up.“Let’s go congratulate him.” Frisk said with another impish smirk. Sans stood up after her and began walking, but stopped and checked the time on his watch. His SOUL skipped a beat.9:55pm“Dammit.” He hissed.“What’s wrong?” Frisk asked with her brow raised. Sans looked up at her with an apologetic smile.“Look, I gotta get goin’ now so-““What?” Frisk said, a clearly disappointed tone in her voice. “Now?”Sans couldn’t help but get a little agitated and antsy as he began heading to the door. “Yes, now.”He almost spun around and snapped at Frisk when he heard her heels clicking on the floor as she began following him. He stopped, turned to face her with a stern expression, and shook his head. “You ain’t comin’ with me, Frisk.”“But-““Just stay here.” Sans said, trying his best to keep a composed tone with her. ”It won’t take long. Promise.”He didn’t spare her another glance as he started walking towards the doors once more. Fortunately, he didn’t hear her following him again, but she didn’t walk away, either. All she did was stand in the same place and watch him leave the building with that upset look on her face.After making it outside, he turned into the alleyway next to the building that separated it from the restaurant beside it. He let out a heavy sigh, walked into the dark space, and sat down on a large wooden crate labeled “Poppy’s” on the sides before lighting up another cigarette while he waited.A little over seven minutes went by when Sans finally heard three sets of footsteps down the dark alley, cueing him to stand back up as the monsters got closer. Out of all the deals he’d be making in HOTLAND, this was the only one that had a familiar face, although it was a face he didn’t want to see.“Sans, my boy!” said a rough voice. Sans’ brows furrowed and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Glad you could make it!”The grimy raccoon monster stepped even closer so he was visible and two giant beaver monsters followed behind him. Sans glared down at the raccoon as he opened the corner of his mouth to release the smoke that had been lingering inside his mouth.“Devin.” Sans muttered before looking around and behind the beavers. “Where’s Mike? He said he’d be here.”“Ah, big guy couldn’t make it.” Devin said. “He has lots of work to take care of.”“Fuckin’ fantastic.” Sans growled as he threw the butt of his cigarette to the ground.He was about to pull another one out of his pocket to see if it would calm him down, but before he had the chance, the beaver on Devin’s left stepped forward with a big box under his arm. Sans could feel his iris’ magic swirl around inside of his socket. Devin quickly threw his paws up with a worried expression.“No, no! It’s just the supplies!” Devin explained, panic in his voice. “Ricky won’t hurt ya!”Even after the beaver had thrown the box down and opened it up to show to Sans, his magic continued to increase. The beaver gave Sans a goofy, apologetic smile and stepped away from him. Sans looked down at the box. Everything was there and ready for the next dealing. He sighed and reached into his coat, pulled out a stack of cash, and tossed it to Devin.“Gimme a damn warning next time.” Sans advised. Devin nodded and gave the cash to the beaver to his right.“Go take that back. I’ll catch up in a second.” He said to the beavers. They instantly ran off, not wanting to be near the skeleton that almost attacked them. “Dummies.”He then turned back to Sans with a toothy smile and came closer. Sans wondered how many women he tried charming with that smile. It wasn’t a pretty sight.“Alright, since Mike felt bad for not being able to come, he’s giving you what you need and a little extra.” Devin said, gesturing to the box’s components.“What? What am I supposed to do with it?” Sans asked. “I don’t do this shit.”Devin looked to him and shrugged. “You could probably just sell it, too. Do whatever with it. He didn’t say anything specific.”“Better than doing nothing I guess.” Sans said as he closed the box and lifted it up into his arms.“Yep. Welp… I should get back to Mike now, hurry up home with that box before someone sees what its got in it.”“Yeah, yeah. I’ve done this before.” Sans said. “I’ll be seeing you, Devin.”Devin smirked and waved before darting down the alleyway and jumping onto the dumpster next to the restaurant, jumping up to a window ledge, and crawling onto the roof of the building.Sans watched him go and waited a good five minutes to make sure he was completely gone and didn’t plan on trying anything stupid. He then teleported back to the resort and dropped the heavy box onto the floor of the bedroom. He pulled his phone out and sent a message to Wingdings that the first deal was finished, shoved the phone back into his pocket, and teleported back to the pub.----Frisk sat at a table close to the main entrance as she waited for Sans to return from wherever he went. Japhire passed out at the bar counter after drinking something much stronger than he normally drank a few minutes ago, so she couldn’t have him to keep her company while she waited. It had only been ten minutes and she was getting slightly worried. Exhaustion started taking over, leading to her resting her head on the table and closing her eyes.She almost fell asleep, which was shocking because of the loud music threatening to burst her eardrums, but before her mind could fully shut off, she felt a sharp jab on her shoulder. She opened her sore eyes and looked up to see Draco standing next to her.“You okay? You’re over here all by yourself.” Draco said with a small smile. “Where’s Japhire?”“I’m fine. He’s over there.” Frisk pointed to the unconscious dragon who was now getting annoyed side glances from the bartender. “He got a new lady friend earlier.”Draco pulled out the chair next to her and sat down. “Is that why you look so down?”Frisk’s brows furrowed a little. “What? No. She left a while ago, anyway.”“Then what’s wrong?” He asked.“I said-“He shushed her and leaned closer. “I’m not stupid. You also suck at lying.”“I’m just getting worried about someone. That’s it.” She grunted as she sat back up.“You made a friend?” Draco asked, obviously a little amazed. Frisk couldn’t tell if he was meaning that in a bad or good way.“No, I met him in SNOWDIN a couple days ago.” She began. “Also, why do you sound so surprised?”“It’s not because of you or anything.” He said quickly. “People here, they just aren’t that friendly.”“Oh.” Frisk said, placing her elbow on the table’s surface and resting her chin on her palm. “Why aren’t you with your friends?”“They left.” He said plainly. “They got pretty buzzed so they decided to go home for the night.”“Does that mean you’ll be heading out, too?” Frisk asked.“Probably.” Draco said. “What about you? When’re you leaving?”“I’m not sure. I’m hoping he’ll come back before I go.” She said with a huff. “If he doesn’t, maybe I’ll see him tomorrow.”Draco’s ears dropped a little and he looked up at the clock. “It’s getting late. How about we just head back? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.”“Can’t we just wait a tiny bit longer?” Frisk pleaded. “I’d feel bad leaving without an explanation.”“…..Fine.” Draco sighed. “But if he’s not here in a few minutes, we’re leaving. And I’m not just going to leave you here by yourself. I don’t trust people.”Frisk was about to mention Japhire as an excuse and Draco must’ve known because he gave her a look as if she were stupid. He was right, though. What would Japhire be able to do in his state? She gave him a sigh of defeat and nodded her head.“Good.” He said before standing up again and walking to the bar to retrieve his drunken brother.The minutes passed and nothing happened. Draco even gave it a couple more minutes after he saw Frisk’s upset expression as she stared at the doors. Frisk glared at the entrance for a moment and then proceeded to stand up, collect her purse from the back of the chair, and quickly walk out of the building with Draco behind her carrying Japhire over his shoulder.She stayed silent the entire walk back and only said a few hellos to the others after they made it to and inside the house, only focused on getting up the stairs into her room and fall asleep. She could hear the others asking why she looked so upset as she hopped into bed and slowly drifted off into a sleep devoid of any nightmares or dreams.