Chapter Text
Life hadn’t always been kind to you. It wasn’t bad per say. Your parents were together and alive, your sibling had gotten married three years ago and was expecting, and you had a job that paid the bills. But even so, you had bad days. Lonely days, days where a customer was an ass, or days where you ate something bad or caught someone’s something.
You were the type that took things as they came.
Okay… maybe you bottled up the bad things so you didn’t need to worry about them more often than you should. And every now and then, the bottle burst. But you usually handled things unusually well!
You went to the gym twice a week, cooked meals when you had the time and did takeout the rest, and when the paycheck came in, you occasionally spoiled yourself with a nice thing.
It helped.
Your mom had always said to ‘keep busy’ after all.
Of course, ‘keeping busy’ didn’t do much for the loneliness when you worked at a flower shop during Valentine’s Day.
You sighed as another lovesick fool came and went with their bouquet of two dozen roses.
“When are you going to find someone?” your family always asked.
It wasn’t like you weren’t looking, but Mr. Right wasn’t around right now.
The shop closed up and the dreaded day was just beyond another sunrise.
You hurried back home, a small house on the corner with peeling white paint, a decent plot of land, and an untamed garden in the back.
You lived in a small town, about an hour drive from Ebott City, called ‘Little Wood’. It was quaint and the rent was reasonable. You had heard about the place at the florist shop.
Some poor soul was buying flowers for a grave offering. Their grandparents had passed away a year ago and left them the house, but they had moved in with their spouse and had no idea what to do with the old thing. It wasn’t going to sell for much, but there just wasn’t renters in the area either.
One thing led to another, and you agreed to rent a room of the house since it was a much better deal than your piss-stained apartment. Good news was, it was much better than your crappy old apartment, AND you were currently the only one renting, so it was like having a whole damn house to yourself. Bad news was that your landlord was still struggling to find tenants from their place in the city, which left you to upkeep the house alone.
Not really your job, but you couldn’t complain.
And with Valentines day on the dawn, you’d never expected to wake up the following morning to terror and fear rather than love and obnoxious.
Your morning bagel fell out of your hand as you watched the news.
At the crack of dawn, Monsters, yes, literal Monsters, emerged from Mt. Ebott looking like they’d been through hell. Battered, bloodied, and with dead eyes.
No one had even known about these guys. Sure, people and things that went to the mountain were known to disappear, and there were some really old legends, but there were old legends everywhere. And the terrain was considered dangerous with many gaping and unexpected caverns, so only foolish people and daredevils went there.
The government was quick to lock down the situation after a group of adventurous hikers had reported their near-death experience.
Apparently, these guys hadn’t eaten in forever, because they tried to make lunch of the climbers. Fortunately, they had all packed lunch, and the Monsters were sentient enough to decide ham sandwiches were better than sweat and bug spray.
The people of the country were divided. …Roughly.
Some people –the assholes as you labeled them– hated anything new and different and had no sympathy for the literally starving people who had done their best to keep themselves and their families alive. They wanted the Monsters to be gunned down on sight.
Most felt at least some pity for the Monsters. There weren’t many left, and the ones that were cooperated quite meekly for man-eaters. They knew what they had done, and weren’t proud of it, but at the same time, they weren’t going to apologize for surviving. Of course, feeling sympathy didn’t mean they wanted to interact or be near the Monsters, but at least they pushed for better conditions.
The government seemed to be made up of the first group, which sparked the N.M.F.U. movement. It stood for ‘no more fuck ups’ and was basically the younger generation berating old farts for being racist again. That changed the swing of things real quick.
The overzealous rioters probably helped.
Monsters hadn’t technically committed cannibalism, and the situation was dire enough for them that most ruled it a ‘situational misfortune’.
Not to mention, most times Humans fell led to a steep decline in Monster population before they started setting traps on the way to the villages. Apparently, Monsters were very fragile against ‘intent’, so they set traps around their towns and hoped nothing got passed them.
And since their place as an intelligent species was undeniable, they were placed in a ‘rehabilitation and introduction to modern society’ plan.
It took a total of six months with Monsters living in closely monitored camps before they were allowed to start integration to society. …By which they meant dumping all Monsters in the small, almost ignored town of Little Wood. A perfect place to get the ball rolling and the segregation started.
Little wood was a great place for Monsters to become self-sufficient and contained. Easy to keep an eye on with only one road leading to the city and the Mountain behind it. An out of the way town with rich soil and now, mostly empty houses and shops.
