Chapter Text
Stumbling drunk into the forest was admittedly not your latest stellar move. Sure, it's seemed smarter than losing the contents of your sparse dinner (consisting of tiny finger foods the sorority your roommate was a part of had put out to make the college party way more classy than it was) on the shoes of a girl with the prettiest brown eyes. In the moment? Sound decision.
Now, after realizing that you were drunk enough for the forest to spin a bit? You were fucked and it was becoming readily apparent.
“Okaaay.” You say to yourself like talking outloud could calm your nerves- you wish the adrenaline spike had sobered you up even remotely, but you're still out of your mind drunk. Bad, bad decisions. No more partying for you until you learned some self restraint around liquor and drinking challenges. And got a sense of direction-
On that train of thought, you pull your phone out, holding down the power button in a ragdoll’s grasp. No matter how hard you pushed, unfortunately, the screen remained black- out of power. Shit. Too many selfies and ‘hey you need a caterer any time let's exchange numbers’ and Facebook requests and... and not enough using the wall chargers. So that leaves you with the wise wise decision of maybe deciphering where the North Star is in the swirling sky and trying to remember where it was in relation to the house.
The trees grow thicker around you, which you take as, understandably, a bad sign. You start to turn around, in half-steps because too fast and your stomach will turn and wouldn't that be the cherry on top of this nonsense sundae that you attract some bigger predator because you couldn't hold it down? By the time you think you've turned all the way around, though, you've so thoroughly disoriented yourself that you don't know which way you'd originally faced. Or if you'd been looking at the correct star to begin with, which fills you with such a sense of dread that your stomach turns again and, despite your best efforts, you lose more of those cucumber sandwiches.
Hands on your knees and knees shaking, you realize that, if you didn't want to confront the suddenly very real possibility of dying alone in the woods, you have to keep moving. You've been on your feet all night, and you're fairly certain you've packed in a few blisters, but you still have to move forward. With nothing less than your full, sobering attention on putting just one foot in front of the other, you start deeper into the forest. The trees above you seem to curl, until most of the sky is blotted out in dark brown swatches and your shaking, tired eyes focus on something in the distance. Bright yellow, light brown. Giving off light.
A house.
Relief washes over you, followed by thin terror, followed by acceptance. It's not the house you started at but it's a house and if it's the house of a serial killer you're willing to give up the ghost because you're starting to feel like your dumb ass deserves all of this for thinking a sorority party could ever turn out well.
You'd misjudged the distance and also the height of the house and you nearly fall down a rather steep hill, ankles unsure and wobbling at every step as you could barely see in the dark. The half moon in the sky could only barely peek through the trees leaving you squinting trying to find purchase with the flat of your shoe. When you finally come to sweet sweet flat ground, you fall to your knees (if only for a second) and try to catch your breath. You weren't sure how long you'd been walking but your thigh muscles were really starting to protest how long you'd been on your feet, and the soft grass below you seemed forgiving enough. If you could, if you could give up two meters away from tentative safety and just sleep in the glow of the house’s strung Christmas lights, you would.
But even drunk off your ass, you know you can't sleep in the goddamn woods. So you get off your knees and hobble up to the porch and brace yourself on the doorframe and you take your fist that feels as heavy as a stone and you throw it at the door. Two sad short knocks and your fist against the door.
There's silence. There's silence so long that you start noticing the ambient sounds of the forest- cicadas and movement and bushes rustling. Your stomach clenches and you knock again- three shorter rasps. You hear what sounds like pencils on hardwood, and then the door swings open, and you're looking into the eyesockets of a very pissed off monster.
Shit. Shit shit shit okay not the nightmare scenario and yeah you probably should've thought about how late it is and holy shit are they missing half of their head. Your mouth is open and you immediately force your gaze away- you don't know any skeleton monsters (mostly just the aquatic ones that are a part of your roommate’s sorority) but you can't imagine staring is polite with any species. “Hey, uh, I'm so sorry, this is so late at night but-”
“you here to ding dong ditch us?” The skeleton says, one strained and somewhat ruined red pupil staring at you. You have no basis for comparison, but there's something innately frightening about this monster- something about the tousled collar of their jacket and the gaping head wound oozing violence. “i've about head it with you humans thinkin it's fun to spook my brother. were the traps not enough of a warning?”
Your mouth feels gummy and very loose- hard to maneuver into sentences. Traps...? The majority of the monsters you'd met were ones that didn't hold any hatred over humans as a whole (though you honestly wouldn't have blamed any of them if they did), so maybe you'd been wrong to judge a book by its cover. “Listen, I’m-” The world pitched sideways for a second and you had to grip the doorframe a little harder to stay upright. The pupil followed your movements, and you can feel sweat start to bead on your neck. “I’m lost. I dunno about any traps, but I saw this house in the middle of the forest and I thought hey wonder if they have a phone I could use and if I knew I’d be bothering you I’d probably have just kept walking but I'm really really drunk so I wasn't thinking-”
“it's in the back of the house.” The skeleton’s voice is gruff, but their sockets seem wider, taking in more of you. It took you a few moments to stop rambling and to even pick up that they'd said something. Their fingers wrap around the doorframe and they open it wider, letting you in. “the phone. it's in the back of the house. come on in.”