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Sans sighed. His breathing was rough from the anger and disappointment he felt that was only growing more every second since he found out he had been gone too long and Frisk had left the pub. He occasionally kicked a stone or broken piece of the sidewalk below him bitterly out onto the streets or at objects around him as he made his way back to his room at the resort.All he wanted was to spend some time with her, learn more about her, maybe even open up about himself, which was a rare thing for him to do. He never liked opening up to people he met so soon. Pushing him to spit things out just resulted in him getting pissed off and him barking at whoever had asked. Good thing ladies never did that when he tried dating for the first time back in high school. Bad thing that was pretty obvious due to not wanting to know anything about him, they only wanted to mess around.He only had one successful date, which led to more and more dates between the two. Soon she became his girlfriend, but she spoiled any love he felt for her only a week after hooking up. The thought of her alone made him grunt and tell himself he was an idiot. After that, he avoided trying to be with someone and barely even talked to his friends. He slowly lost them, one-by-one, because of his reclusiveness. He missed having his friends to hang out with, but he was at least happy he had Papyrus and Wingdings to come back home to every day. They meant more than the world to him and he’d do everything in his power to protect them when he had to, even if it were for silly things and not anything actually life-threatening.Of course, he eventually realized how little he cared that that woman was gone. But he could never shake the feeling it was somehow his fault she ended up doing what she had done. His friends, on the other hand, left him in the worst mood whenever he saw them walking past him in the hallways or just spotting them across a room. He made new friends over time, too many to count, which was an absolute shocker to him because of how dull he was most times. He never got into another relationship, though. He didn’t want the exact same thing to happen again.But when it came down to Frisk…Sans was surprised with how quickly he truly enjoyed hanging out with her. It had only been a few days, after all. He wanted to know more about her to the point he’d give his job to someone else if he could just to be with her instead of running off into shady areas to sell shit to shadier people, buying the shit they had if he needed it to sell to other people. He almost got killed by some assholes who attempted taking what they were supposed to pay for without paying for the supplies. Luckily, Sans’ magic instinctively teleported him out of the way and behind the group of monsters. Unfortunately, his anxiousness and anger got the best of him. He ended up murdering two of the monsters within seconds of teleporting behind them. He injured a third monster, but not enough to cause any permanent damage, and he was carried off by the other four that were there who ran away in fear of being attacked as well.The deaths he caused didn’t faze him. He killed before, but never because he really wanted to. It was mostly out of defense or it was a given order to hunt down and kill a specific monster. He’d even stay and watch in remorse or delight, depending on the situation, as the monster he attacked slowly bled out and turned to a pile of dust right before his eyes. Some would be hurt so badly they would turn to dust immediately after the attack. Others would take minutes, or hours, to die and would plead that Sans just put them out of their misery then and there so they didn’t have to suffer.Whenever Sans killed, he’d always ask himself the same thing: “What if Papyrus found out?”Wingdings always knew, either being told alongside Sans before he went to do the job or being told by Sans when he came back home. To ensure Papyrus wouldn’t know, Sans would make sure to clean himself off before walking through the door and have the biggest, fakest smile he could put on display for his little brother. Papyrus always fell for his happy act and would just greet him and continue making dinner. When Sans first started taking this damned job, he’d come home way to quickly in fear of being wounded or ambushed by people that could be hiding behind objects in case the people they came with were hurt. This would lead to him entering the house spooked and covered in blood, dust, or a mix of both.“What’s all over your clothes?” A younger Papyrus would ask him when he ran down the stairs or jumped off the couch to welcome Sans back home, always wearing one of Sans’ sweaters that hung low on his much smaller figure. Sans would lie to him and quickly put a smile on before rushing up to his father’s room and putting the money in his lap as he sat writing stuff for work or sketching out new weapons he’d wish to make at his desk. He’d stop Sans before he could leave the room to ask him how the deal went, telling him he did a good job by the end of the talk.Sans just about walked right past the resort as he thought about his other deals he made when he was younger. He had to narrow his sockets and dim his pupil’s light to make sure the lights coming from the building wouldn’t blind him. He had been walking in the dark and only passed a few other buildings that didn’t have lights anywhere near as bright as these did for a good while, so seeing the lights here were overwhelming to say the least. He stared at the building for a little longer, slowly letting his sockets open fully and adding the light back to his pupils in hopes he’d get used to the horrid flashing lights before walking inside and heading straight for his room.The fancy monsters glowered at him again in disgust as he walked by them. Sans didn’t care, but he did feel like disappearing instantly at the sound of those clicking boot heels that were swiftly approaching. He didn’t even bother running since he knew Mettaton could catch up, so he teleported into his room instead, which drained him even more. Once he made it into the room, all he did was tiredly walk up to the couch and drop onto it, only taking a moment to get comfortable before sighing heavily and passing out.……“…What if she found out?”----Frisk woke up with a throbbing headache that pounded painfully in her head. The pain made her vision slightly blurry and made it difficult to throw the covers off and sit up. She groaned and tried rubbing her head gently to help soothe the horrible aching but only ended up making the pain worsen. She huffed angrily, threw her legs over the side of the bed so they touched the floor, and hoisted herself off of the mattress. Once she had fully stood up, she realized she had fallen asleep with the chunky heels she wore the previous night.She glared down at them and kicked them off into the corner of the room. She then sloppily dragged herself over to the end of the bed to grab some clothes. Without looking at what she grabbed, she walked to the door and flung it open, continuing out into the hallway and stepping into the bathroom. She looked in the mirror the second she closed the door behind her and grimaced when she saw the lipstick she had on her lips was now smudged all over from when she tossed and turned to get comfortable last night.Frisk turned on the water and began brushing her messy hair while she waited for the water to warm up enough for her to get the makeup off of her face and maybe help her wake up a little. After brushing all the knots out of her short locks, she reached back and pulled the zipper down on her dress and slipped her arms out of the short sleeves, letting the dress fall to the ground after shimmying it off of her torso. Frisk stared down at the dress with a small amount of hate. Yes, it was a pretty dress and Frisk did enjoy wearing it the night prior, but having it on for as long as she did was awful and sleeping in it surely didn’t help. She stepped out of it, picked it up, and folded it neatly before laying it on the sink counter.Frisk then turned around to open the cabinet behind her and pull out a washcloth. She closed the