Chapter 1: Ghostly Encounters
A/N: To celebrate my new FF account, I bring you this cute, crack ship fic idea stemmed from too much caffeine at four in the morning. It's about everyone's favourite minimum wage worker cat and his unexpected friendship with a certain incorporeal cousin.
(My first real, polished Undertale fic. Please let me know if I got any characterization wrong, or if I messed up any canon facts, ehehe…)
Anyway, hope you enjoy!
**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Undertale or any of the characters and settings mentioned. I am merely doing this for fun.**
**CONTENT WARNING: Drug/cigarette mention, blood mention, language, and some minor suggestive themes later on**
"Another day, another eight hours wasted working in corporate hell."
Burgerpants lit up a much needed cigarette, and took a long, lingering puff. He glanced down the dark alleyway, checking to make sure there was nobody there to potentially mug him, then locked the back door. The jingle of his keys was the only sound echoing in the silent street, and it filled the monster with slight foreboding.
"Nothing a couple more puffs won't fix." His gravelly voice said to no one, more to calm his own nerves than anything. He didn't really know for sure, but even though he'd walked this alleyway many a day after hours at the hotel, tonight seemed different. Like he was being watched.
A droplet of water fell to the ground in front of Burgerpants.
"Rain...? In Hotland?"
He gave his cigarette a confused look, as though he'd accidentally switched it with perhaps any other substance he was known to carry, then shrugged and walked onward. This definitely wasn't the weirdest thing he'd ever seen. He could always chalk it up to mental fatigue.
Or his job was actually driving him mad and he was seeing things.
Burgerpants didn't live far from his work. He could have chosen to live in the hotel like the rest of Mettaton's workers, but there was nothing he wanted more than to avoid spending extra time in that dump. He opted for a less stress-inducing option instead: the duplexes just between where the cobblestone streets ended, and the volcanic rock began. Sure, the rent was a little higher, and he shared it with a group of the loudest and most obnoxious party monsters in the entire underground, but anything to be farther away from his minimum wage prison was good enough for him.
He was only about five minutes away when he heard it. The muffled sound of... Crying? It couldn't be possible, there was no one out there besides him, and though the cat monster was definitely crying on the inside, that wouldn't translate to any actual noise outside of the occasional whimper of melancholic despair.
But this was almost eerie. Eerie, and yet... So intriguing.
Burgerpants searched for the source of the sound, but had no luck. And the droplets seemed to follow him even faster now.
"Ha... Uh, yanno, it's not cool to follow someone all the way home."
The crying didn't stop. Burgerpants was almost certain he was hearing things, if it weren't for the inexplicable water drops and ominous feeling he had.
"Buddy, c'mon. Just show yourself, take my chump change and let's pretend I didn't get robbed from someone who sounds like they regret more things than I do, sound good?"
It was hard to mask the shaking in his voice, and Burgerpants broke into a speed walk, determined as hell to make it home in one piece.
Unfortunately, the empty streets of Hotland had other ideas, and Burgerpants caught the toe of his shoe on a crack in the sidewalk, falling flat on his nose. He growled in pain.
"Oh perfect, just great. You know what this conglomeration of bad luck needs? A bloody nose- oh. Yep. There it is, folks, now where's my freakin' applause?"
Burgerpants held his sleeve to his face, scowling while scanning his surroundings. On the bright side, it seemed as though the mystery follower had disappeared. No more crying, no more rain no more-
"Auughhh!" Burgerpants flew backwards, scooting away from the apparition in front of him as fast as he could. He'd spoken too soon, unsurprisingly.
The figure didn't move, only blinked, with tears in their eyes and a sorrowful expression on their face. Burgerpants was taken aback slightly.
"Are... You okay?" The ghost monster hovered slowly, cautiously, causing Burgerpants to regain some form of backbone.
"Um. Are you the one who's been following me home?"
The ghost looked confused and maybe even a little embarrassed, their cheeks flushing in some weird, physics-defying way, and their tears growing bigger."
"Oh... Oh I'm sorry... I didn't realize that I was following you. This... This is just where I decided to go tonight... I wasn't paying attention…"
Burgerpants bit his lip, now only a little embarrassed with himself. He thought they were scary?
"Oh, no... I'm sorry, I've upset you... I scared you, didn't I? Oh I promise, I-I didn't mean to... I just wanted a change of scenery from my normal spot, and-and..." The ghost sniffled, and the tears fell generously to the pavement.
Burgerpants sat in awe for a few seconds before snapping out of it.
"W-wait, no, listen pal, you didn't... I mean, granted, I was creeped out for like, maybe half a second, but..."
They continued to sob, turning away from the stunned restaurant worker.
"N-no, hey, don't cry! Please don't cry! I'm not good with this emotional stuff, buddy!"
Frantically, Burgerpants waved his hands, trying to calm the spectre. It didn't really seem to work, and he could only come up with so many generic solutions to help ease their mind.
"Um, wh-why don't you tell me your name?"
Burgerpants' eye twitched waiting for a response. He didn't even know why he should care this much about a monster he'd never previously met, but he felt a little guilty over this small misunderstanding nonetheless.
"It's... Napstablook." They sighed, finally letting their big, ghostly eyes open wide and stare right through Burgerpants. The cat monster shivered, as if he were the transparent one, rather than his new ghost acquaintance.
"But some people call me Blook, and Met- ah... My cousin calls me Blooky. You can choose either one, I have little power to stop you..."
"Um, kay." Burgerpants regained composure, and was able to lift himself from the ground. Blooky's eyes followed him, silent tears still running down their face.