You're not sure if it's blind pessimism, but there's something wrong with how they say it. It sounds like one of those traps they'd mentioned, but you're too tired to care. At this point, whatever. “Uh, thanks.” You step in, and it's not that big of a temperature difference- the mugginess of the night air is gone, though, which is a plus. The house itself seems sparsely decorated, with a small tv in front of a large couch, filled with holes. While the living space was brightly lit, the corridor heading to the back seemed less-so. “So, uh, just straight back?”
They close the door, slowly until the lock clicks, and you have to catch your breath, your heart suddenly hammering. “straight back. giant wall phone. can't miss it.”
You start walking forward, but the same drumming sound is behind you again and, yeah, they're following you and that's their bony feet hitting the hardwood. “So, um, it's just you and your brother here? This is a pretty big house.” You were usually pretty good at small talk, but you immediately berate yourself because it sounded like you just implied-
“what of it?” That monsters can't have big houses. “we like our space. kinda why we live in the middle of the woods.”
“That's fair- I just thought since it's only the two of you... No, that's fair. Yeah.” You pass by a sloppy painting of a bone on the wall, and you stop to point at it, trying to lighten the mood. “What do you call a painting in a skeleton’s house? A bone-afide work of art.” Your voice raises at the end, not sure if that was going to offend them.
You get a small chuckle out of them, and their shoulders drop just slightly. “that's a good one. you're lucky papyrus isn't around- he can't stand skeleton puns. i musta used all of em up when he was a babybones.” You can spot the phone and, wow, they really weren’t lying- it’s a large red corded phone from the 80s. You turn around to verify if, yes, this is the phone and, yes, you are still able to use it, but their hand jerks from midair, as if they’d reached out towards you. A strange light blue sweat seems to have beaded on their skull, and their (tense, you suddenly realize) grin suddenly jerks downwards. Annoyed. “what? ya don’t know how a wall phone works?”
“No, no- I, uh, just wanted to check. That this was still alright and, uh, I don’t know.” You can feel a headache coming on, and it takes a slow, slow moment of realization to recognize the flare of adrenaline in your veins. Fight or flight, seemingly unprompted, and you have to push past the drunken haze to analyze it. Was it because your dumb human brain registered seeing a moving skeleton as Inherently Wrong? Was it because your dumb human brain saw an injury on a monster and thought that was scary? You berate yourself- monsters came in all kinds of looks, and you shouldn’t get the heebie-jeebies just because this one has a red eye. “I’m really drunk, I don’t think I’m making a whole lot of sense right now.”
“yeah, you’re not.” They say, almost harshly, their pupil darting away and to your left. The phone is hung on the wall at the end of the hallway, sure, but if you turn your head you catch the edge of checkered kitchen tile. Everything still spins a bit, but your gaze is sharp enough to catch the bigger details of the kitchen- laminated counters (yellow and peeling), dated rose wallpaper (yellow and peeling), and dust on the cabinets (covered in... thrown pasta?). You actually hear their jaw creak, this time, when they open their mouth to speak. “you just gonna gawk at everything, or are you gonna pick up the damn phone? if this is how drunk humans act, i’m glad i’m banned from eating out.”
It’s hard to feel offended when it is literally your fault for being so drunk it’s hard to focus on one task. “Honestly, you’re not missing out on anything. Parties are a sweaty, gross experience, and when it rains, it pours.” You don’t exactly know skeletal expressions but, if human facial features were anything to gauge from, the skeleton shoots you a mixed look of disgust and intrigue. Which is admittedly better than the annoyed expression from before, so you quickly turn around to pick up the phone (hearing the dial tone in your ear before you dialed was one of the most nostalgic experiences you’d had in a long time) and start to dial your friend’s number. It rings, and rings, and rings, and just as you start to worry that she’s not gonna pick up, her answering machine picks up.
And, sure, the skeleton behind you might’ve been accommodating, but your heart's still pounding in your chest. It doesn’t feel safe to let them know that no one is coming for you. “Hey, Trixie!” Pause. “No, yeah- sorry about leaving the party, my drunk ass wandered off into the woods and-” You fake like the signal is bad, drawing closer to the phone, cradling it on your shoulder. Sweat beads on your neck and, behind you, you hear a thin sound, like something cutting through air. You don't turn around. “Sorry, shit signal in the middle of the woods. Yeah, I found a house in the woods- I know, save the reprimand for later- and this cool skeleton let me use their house phone? That’s why the signal is- yeah, my phone’s dead. I don’t want to, uh, hog you for too long, but the house is seriously like, straight back from the sorority house- can’t miss it. Only brightly-lit thing for, uh, miles in the dark forest. I think it took me like half an hour to get lost in this direction- so, you’ll be, um, getting me?” Pause. Shit, you’d talked too long on your end- you can feel their eye staring at your back. God you hope skeleton’s lack of ears meant they also had terrible hearing. “S-so, you think an hour? Uh, cool. See you- Oh, you want to bring Galora too? Sure, no, uh, no skin off my nose.” A chuckle behind you. The most surreal part of this experience was that puns may actually be saving your life. “See you then!”