cabinet door again and faced the sink again, wetting the cloth completely and bending over to clean the makeup off of her face. She could feel the makeup being wiped away and some dripping off of her face with the warm water into the sink. After scrubbing her face clean of the makeup, she looked up into the mirror and at her reflection, sighing with relief now that it was no longer caked onto her face.She dried her face and rinsed the cloth clean of any leftover makeup before ringing it out into the sink, watching the mix of red and black water flow down the drain, and hanging it up over a hook to dry. She could always use it later, anyways. She then proceeded to brush her teeth and put the clothes she swiped randomly out of her bag on. Frisk was glad to see they actually matched and didn’t look messy. After cleaning up, she headed back out of the bathroom and back into the guest room to hang the dress up for another time. Once she was finished, she quietly dashed down the stairs and looked around to see if anyone else was roused yet.She checked every single room downstairs and failed to find anyone up and about. She would feel bad waking someone up just so she wouldn’t be lonely for another couple of hours, so she decided this would be the time to go outside for a walk to look around HOTLAND. She planned on looking around the area more on her own anyhow, so this was the perfect opportunity. Frisk quickly and silently ran back upstairs to grab her phone and slip her flats onto her feet and ran right back down the staircase, snatching a water bottle from the fridge, and swiftly, albeit messily, scribbled a note onto a slip of paper before leaving in case someone worried. “Someone” largely referring to Japhire. He gets worried when he doesn’t hear her say she has to use the restroom, so either a note or screaming in his ear was a necessity.Frisk walked outside, shut the door behind her, hopped off the porch, and began walking towards the town’s entrance. It was still fairly dark outside and barely any people in the neighborhood had gotten up yet. Frisk didn’t mind the darkness and silence that now surrounded her; she actually enjoyed it quite a bit. As she came closer to the open gate that separated the neighborhood from the city, she could hear the faint, ever-growing sounds of monsters chattering and walking loudly alongside vehicles zooming down the streets and honking at each other on occasion. She walked through the gates and continued farther until all the ashy, amber-speckled trees that bordered the road leading into the town had vanished and were being replaced by building after building.The vast amount of noises coming from the busy street became louder and louder as she approached them, already loud enough that it sounded as if she was in the middle of it all but was still a good block or two away from it. She was prepared to have her eardrums burst once she made it completely to the area. After a few minutes, she turned a corner and immediately saw all sorts of monsters in business wear walking about and cars filling up every inch of road Frisk could see. The wide sidewalks were flooded with monsters eager to get to their place of work, going as far as shoving other monsters out of their paths or barking at them for little to no reason at all from what Frisk could see. She could feel a grimace settle onto her face as she took a deep breath and walked right into the large horde.She looked straight ahead as she made her way through the crowd, flinching a little when monsters walking past her elbowed her unintentionally. She noticed some monsters were giving her nasty looks. Ones far, far worse than the ones she received back in SNOWDIN. Others were giving her looks of complete awe, but Frisk couldn’t exactly guess why. Maybe it was the same reason that tall fellow back at the bar, Sans’ brother, looked so astonished. They’d never been so close to a human, close enough they could reach out and touch her if they really wanted to.Frisk always wondered why monsters never tried attacking her. Most monsters were taller and bigger than humans, while some others were short and small and only went up to Frisk’s shoulders. Sans was on the shorter side, but he still towered over Frisk……Sans.Frisk had forgotten about him for a moment. She could feel a glare make its way onto her face and her frown from before deepened. Why didn’t he come back like he promised? Why did he take so long?... She sighed and the small amount of anger she had melted away. She shouldn’t be mad at him. He was doing his job and probably lost track of time. Maybe he was just tired and planned on telling her next he saw her. Maybe…Frisk felt a horrible feeling set itself heavily somewhere in her chest, but she wasn’t exactly sure where the feeling had rested. It didn’t feel normal. She became a small bit worried now.“No, he’s fine. You know that. He showed you what he can do. Hell, he only showed you a little bit of what his magic could do. He can take care of himself. Who would be thoughtless enough to try to hurt him?” A voice reassured her. She nodded. The voice in her head had a point. Sans was a strong monster, despite how he appeared.With that knowledge now in her head keeping her calm, she continued walking down the street and taking a few turns every-so-often to venture into newer parts instead of going in a straight line for ages. Despite all the turns she made, it seemed the crowd only got bigger and bigger and more nasty looks and growls were thrown at her. Halfway through the mess, Frisk spotted a small, yellow lizard monster carrying a stack of papers in her short, stubby arms, trying her best to not drop any but having a hard time doing so as monsters continuously shoved her or bumped into her without looking back to see if she was alright or stopped to see if she needed help. She never did anything back. She didn’t yell at them, didn’t shove back, she didn’t even look back at them.All she did was pause to pick up anything that was knocked out of her hands or look down at her feet with the most miserable expression Frisk had ever seen someone wear. After gathering her papers off of the ground, she once again began her slow progress through the crowd and never made direct eye contact with anybody. She’d occasionally bend over to pick up a piece of paper or a folder filled to the brim with papers after another monster bumped into her. Frisk could even see some smiling smugly, making it painfully obvious they had done it on purpose.Frisk felt bad and cautiously made her way up to the woman. She could hear her cursing herself under her breath and breathing like she just ran a marathon. She was so focused on getting past all the other monsters that she didn’t even notice Frisk now walking right beside her. Frisk waited a moment before tapping her shoulder gently, causing her to jump and shoot her head in Frisk’s direction. Frisk smiled softly and gestured to the pile in her arms.“Do you need any help with that?” She asked. The monster stared up at Frisk with wide eyes and her jaw dropped for a solid thirty seconds before snapping out of her surprised state and nodding her head.Frisk tucked her water bottle under her arm and grabbed more than half of the stack, holding them closely and tightly to her chest so she wouldn’t drop any of them and continued following the woman once she began walking again. She never actually kept an eye on Frisk, which confused her slightly. One would think she’d watch a stranger holding her things in case they tried running off with them but based off of what Frisk had seen, the little monster probably wouldn’t have done anything about it besides become unhappy again and continue to her destination.A few minutes had passed and Frisk really wanted to start a conversation with the lizard, but she didn’t look like the type to talk openly to a person she was unfamiliar with. Frisk looked around at their surroundings, noticing the buildings were becoming a little more high-tech the closer they got to the castle that loomed above on what Frisk assumed was a large, inactive volcano or just a giant piece of shaped obsidian. Frisk then peered down at the monster’s uniform. It was a clean, white lab coat with some kind of symbol on the breast pocket and sleeve. Her eyes then rolled over to a small, plastic pin.