People moved out; Monsters moved in. You stayed put along with a very small handful of ‘lived here my whole life and will die here’ or ‘Monsters are cool’ folk. You couldn’t blame the ones that left. It was generally a ‘sympathy but safety concerns’ mindset that had them packing, which you could understand.
You sympathized with the Monsters, you really did, but that didn’t stop you from at least considering moving back to your crappy piss-apartment when the landlord dropped the news on you. You had two new roommates starting Monday, and they were Monsters.
But here you were, Monday morning, getting ready to give two skeleton men a house tour.
You’d been given the chance to move out, but you’d decided to stay. Anyone remaining in the town had to sign government official wavers, but you figured ‘to hell with it’ and stayed anyways. So, along with the news of your new roommates came a packet to look through.
In it was information about the Monsters that would stay with you.
They were surprisingly, Skeletons. A smaller one and a Really tall one. Brothers apparently. And if the pictures were anything to go by, these two had it very rough underground.
The packet had said they were kind of the leaders of their village and had been some of the ones that… dealt with the traps… and eventually rioted against the queen that somehow resulted in their freedom.
Their old, old queen was getting her own house and being very, very closely monitored for the first year of freedom. She had a few mental issues to work out aside the starvation crisis.
Fun stuff.
Your boss had given you the day off to prepare for the new housemates, and you knew just what to do with it. They say the best way to get someone to open up and be friends is by feeding them. So, all morning you were in the kitchen.
Nothing in the packet mention dietary restrictions, so you went all out.
They were supposed to arrive in time for lunch, so on this sunny summer day, the best thing to sever was hotdogs and burgers. In addition to that, sweets were called for, so chocolate chip cookies and fudgy brownies were thrown in the oven. You had ice-cream in the freezer and sides of chips and lemonade. A feast that would hopefully welcome your new friends properly.
You’d put as much effort as you were willing into cleaning up the house, but you figured they probably wouldn’t mind the lack of perfection too much. And now, you were flopped on the couch, twiddling your thumbs as you waited for their arrival.
The doorbell chimed at exactly noon. But even with all the pamphlet reading you’d done; you were still shocked by the two Monsters that appeared on the doorstep.
“GREETINGS HUMAN HOUSEMATE!!! MY BROTHER AND I CAN’T WAIT TO BECOME GOOD FRIENDS WITH YOU!!!!”
The words ‘horrifying’ and ‘terrifying’ came to mind, but you knew when to bite your tongue and put on a smile. How that smile looked though… well let’s hope it wasn’t screaming ‘I want to run’.
“Hi… Hi guys! Welcome to the house! Come on in.” you side stepped to hold open the door and they entered.
One of them men who came to drop them off walked up to you and handed you something that looked like a flashlight keychain.
“What’s…?”
“A panic switch. Something similar to a life alert. They’re mandatory for all those in direct contact with Monsters. Just think of it as for your own safety.” He explained.
“Uh-huh. Okay, thanks.”
He nodded and you closed the door to turn back to your new roommates.
…
Tall.
Papyrus was it?
He caught your attention first.
You had a standard eight foot ceiling, and this guy was curling in on himself to fit.
His teeth were crooked and stained, eyes sunken in and hollow looking, and his clothes were ripped and seemed too tight in places.
Yep, classic nightmare fuel.
You could… You could handle this.
The other was smaller and quiet.
He was almost ghost like, unnoticeable unless you knew what you were looking for. Was that purposeful? Or was he naturally hard to lose track of? Either way, it wasn’t exactly comforting.
He had a giant. Freaking. Hole. In his head and below it was an uncomfortably large, red eye. The other eye was dark, it almost seemed dead, like there should be something there that wasn’t.
His mouth was in a tight grin, and he seemed to be watching you carefully, judging you.
You cleared your throat, hoping your voice would cooperate with you, “Hi again. I’m Y/n and I’ll be your housemate.”
“YES!!! WE ARE VERY EXCITED THAT YOU ARE GOING TO LIVE WITH US DESPITE ALL ODDS!!”
Papyrus was apparently the loud and honest type, but his eagerness helped put you at ease. Honestly, the fact that they were still wearing what looked to be the same rags they emerged with was starting to bother you.
Had the government really not even given basic supplies to these guys?
At least they had payroll.
You mentally huffed at the people in charge of Monster integration and put on your customer service smile.
“Well, I hope you’re ready to eat, because I had all morning to whip up some lunch.”