And, trying to keep your hands from shaking, you hook it back onto the wall with a soft click. You turn around, slowly, slowly, then having to hold a hand to the wall underneath the cord of the phone to keep yourself steady because the world is sideways and okay it’s because you literally fell from the knot of sickness in your stomach, wreaking a migraine on the delicate pulse in your temples. If the skeleton with the whiplash mood swings doesn’t do you in, your own pulse might get you yet. “trixie’s a waterfall monster name. they’re bipedal?” At your surprised nod (most people just assumed she was human, and were always shocked to find that she very literally resembled the creature from the black lagoon with better cheekbones and actual lips), they grunt, nodding and looking down at and then away from you. “welp. how’s the trip? i’d have some jokes about the fall, but i’m all aut-of-umn.”
So, uh, to top off your wild night of alcohol and panic, a skeleton winks at you and you see something... Something genuine under their expression, their grin almost loose. You were expecting the easier ‘nice trip see you next fall’ joke that it surprises a bark of laughter out of you, and you barely feel the throb under your skin where you’d hit the hardwood. You stumble to your feet, trying and missing a few times, all while they watch you, no prior knowledge of skeletons needed to know that they were absolutely living for seeing you as a mess of limbs and uncoordinated jerks. Finally, you get yourself to a half-seated position and give up. “I’m, uh, really sorry about this in advance, but would you mind if I just crashed here until she turns up?” You’re reminded of the ‘traps’ they’d mentioned earlier, and you weren’t too keen on trying to find your way out in the dark with those around.
Something was off, certainly, but nothing you could actually act on. And you have one hour to come up with some plan to get back to the sorority house. Really, you should’ve just stayed at home.
Towering over you, you realize the skeleton has bent at the waist and is offering you their hand. “where are my manners? i’m sans. sans the skeleton.” There’s something terse about how they say their own name, something a little... It feels like something you’re not in on, like a sour inside joke. “you got a name, or is referring to you as ‘human’ a little too on the nose?” You have no idea how they did it, but their nose ridge flares without any muscle, and you have to keep from laughing again.
They seem to appreciate it.
You introduce yourself, your name followed by a cheeky ‘the human’ which earns you another nod. You shake his hand somewhat, like a formal introduction, but he’s distracted, looking away from you until you finally drop his hand. Sans’ eyelight keeps darting to the door, once, twice, and then finally you have to ask, “You expecting someone?” Which, you realize, was the worst thing you could say to keep the ‘my friend is coming’ story alive.
“yeah- my brother’s usually back by now.” Their sockets narrow, and the pupil darts towards you, still holding his hand in a shake because their phones locked on your’s and you couldn’t exactly break the hold. “you see anyone in the forest? tall skeleton, red scarf?”
“No- this house was the only thing I’d seen for a while. I definitely would remember seeing another skeleton.” Which you definitely would. No amount of alcohol would blur the fact that there was a shambling skeleton somewhere that resembled Sans in front of you. Not that it was particularly relevant, but your own internal narrative had to wonder- “So, you’re siblings?”
“brothers.” He corrects, which is a relief, because monsters are fairly concise when it comes to discussing gender- ‘sibling’ would’ve meant he used a neutral pronoun, and he would’ve specified ‘brother and sister’ had he used ‘she’ instead. “it’s not really any of your business, though. he just not usually this slow recalibrating his traps.” Where there had been just a few beads of sweat on his head earlier, he now seemed to be lightly doused in sweat, and fairly nervous, staring at the door. “i was thinking of fixing a meal for him by the time he came back, but if he’s...”
‘A meal’. The kitchen looked like it hadn’t been touched by a loving hand since it’d been built. There were scorch marks on the stove, the only sign that anyone used it. You have a very bad feeling about this. “Oh, uh. I can’t promise how steady my hand is right now, but I can cook something up, if you want to... You want to look for him?” Which sounds just as stupid out loud as it had when you’d thought it up, but your brain-to-mouth filter was practically nonexistent in this moment. This skeleton has absolutely no idea that you cook for a living, has no reason to trust you, and if anything, sounds like he was planning on eating you for dinner.
Sans blinks at you like he, too, thinks that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard, but also like he was considering it. His worry for his brother apparently outweighed any sorts of reservations he held about a strange human in his house, but the fact that you could barely stand up straight might have also factored into the decision. “sure. knock yourself out. but if i find out you wasted any of our food...” His bright red pupil wavers like a flame and goes out, leaving his skull hollow and terrifying. You stand in the middle of his dusty ass kitchen, on shaking knees and knowing no one is coming for you, heart in your throat, waiting for him to finish his threat. Sans’ eyelight pops back on, though, and his smile rights itself on his face, which does nothing to stop your racing heart at his words, “let’s just say i’d chew you out about it. it’d be pretty... tasteless.” With a wink and a flat ‘good luck’, he blinks out of sight, and you try not to shriek at the fact that he was there and then he was gone.
It’s... It’s going to be a long night for you.