“Alphys?” Frisk read it aloud. The woman quickly looked up at Frisk with a confused expression. “Is that your name?”Her cheeks flushed a little and small sweat beads formed on her face as she nodded and looked down at her bare feet.“I like that name.” Frisk muttered to the woman, making her sweat even more and her blush deepen, but now a wobbly smile replaced her awkward frown. She supposed the woman only ever got a compliment every once in a while or not at all if it made her look that happy.“…T-thank you.” Frisk heard Alphys whisper. Frisk felt her own smile reappear.Eventually they made a turn down another street, finally escaping the crowded street they had been struggling to make it through moments before and entering a less populated street that had all sorts of funky looking buildings. Alphys seemed to relax once they made the turn and began walking faster, obviously familiar with her surroundings or at least a lot more comfortable in this area.She adjusted her glasses before looking up at Frisk, the wobbly smile gone and no longer sweating or blushing. “Only a little further.”“Alright.” Frisk said with a nod. “Where are we going anyway?”“To that building.” Alphys replied as she pointed to the giant lab that Frisk had spotted when they were driving past the city. “It’s where I work.”“You work in that lab?” Frisk asked, not able to contain the interest in her tone. Alphys nodded. “What do you do?”“I just make gadgets and stuff for the royal family whenever they need me to. Sometimes I get other monsters looking to buy certain things, but…” Alphys paused and visibly shuttered. “What they want me to create for them would most likely lead to bad things happening. This cursed city has enough problems as is.”“Oh…” Frisk mumbled. “What… what do you do when you aren’t working?”“Oh, I just make silly little gadgets for fun whenever I’m not busy with something else. My g-“ Alphys stopped again and made a hissing noise instead of finishing whatever she planned on saying. A blush took over her entire face as she shook her head. “-friend, my friend... She likes to come over to the lab and watch me create things whenever she isn’t on duty.”“That’s nice.” Frisk said with a smile. “What does she do?”“S-she works for the king, too. She’s the captain of the Royal Guard. But they haven’t been able to do anything as of late…” Alphys said with an upset look.“What do you mean?”“The queen won’t let the Guard go out into the city to stop criminals from doing horrible things to other monsters. She won’t even tell anyone why.” Alphys said bitterly. “I’m pretty sure she’s only doing it so the princes can’t be locked up for the millionth time.”“Why would she do that?” Frisk asked. “If she knows other monsters are getting injured because of her actions, why wouldn’t she do something about it?”“She only cares about her damn kids.” Alphys explained in a loud tone. “She doesn’t care about anyone else. I don’t even think she cares about herself.”Before Frisk could say anything else regarding the subject, Alphys perked up and made a turn towards the lab. Frisk didn’t even notice they had made it there already. She followed Alphys up a long white path that lead to a big set of white marble stairs. After reaching the top of the staircase, Alphys carefully put the rest of the papers in Frisk’s arms and tapped some sort of code into a small panel that had wires poking out of it and running into the building’s exterior. Once she pressed a green button at the bottom of the panel, the large sliding doors quickly shot open.Alphys smiled at the familiar sight behind the metal doors and turned back to Frisk. The smile faded and she made an expression that made it seem as if she was thinking hard about something. She huffed and held her finger up before walking into the building. Frisk heard several switches being clicked and some levers being pulled from inside, making her slightly worried and wondering if Alphys turned something off… or turned something on. She then reemerged at the doorway and ushered Frisk inside. The second Frisk had her entire body in the large room, the metal doors slammed shut, causing her to jump and tense up knowing if the doors closed before she made it completely in, she’d most likely be sliced in half.“Just set the papers on my desk over there, please. I’ll be back in a jiffy!” Alphys called out to Frisk as she went up an escalator off to the side of the room and out of sight. Frisk could hear Alphys’ feet tapping on the floor of the room above her.She treaded over to the cluttered desk and carefully rested the pile on the desk surface, making sure they were neatly stacked by patting the sides with her hands. She then leaned against the wall and looked around the room. Wires, tubes, and pipes, where all over the ceiling and lead into other rooms she couldn’t see and some had fluids rushing through them. Frisk noticed a group of tubes in the corner of the room running along the wall and under a door across the room. The fluids flowing swiftly through them were black and sludgy and looked as if they were boiling within the tubes, producing steam on the outside. The door was a simple metal door that opened from the ground up and had a small metal sign on it that read “Bathroom,” but Frisk knew that probably wasn’t what it really was.Frisk then glanced down at Alphys’ desk and examined all the objects that laid on it. There were several empty bowls that had been stacked on top of one another lazily and were leaning against the wall, lots of papers that were scattered about and most if not all had a least one circle, crossed out section, or extra set of sentences added onto them with red pen, a small figurine of a woman with cat ears and a tail that looked as if a dog had chewed on it more than once, and a photo of Alphys smiling shyly with a fish monster who was giving the camera a sharp, toothy grin and flexing her muscular arms. Attached to the wall were a few large monitors that all had live recordings on them. All but one centered in the middle had different areas of HOTLAND on them, while the middle one had a recording of a dark room. Frisk had to get right in front of the screen and squint to make out a huge white figure balled up and breathing slowly and hoarsely as it slept.Frisk immediately leapt away from the monitors when she heard Alphys coming down the escalator again. She stood nervously next to Alphys’ desk with a small, forced smile on her face, hoping Alphys wouldn’t be able to tell Frisk had been snooping a little. Alphys smiled pleasantly at her as she walked over to the desk; making it clear she was oblivious to Frisk’s nosiness. She stared at the monitors intently, her eyes scanning over them individually and eventually stopping and glaring right at the middle screen that held the snoozing monster. She hummed, satisfied, and grabbed a black notepad that was stashed behind the monitors and began writing something with a strange looking pen. It looked normal aside from a set of small pipes twirling around inside of the plastic tube the pen was made up of and swishing a sparkly, glowing substance around. Frisk couldn’t read what Alphys was writing on the paper, but her curiosity was piqued when she noticed that the ink disappeared after the pen tip left the paper. Alphys then hid the notebook once more and tossed the pen into a small box under the desk that was filled with pens that looked just like it, expect the other pens didn’t have the same glowing liquid running through them.Alphys stepped away from the desk again, walked up to a large bag of dog food sitting in the corner of the room, and started dragging it towards the metal “Bathroom” door. She typed a code into another panel connected to the door before turning to Frisk and smiling sheepishly.“I have some work to do now…” She said with a strained voice from pulling the heavy bag. “Thank you so much for your help, I really do appreciate it.”“No problem.” Frisk said with a soft smile. “I’ll see you around maybe?”“Of course!” Alphys wheezed. “Actually, here, take this.”Alphys dropped the bag and rushed over to Frisk with her hand in her breast pocket. She pulled a small piece of paper with a number written on it and handed it to Frisk.