"Y-your nose... I caused that, didn't I?"
Burgerpants raised his eyebrow, then caught himself in a slight panic when Napstablook's breathing hitched, and more tears spilled to the ground.
"Oh, uh, this? No, I just tripped. I'm a total klutz, ehehehe."
Napstablook nodded slowly, then pulled a handkerchief from… somewhere behind them?
Burgerpants didn't even know ghosts had pockets.
"I may not be able to do much... But I can help you with this." They murmured, wiping at Burgerpants' split nose. It stung and ached like hell, and might have already been infected, but God knows he needed the extra sick day anyway.
Finally, with a small, subdued flourish, and a subtle smile, Blooky had cleaned up most of the mess. "There… hope that's okay."
Burgerpants tugged at his collar, feeling the sweat at his neckline. Why did this ghost have to be so damn cute when they smiled?
"You never told me your name. I'm sorry, I didn't ask before."
He hoped they'd never ask.
"Eh, everyone calls me Burgerpants. It's a long story."
"I have time, but if you don't want to say anything, that's okay... I'm not forcing you to."
Burgerpants swallowed the lump in his throat. Great, another attractive monster squirming their way into his life. How much humiliation did he have to endure before he could stop being so incredibly easy to get?
The only difference here, was that, he wasn't even trying to impress them. But Blooky just kept listening to the story intently, as if they hadn't spoken to anyone in a very long time.
"That sounds like quite the ordeal. I'm sorry those girls were unkind to you…. That's terrible. I don't want to call you that name if it makes you feel bad."
"N-no, it's fine. I'm used to it by now."
"Oh…. Okay. Well, if it's any consolation, I don't think any less of you for it."
Burgerpants made a noise akin to some kind of giraffe-dolphin monster hybrid, and his face flushed pink. What was the deal here? Was this one of Bratty and Catty's pranks? Or the bullies from his old high school? Or God-forbid, METTATON? If Mettaton paid someone to be nice to him, he would never show up to work again. Let the Underground suffer without their precious Glamburgers.
"Uh, th-thanks, buddy." Despite his suspicions, Blooky was undeniably adorable, and he couldn't help himself from slipping into the deepest darkest pit of mixed feelings that he loathed to admit he had. "That's really cool of you to say."
'That's really cool of you to say.' Wow. Burgerpants was about ready to bury himself under 500 gallons of sweltering lava just to have an excuse for the red hot blush that crept so far up his ears, he swore the fur would start curling.
The ghost was now blushing too, and strangely enough, Burgerpants found it more adorable than that one time Bratty and Catty showed up at his work in matching crop tops.
He had to get a grip here.
"So," he cleared his throat for probably the sixteen time in a feeble attempt to cover up those dreaded mixed feelings. "Er, you live around here?"
"Waterfall, actually. To the North, right next to my family's snail farm. It's a nice place, though a bit lonely…" They sighed wistfully, with those familiar tears hanging on by the edges of their eyes. "Where do you live?"
"Just over there." Burgerpants pointed to his dilapidated duplex.
Luckily, all the lights next door seemed to be out. He might actually manage to get some sleep tonight. That was, if he could stop his mind from drifting back to the cute little ghost in front of him.
"I see. Well, I should let you get home then. I wouldn't want to keep you from whatever you have planned."
"Uh… yeah." Burgerpants hesitated. For a brief moment, he contemplated inviting them inside, but stamped it out.
Why was he acting this way? He just met this monster, for crying out loud. Maybe it was because this could be his very first potential friend. A real friend. Someone who didn't seem to have any ulterior motives despite their attractiveness. He shuddered once again at the prank possibility, but continued on.
"W-wait. Um, it was nice talking to you. Even if we did get off on the wrong foot- paw- er…" Ectoplasmic tendrils? God he was really embarrassing himself now. Napstablook was definitely going to start laughing at him at any moment. Where was a lava-resistant shovel when you needed it?
"Heh… heh. It was nice talking to you too. I hardly meet anyone nice anymore…"
Oh who was he kidding? This monster was a freakin' marshmallow.
Or more like, Napstablook was the fire, and Burgerpants was the marshmallow, utterly melting from a spectre's simple smile.
"Feel free to come over to my house anytime. That is… if you want to…."
"S-sure, uh, yeah."
And with that, Napstablook faded away into the darkness. Burgerpants was fairly certain he hadn't breathed at all during the last minute of that exchange, and so he heaved a huge sigh of relief against the door as soon as he was in the confines of his home.
Why was he such a babbling idiot?
That was Burgerpants' first thought when he reached his bedroom and flopped onto the bed. The mattress groaned underneath him, and he lazily kicked off his shoes. He wouldn't bother with the rest of his uniform tonight, too exhausted.
His next thought was judging how good certain people were at hiding cameras. He should have checked the front porch, or his neighbours' hedges.
His third thought: this couldn't actually be real, could it?
How could someone so sweet, soft-spoken, and so adorable, actually be talking to him? And without giving him that gut-wrenching feeling that it was all for some kind of personal gain? He was used to being toyed like that. He was used to being jostled and kicked and laughed at. But genuine kindness was very rare to come by, and if by some miracle, it wasn't all just a sick fabrication, then Burgerpants could actually have a shot at this. It was hard not to think about and even harder to squelch the smirk that stayed plastered to his lips. Not to mention that bubbly feeling in his chest, as though it were a soda can that had been shaken vigorously and opened immediately after.
He was going to visit Napstablook tomorrow, Burgerpants spontaneously decided.
And he made a vow to not screw anything up.