“It’s my phone number. You can call whenever you want to.” Alphys continued with the wobbly smile she had on before. “If I don’t answer, just leave a message or something, I’ll call back as soon as I can… Or you could just throw it away.”“No, no, I’ll keep it.” Frisk reassured her with a warm smile as she tucked the piece of paper into her purse. “Thank you.”Alphys nodded and waved a little before turning back to the large bag of dog food and continued trying to push it through the metal door’s opening and into what Frisk could see was an elevator. Frisk watched her for a moment, only turning to leave once Alphys noticed her staring at her failed attempts to move the bag. The two exchanged awkward smiles before Frisk turned and quickly shuffled out the main door. Once Frisk made it outside, she leaned up against the metal surface and looked around at her surroundings. Alphys had taken her pretty far away from where she was when she spotted the lizard struggling to make it through the crowd of monsters with her papers, so this area was even more unfamiliar and confusing than the previous location. There were far more twists and turns here and there were more monsters walking around here than in the area she had been in earlier. She couldn’t tell how far away she was from the town and she most certainly couldn’t remember which paths they had taken to arrive at the lab. Frisk groaned and hoisted herself off of the door and rushed down the large staircase, down the path leading up to the building, and chose a random direction to head in, hoping she’d be able to recognize something that might help her head back the way she was. Problem was that all the buildings looked oddly similar, aside from those ugly pink buildings Frisk remembered from the drive.She continued walking down countless streets and making endless turns. She’d usually end up having to turn around, knowing she was going the wrong way or the street ended at a building, making a dead end. Some streets were long enough to make Frisk realize how much her legs ached from all the walking and make her turn around to go a different way. As time passed, more and more monsters had left the busy streets to go into buildings to work, went home, or went into one of the many flashy stores to shop or restaurants to eat lunch. Frisk’s legs were hurting so badly that she just wanted to fall onto her knees or collapse up against something to let them rest, but she kept going. Eventually, she found a group of benches lined up on the sides of some buildings neatly where some monsters sat reading the daily paper, playing around on their phones, and eating their lunches. She sighed in defeat, no longer able to keep going, and walked over to a bench and sat down. The pain in her legs died down a little instantly and a sigh escaped from her mouth. Now she had to think. She had to think about how on Earth she was going to make it back home before the sun had set. She was certain she’d make it back before then, but she knew she shouldn’t get her hopes up, especially since she’d never been in this city before. She huffed and pulled her phone out of her purse, hoping she’d be able to find an accurate map of the city.A few minutes passed as she searched for a map. The only ones she managed to find were only for certain areas, which she found strange, so they weren’t helpful in the slightest. She searched for what felt like hours and ultimately gave up. She almost considered just calling Draco to come pick her up, but shuffling feet and panicky noises in the alley next to her spot on the bench drew her attention away from her thoughts and she leaned over to look down the dark alleyway. In the darkness, Frisk could spot a small rat monster holding something close to his chest running away from two figures that stood at the very end of the alley.“L-leave me alone!” He squealed.The two individuals following lagged behind as one lightly grabbed the other’s shoulder and said something to them that Frisk couldn’t make out. The figure being held back shook the other off and hissed at them before continuing to follow the rat. Frisk saw the approaching person pull a knife from behind their back and hold it to their side, prepared to use it when ready. The monster ran for only a short while longer until tripping on a rock dead in his path and falling to the ground, causing the person to chuckle. The monster held the object in his arms so tightly and protectively in one hand while the other was covering his head as he shook uncontrollably before the pursuer. The figure at the end of the alley, that Frisk could see now was a monster, was quivering slightly and shielding their eyes, not wanting to see whatever was about to happen. The closer figure looked back at them in disappointment before turning to the frightened rat again and raising their leg high above his back. Frisk heard several sharp cracks and a cry of pain escape the rat’s mouth when the figure stomped down onto his back harshly, effectively breaking some bones and crushing whatever it was that he had been holding onto so protectively when his body was forcefully shoved onto the concrete beneath him.Frisk could hear a shrill giggle come from the figure that had just broken the poor monster’s back, and possibly his ribs, that sounded like the monster’s suffering was the funniest thing they had seen in weeks. The other figure, however, turned away from the scene and doubled over, gagging and covering his mouth to make sure he wouldn’t throw up. Frisk wanted to bolt into the alleyway right then and there, but she couldn’t. She was stuck, frozen from fear. She felt as though she had been glued to the bench or had restraints on her to keep her in place. She couldn’t even tear her eyes away. All she could do was continue watching the horrible scene play out in front of her while other monsters around were either oblivious to the situation or chose to ignore it out of fear they’d be hurt too or just because they didn’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. The figure stopped giggling and began to press their boot deeper into the rat’s back. He wailed louder and tried escaping, but only managed to move an inch away before the figure rose their foot again and stomped down harder. The monster started coughing up globs of blood and heavy tears began to fall and roll down his fuzzy cheeks and built up in little puddles on the ground. They laughed again. It was so much colder sounding than the last. The pain this monster was feeling and the loud crunches and snaps his bones made was really entertaining this sick person.Finally, the figure stepped off of the monster’s back, but instead of just walking away, he bent down and whispered something to the man. It must’ve been horrifying because his eyes widened in fear. The figure then flipped him over with the kick of his foot, revealing the large puddle of blood that had been building up underneath him and several bones poking out of his matted fur. They grabbed the now blood soaked item the monster had been holding, straightened themselves again, and turned to leave. They quickly stopped and stood in place for a moment before turning back around and aggressively stomping their foot down onto the monster’s head, producing even more cracking noises and causing a large amount of blood to pour out of his mouth, nose, and some that trickled out of his eyes. There weren’t any cries of pain from the rat this time. One part of Frisk hoped that he was still alive, but a more reasonable part of her hoped even more that he was dead so he didn’t have to suffer through the pain caused by that terrible person any longer. The more reasonable side of her mind’s hope was made true when she watched his bloody corpse slowly fade away, leaving a pile of dust and his messy jacket in its place.The figure smiled satisfyingly at the sight of the man’s dust and before they turned to walk away once more, they put on a sinister smile and looked directly up at Frisk. Those piercing red eyes sent a shiver down Frisk’s spine as they looked right through her like an open door. Chara chuckled again, dropped his knife onto the pile of dust, and walked down the alleyway to the horrified monster that waited for him. He muttered something to the monster while gesturing to the rat’s dust before patting his shoulder and turning a corner. The monster, Asriel, seemed to be just as frozen with terror as Frisk was if not more. He looked around the alley, hoping to find something that could cover the large pile of dust up until it could be disposed of later. He found a big blue tarp and threw it over the dust, looking down at it with sorrow in his eyes and placing his paw over it for a second before swiftly, albeit hesitantly, following after his acquaintance.Frisk stared at the tarp for almost ten minutes before she snapped back to reality and began hyperventilating. Out of sheer fright, she hurriedly ran away from the alley, wanting to get as far away as she could from the gruesome scene she just witnessed. She continued running blindly, occasionally shoving past other monsters and receiving dirty looks from them. She didn’t care where she ended up, as long as it wasn’t anywhere near that alley. As long as it wasn’t near that man’s dust. She kept running until she reached the edge of the road. She bent over the rails that prevented someone from falling off the edge and into the hot, bubbling lava below and gripped onto the bars so tightly that her knuckled became white. She panted heavily and could feel the sweat pouring down her face. Her legs ached and a painful stitch had made its way into her side while she was running, but she hadn’t noticed during her panic attack induced run. She couldn’t run anymore. It’s not like she even had a reason to run away, Chara didn’t seem interested in hurting her at that moment. He just laughed, finding great amusement in her obviously terrified form. Frisk couldn’t stop picturing the troubling sight. Images of the encounter flashed in her head on a loop. The rat’s dust, his bloodied body before he faded away, Chara’s glowing crimson eyes, and the knife he dropped right into the pile of dust. Why did he do that? What was the point? Wouldn’t his finger prints be on the weapon? Was he trying to make it seem like the rat did it to himself?Suddenly, a large hand set it itself firmly on Frisk’s shoulder. She gasped and, still incredibly anxious, leapt away from the unexpected touch and tried running away again, only to be stopped when the hand quickly grabbed her upper arm tightly and yanked her back to where she was standing before. She kept trying to shimmy out of the monster’s grasp but the more she moved, the tighter their grip became. She was about to scream, but before she could, a familiar voice rang in her ears.“F-frisk!” Sans’ deep voice struggled to spit out as Frisk wiggled around, trying to get away. “What the hell is the matter with ya?!”----Frisk instantly stopped trying to pull away the second she heard Sans’ voice and shot her head back at him. The second he got a good look of her appearance, he felt his sockets widen from shock. Her cheeks were flushed, sweat was pouring down her face, she was breathing deeply, and he could hear her heart hammering against her ribcage, threatening to burst out of her chest at any given moment. She let out a sigh of relief when she saw it was only him, held her finger up at him, and turned her head in the other direction so she could steady her breaths and try to calm down. Without really thinking, Sans reached his free hand to her chin and turned her head back to him. Her brows furrowed and she averted her gaze from his. She gently grabbed his wrist and moved it away from her face, which made him realize he was still grabbing her arm. When he let go of her, he flinched at the mark he had left on her small, fragile arm. She looked down and glared at the hand-shaped bruise, but otherwise, it didn’t seem to bother her.“Shit, sorry.” Sans muttered. “A-are you alright?”All he got in response was a small nod. He stopped and watched her continue to breathe rapidly for a moment, even seeing her reach up and rub the bruise he gave her, before stepping closer and resting his hand on her lower back.“Why were you running?” He asked. She looked away from him again and down to her feet. Sans huffed and looked around, looking for whatever had scared her so severely. After he failed to find anything, he looked back down at her. “C’mon, kid. Talk to me.”Nothing. He was getting slightly irritated with her now. He waited for her to give him an answer for a solid minute before giving up, knowing she wouldn’t tell him anything, and began leading her down the street. She never questioned where he was taking her. Wasn’t like he was taking her anywhere specific, he was just hoping she’d give in and tell him what was wrong eventually. He wanted to know so badly. He felt like he needed to know, but in reality, he probably didn’t. Why wouldn’t she tell him? He wanted to ask again. He wanted to ask until he either got an answer out of her or until she slapped him out of annoyance. He tried thinking up any realistic reason why she was so fearful, but before he could really get any ideas, he felt her back break contact with his hand as she walked faster and faster away from him. He almost lunged forward and grabbed her arm again, but stopped himself when he knew where that would get him. Instead, he caught up with her and shoved his hands in his pockets. She wasn’t looking down at her feet anymore, she was looking dead ahead, her eyes taking in all of her surroundings. She made it pretty obvious she’d never been to this part of the city. He looked around as well. He already knew most of the area, he had to for his job, but knowing a little more helped. If something happened and the people he had to make deals with tried something stupid, he’d be able to stop them at what they prayed to God was a shortcut to escaping. Frisk scoffed, causing Sans to snap out of his thoughts once more and look at her. She quickly turned her head, but he caught a glimpse of her glare set on him.“What?” Sans said with a surprised tone with a hint of frustration. He thought he said it in his head, but the second she looked up at him with that pissed off expression, he knew he had said it aloud.“What do you mean ‘what?’” She retorted, stopping and standing with her arms crossed in front of him. Sans honestly had no idea why she was mad at him. All he did was ask her why she looked so frazzled.“Why are you actin’ like that?” He asked, trying his best to not use the same aggressive nature she used. Her glare shifted into a look Sans had seen before. The same one she used the night when Sans suddenly took her gun right out of her hand while she was distracted.“Are you kidding me?” She yelled. Sans jumped at her abrupt increase in volume and he noticed monsters turn their heads towards them, some glaring and snarling. “You didn’t come back!”Oh. Right. Sans completely forgot about that during his struggle to keep her in place and get her to speak up about what happened to her. He looked down at her with the most ridiculous, sheepish smile he could muster. Frisk glared and looked away again, making the smile fall from Sans’ face.“Look, I didn’t think it would take me that long-” He whispered as his eyes darted around at the monsters. “-and you can definitely yell more at me later, but not here.”Her glare softened and her lips curled into a frown. “I was worried about you.”Sans practically froze at those words. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to think. Why would she worry about some guy she literally just met only a few days ago? She couldn’t possibly be serious. Maybe she was just trying to make him feel worse than he already did. Unfortunately, it was working. Before Sans could get a word out to her, she started walking again. He followed suit, but didn’t know what to say to her now. Her words kept floating around in his skull as he kept pondering them. Every time he looked down at her, she looked more and more upset. Sometimes she looked as if she was about to tear up, which made Sans want to cheer her up, it was in his nature to do that kind of thing, but he didn’t know if he could do anything to help. He looked away from her and peered around at their environment, his sockets narrowing when he spotted a small store with various flowers resting on the windowsills and on shelves out in front of the building. He felt so stupid at that moment and couldn’t really think straight, so he just darted towards the store and walked inside. Before he got too far away from her, he could hear Frisk stop walking and make a confused sound. The moment he set foot in the store, a plump cow monster with four eyes, three horns, two tails, and a floral dress came bouncing towards him with a warm and welcoming grin of her face.“Hello, sir!” She greeted. “How may I help you?”Sans threw her an awkward smile. “This is probably a dumb question, but, by any chance, do you guys sell Echo flowers?”The woman nodded her head, making her loop earrings clink together noisily. “We do, got our first stock shipped in yesterday! Right this way.”She led him to the back of the building and grabbed a small glass vase on her way through a thin hallway that led to a large room with its walls covered in different flowers. Sans could recognize some flowers that were native to SNOWDIN and some, along with Echo flowers, native to WATERFALL. She whistled a funky toon while reaching up to one of the higher shelves and grabbed an Echo flower out of a cardboard box. She then placed both the vase and box containing the flower on a table in the middle of the room, pulled the flower out of the box gently, dumped some extra dirt in the vase, and dug a hole with her hoof so the flower could be placed in. After the flower was surrounded by compressed dirt and straightened, the woman handed the vase to Sans and walked him back out the front desk. Sans placed the vase on the desk and waited for her to ring him up. The price of the flower didn’t faze him, he expected it. It was rather difficult to move a flower that was made in, used to, and meant to stay in one area to a completely different one. Sans remember when Papyrus tried taking a tiny flower with some kind of glowing pink gem in the center from the edge of WATERFALL back to SNOWDIN. It only lasted less than a day before it shriveled up and the glowing rock fell off, leading to all the petals falling onto the counter and leaving the stem behind to wither. Papyrus was upset that it didn’t last but was grateful about being able to keep the rock nonetheless.“That’ll be five hundred gold, sir.” The woman said. Sans pulled out a few bills from his wallet and placed it onto the desk. The woman nodded in thanks and put the money in the cash register.When Sans was about to pick up the vase and leave, the woman quickly bent down under the desk and held a bottle with a glowing blue liquid swirling around inside in front of Sans. He looked down at it and then back to her in confusion. She shook her hoof, indicating she wanted him to take it from her. “It just helps it grow faster and stay alive longer. It also lets the flower get used to new environments.”“Oh.” Sans muttered as he grabbed the bottle. “Uh, how much do I owe for it?”“Nothing, dear.” She said with another smile. “If you ever need any more, you can always come back and get another bottle. That bottle there should last a good while. The flower only needs one drop per day.”“Oh, alright.” Sans said before shoving the bottle into his coat pocket and started walking to the door. “Thanks.”“Yep!” She called as she left the counter to head towards the back of the building again. “Do tell your lady friend I give her my greetings when you get back to her.”Sans felt his cheeks flush slightly and he glared back at her. The woman noticed and she giggled, making Sans groan inwardly. It was like having his mother all over again, always teasing him about a girl even if it was obvious they weren’t anywhere close to a thing. Sans’ mother, however, hated all the girls Sans showed any interest in and would constantly talk about why they probably were no good for him. He chuckled quietly at the image that popped into his head of his mother’s raised brow and unimpressed frown she made whenever she met one of the “beasts” as she so lovingly put it. Man, he really did miss that woman. When Sans made it back outside, he nearly yelped when he almost ran into Frisk, who was now standing right outside the door waiting for him.“Dear God, woman!” Sans whispered, his cheeks flushing even more than before. Frisk stepped back and looked down at her feet.“Sorry.” She muttered as she toyed with the bottom of her shirt and balled it up into her hand tensely. She then looked back up at him and locked her eyes onto the flower. “That’s pretty. What is it?”“It’s called an Echo flower. They grow in WATERFALL.” Sans explained. Frisk’s brows furrowed a little.“Oh.”“Yep.” Sans mumbled, his foot tapping the sidewalk. Several minutes of awkward silence passed and, getting slightly irritated with himself and not knowing what to say, he cleared his throat, successfully grabbing her attention. “Uh… here. Hope it can help make ya feel better.”Sans basically shoved the vase into Frisk’s arms and started walking away again, but stopped when he noticed she hadn’t followed after him once he got a few feet away from her. He looked back at her and saw her staring down at the glowing plant with what Sans could instantly tell was awe and curiosity about the flower. He watched her play around with different parts of it for a good while. She’d flick the petals, poke the stem and leaves, blow on it gently to watch some of the cyan colored pollen fly away and dance around in the air before getting too far away to see. When the soft smile appeared on her face, Sans could feel his own mouth curl into a smile. While most smiles were already infectious to Sans, Frisk’s smile was certainly far worse. “Worse” in a good way, of course. He could hear her giggle quietly and her shoulders bounce a little as she did before she started walking again, slowly approaching him with the vase held tightly in her arms. When she made it up to his side, Sans began walking alongside her. They’d occasionally steal a glance at each and the flower and catch each other doing so and ultimately turning away, hoping the other didn’t notice. Eventually, Frisk started getting faster, telling Sans she was now familiar with the area they were currently in and therefore more comfortable leaving his side for more than a second. Even though she obviously had a clue to where she was, Sans couldn’t help but stay with her until she was home and safe. After what he heard other monsters say, he didn’t want to risk anything. Plus, he enjoyed being around her.They made it up to what Sans recognized was the narrow road leading up to the town’s gates and heard Frisk sigh with relief. He smirked down at her. “What? Think I wouldn’t get ya back?”She shot her head back at him quickly before turning away again. “I mean… kind of?”“Psh, I know the area way more than you do, girly.” He said. “I sorta have to for work, so trust me, you’re in good hands.”“Oh, I’m sure.” Frisk said, trying to hide the playfully sarcastic tone in her voice. She looked down the road and at the gates with an unsure look on her face.“What’s up?” Sans asked with his brow raised. Frisk shrugged and looked back down at her glowing gift, a warm smile and half-lidded eyes soon replacing that uncertain appearance of hers after taking in the flower’s beauty for a moment.“Nothing. I just don’t know if I want to go back yet.” She muttered into the flower. “I enjoyed our walk- even if I wasn’t exactly talkative. It’s just nice having company, silent or not.”“I agree.” Sans said. “Though you not talking kinda got to me and you being worried the whole time wasn’t helping.”A small frown overtook her smile after hearing what he said and she started rubbing the flower’s petals. “I just…”Sans waited for her to finish. All she did for the next several minutes was mess around with different parts of the flower like she had done earlier and occasionally look down at her feet.“…Maybe some other time. Not now. I’m not ready to talk about it.” She stated after huffing and looked up at him. “I’m sorry.”Sans sighed and tipped his fedora forward slightly. “Don’t apologize. I get it… You promise you’ll talk to me when you feel like you’re up for it?”Frisk furrowed her brows at his question, but eventually just nodded her head with a smile. “I promise.”“Alright.” Sans said before ruffling her hair up, causing her to swat her hand at him multiple times until he stopped.He chuckled at the pouty look on her face underneath her now messy hair and began walking down the long road with her tagging along behind him. They continued walking and Sans took the chance to look around the well-kept area. He had never stepped foot into the small town, so he wanted to get a good look at it in case he didn’t come back. But… He looked at Frisk out of the corner of his socket and felt a grin spread across his face. He knew he’d probably be back at least ten times. Frisk was doing exactly what he was, taking in the nice- and to her, familiar- and welcoming view of the little houses that littered the streets and several trees dotted here and there behind and in front of the homes. Sans caught her peeking over at him a few times before she looked back at a big patch of warm, glowing flowers that took over the corner of a street. After making it halfway into the town, Sans felt a tender prodding on his shoulder. He turned his head towards Frisk and raised his brow.“Yeah?” He asked. She smiled awkwardly and looked back down at the glowing plant in her arm.“I forgot to thank you for it.” She said, gesturing to the flower. “It’s really pretty… Thank you.”“No problem, girly.” Sans muttered with his own smile getting bigger as he spoke and saw a light flush flood onto her cheeks from embarrassment of not speaking about it sooner. “I’m glad ya like it.”A few silent minutes full of smiles passed with the occasional light chat. Eventually, Frisk stopped walking and stared up at a large, brown house that had those glowing flowers Sans didn’t know the name of covering the porch and were planting in patches and bushes in the grass. Despite seeing them all over HOTLAND, Sans never picked up their name or anything about them anywhere. He looked over to her and raised his brow.“This your stop?” He asked. Frisk nodded and turned to him.“Yep.” She said with a smile still stuck to her face. “Um…”“Hm?”“Well… it’s still pretty early, so I’ll be back out again today so-““Maybe we can hang out?” Sans finished for her. She nodded again. “Sure.”“Really?” She asked, a little surprised by his answer.“Yeah, we can even hang out tomorrow afternoon if you want. Work doesn’t need me til…” He looked down at his watch and thought about what the note said. “…okay, I’ll be available til ten. Work starts at eleven.”Frisk stared at him for a moment with a thoughtful look on her face. Sans rolled his eyes with a half-chuckle. “PM.”“Right, obviously.” She muttered with a minor flush to her cheeks. She then cleared her throat and started walking up the porch steps. “Welp, I’ll see you later.”Sans was about to say his goodbyes and teleport back to the resort, but stopped dead in his tracks and quickly rushed up to Frisk. “Hey, wait-“Sans pulled his notepad and pen out of his inner pocket and scribbled his phone number onto a blank page. After jotting the number down, he tore the page off and handed it to her. She looked at it for a solid ten seconds before looking back up at him. “It’s my number. Now you won’t have guestimate where I am or how long it’ll take me to get my lazy ass in gear. You can just yell at me through the receiver and burst my ear drums without being with me.”Frisk smiled wider than before and let out a small laugh as she tucked the paper into her purse and pulled her phone out to add the number to her contacts list. “That’s convenient. I’ll keep you up all night now. It gets pretty boring not being able to sleep for three hours straight without someone to talk to.”“Can’t wait.” Sans snickered. “Alright, I’ll let ya go now... Gonna take a snooze before we head out. C’ya later, girly.”Sans watched Frisk wave and walk into the house before he teleported back to the resort. Once he walked through the double doors, Mettaton was standing on the other side right in front of Sans with that “charming” smile of his and glaring eyes, gloved hands on his hips and bending down to Sans’ level to make direct eye contact. Sans just stared at him with half-lidded sockets and frown set firmly on his skull. Minutes passed and the robot hadn’t said a word. Sans was getting slightly uncomfortable and began looking around the building. Some monsters were staring at the two, some were minding their own business, and some were focused on Sans’ choice of dress wear like usual. Sans sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets.“What.” He said with a dull tone.Mettaton inhaled briefly before standing straight and snapping his fingers. The woman who worked behind the front desk perked up and rushed over to Mettaton with a file in her paws. After he snatched it out her hands and waved his hand, indicating she could leave, she sauntered back to her chair and continued working on whatever it was she had been before getting up. He cleared his throat and opened the file, pulled a few photographs out, and handed them to Sans. Sans rolled his eyes and went to grab the photos only for Mettaton to hold them higher above his head and snicker. Sans’ sockets lidded even more and his mouth twitched from annoyance. He tried to reach for them again while staring straight at Mettaton and when he felt his hand miss the photos and swat at air, he grunted and walked around Mettaton.“Hey!” Sans heard Mettaton squeal. He sounded like a little kid who just gotten something taken away from them.When Sans heard Mettaton’s boots clicking swiftly behind him, he inwardly huffed and spun around to face the robotic jackass with empty sockets. This made Mettaton half instantly and, to Sans’ surprise, looked frightened by his appearance. He looked away from Sans and finished walking up to him and shoved the photos into his hands. Sans’ pupils returned and he looked down at the photos, shuffling them a little impatiently as there was a slightly comfy couch calling his name. He didn’t even get through less than half of the pictures before his sockets widened when he saw what the photos displayed. Some were pictures of himself and Frisk walking together and others were the two separated from each other, most being pictures of Frisk unaccompanied, completely oblivious that someone was capturing images of her. Sans’ pupils darted up at Mettaton, who was now wearing that smug expression again. It wasn’t like Sans didn’t want to be seen with her, he wouldn’t have walked around with her in public if that were the case. It was just the fact alone that someone had been following the two around different parts of HOTLAND and snapping photos of them without their knowledge. Sans didn’t really care if there were pictures of him walking around, not like he did anything worthy of talking about, but the pictures of Frisk really bothered him.“The fuck is this?” Sans asked, holding the photos out to Mettaton.“Just some photos my employee took for me.” Mettaton said as he reached for the stack of pictures again. Sans swatted his hand away from the pictures and smiled.“Heheh. No.” Sans then shoved the pictures into one of his inner pockets and looked back up at Mettaton. “You ain’t takin’ these back, pal.”Mettaton glared down at Sans and sighed. “Fine. Keep them. I can always get Xavier to take more and-“Sans reached up, grabbed the collar of Mettaton’s tux, and yanked his hand back so that their faces had barely any space between each other. He could hear Mettaton squeak after Sans pulled him forward and he started trying to step back and get away from the threatening skeleton.“You will NOT take ANY more pictures of her.” Sand barked. “I don’t give a flying fuck what she’s doin’ in the picture, DON’T.”Mettaton nodded hastily and stumbled backwards a little when Sans finally let go and teleported into his room instead of walking the rest of the way, not wanting to be around the robot any longer. The second he spotted that couch, his legs automatically started walking towards it. He plopped down onto the cushions and threw his hat onto the table, shrugged his coat off, and sighed. He needed this. He got comfortable and closed his sockets only to have them shoot open again when his phone played a loud, albeit short tune for a split second and startle him. He glared down at his phone and instantly the glare was replaced with a grin that spread across his face when he read the message on his phone and saw who had sent it.“Sweet dreams :)- Frisk”