You hadn't lost your job after the incident with Sans, simply gotten a cut to your salary for a month and some nasty chores, like cleaning up the store after hours. For no pay, of course. So now, in the dimly lit dairy products section, you stood with your mop stretched out towards the pile of buckets, shaped mildly like Sans.
"Are you ready to have a bad time?" you asked in a hushed whisper, half because you thought it was cool and half because you didn't want any lingering employees to hear you conversing with a pile of buckets. After delivering your prided line, you jumped forward, sneakily attacking the Sans buckets, Suckets, as you wittily named them, from the side, sending the topmost few scattering onto the tiled floor.
You could almost feel the wind of victory blowing through your hair as you planted the end of your mop to the ground with a victorious thud. With a smirk of confidence, you turned to look to your right.
"Fear not, Grillby," you spoke, voice still hushed, "he will never not pay the bill again."
Having delivered that line, you dissolved into a mess of giggles, that didn't stop even as you set the buckets and mop away. You would have loved to stay and slay some more Suckets, but alas, due to your salary being cut, you were forced to take on odd jobs here and there. As luck would have it, Asgore had just been looking for a babysitter for Frisk, the adorable kid that you usually saw hanging along with Papyrus or Toriel.
Locking the supermarket doors behind you, you hurried down the barely lit street, passing couples going out to have fun and tired people heading home from their jobs. You wished you had that luxury, but on the other hand, babysitting Frisk wasn't the worst odd end you could have gotten. You and the kid got along just fine and Asgore had always been more than generous in his payments. It was just…
"Couldn't you have gotten anyone else to babysit?"
Toriel's voice stopped you from knocking on the door to their house. She had never been fond of you, to say the least. The first time you were invited to babysit Frisk, she had asked around about you, learning that you had dropped out of highschool and how you had once spent two entire days in jail for assaulting a man. Of course, the townspeople were less inclined to share the second part of the story- that a kid came along on the second day and cleared you of all charges because you had been acting to protect him from the man, who was later charged with murder and possession of child pornography. Hell, you would have been a hero, if your mother hadn't already made a bad name for your family in this town. Tu qoque. You were always the rebel girl who couldn't control herself.
"Honey, she did a wonderful job babysitting Frisk the first three times, and they absolutely adore her," you could make out Asgore's deeper voice more clearly from behind the door and you smiled softly to yourself. Despite Toriel's grumbling, the monster king seemed to always side with you. When you asked him why once, he simply replied that everyone makes mistakes, and everyone deserved forgiveness.
With newfound determination, you knocked on the door and your motion was shortly answered by no other than Asgore, smiling warmly to you. An exchange of pleasantries later, you were guided in and sat onto the couch, Frisk planting themselves next to you happily.
It was then that Toriel appeared from the kitchen. The moment she crossed from the tiled floor onto the wooden of the living room, time stopped for you and you felt that nauseous feeling you always did around Toriel- as if you were being pulled in two. It was short lived, however and you sighed in relief, falling back against the couch. The feeling always overwhelmed you.
"Frisk must be in bed by eleven, and if I better not hear one complaint from them!" Toriel gave you a meaningful look, before she was gently nudged out of the door by Asgore, the latter giving you a sympathetic glance. Truly, though, you didn't mind. This was nothing compared to the hell the townspeople used to give you.
"So…" you turned your head to look at Frisk, "cake time?"
Their face lit up at that and they more or less flew off the couch, towards the kitchen. "Cake time!" Chuckling, you followed along.
The evening went by quickly, with the two of you making a combined effort to turn the kitchen into a battlefield. Frisk had a lot of fun with the flour, finding that they really wanted to make flour angels and who were you to say no? You just had to clean it all up before Toriel came along. Luckily, after the cake was done, Frisk helped you by sweeping the floor and taking their evening shower to get rid of the flour all over them. Of course, you didn't have that luxury and you ended up having to try and shake the flour off of yourself outside.
With all traces of the Great War of Cake hidden, you and Frisk settled down on the couch, where they loudly demanded to be shown cartoons. You were happy to oblige, turning on the TV and then handing the remote to Frisk so they could choose their own cartoons whilst you were cutting the cake open.
"Is it true what Tori said?" they finally asked, turning to look at you with a tilt of their head. "That you beat up someone and went to jail?"
For a split second, your face fell, but you were determined not to let Frisk on to the change in your expression. "Uh, you heard that, huh?" you mumbled. "Well, I beat up a /bad/ guy and had a little misunderstanding with the police," you said with a smile and to your relief, Frisk seemed satisfied with that answer.
In all honesty, beat up was a strong word. Despite acting tough and mighty, you, in reality, had no idea how to fight, and to this day you considered yourself lucky that you were still alive and that you somehow managed to land a few right hits and dodge the knife long enough for the police to get to the scene.
"Well then, you're like Undyne," Frisk decided, after having thoughtfully chewed on their piece of cake. "Except Undyne never really beat up any bad guys… only humans…"they then added and shook their head. "Nope! You're not like Undyne, you're way cooler, and you make great cake!"
Their enthusiasm was cute, and got you laughing. You wished you were like Undyne, and that you could actually land a hit and not be all bark and no bite, but alas, you weren't. Though, Frisk had a valid point about your cake.
"We made it together, Frisk, give yourself some credit too," you said, taking their empty plate and yours too to go and wash them. Like a loyal puppy, Frisk followed after you, leaning on the counter by the sink and watching the water flow as you cleaned off the last of the dishes.
"Are you gonna read me a story?" they asked, grabbing the first wet plate that appeared on the countertop and taking to scrubbing it dry vigorously with a towel. "Maybe one that isn't about snail uses?"
Geez, what had Toriel been reading to this poor kid? You set the plates away, as Frisk couldn't reach the cupboard and sighed. "Of course I'll read you a story, honey, but that means you have to go run to bed right now. If you stay up past eleven, Toriel's going to have my head." Hell, she almost did last time.
Frisk seemed to take that very much to heart and they bolted away into their bedroom, you following suit shortly, holding a storybook that had been left out on the table beforehand. You figured it was Frisk's doing- maybe they wanted to have this book read to them and left it out on purpose.
To your relief, Frisk was out like a light after some short minutes of reading- and it wasn't even half past ten. Sure, you had some time to relax on the couch and watch TV, but seeing as it wasn't your home the whole relaxing part was kind of hard. You could never feel comfortable in other people's houses, even if the other person was your good friend… which Toriel wasn't.
An hour of awkwardly staring at the TV in a stiff position (you knew Toriel didn't like people having their feet on the couch) later, you were relieved to hear the door open and see Asgore step trough, having to duck to fit through the doorway, as usual. Toriel followed, ignoring you and going to check on Frisk and then the kitchen. God, did you really give off that untrustworthy of a vibe?
Asgore seemed to ignore her entirely and gave you a large, warm thank you hug. Asgore's hugs were the best as his fur was very very soft, even the yellow tufts of his beard. You almost beamed when he pulled out a hundred Euro bill from his wallet and carelessly gave it to you. "Thanks, kiddo, stay safe out there, it's gotten really dark."
"Thank you, your majesty. You take care as well," you chimed as you skipped happily through the door and into the cold, dark night. Thanks to the clouds that had been warning the town of a coming storm for a few days now, no stars or moon shone to light your way, leaving you in the mercy of the sparsely paced streetlights.
Pulling your thin jacket tightly around yourself for warmth, you started off towards your apartment building, hoping to make it there without incidents. But… well, of course, it was you and your luck was as bad as Papyrus' cooking.
The paved road under your feet had just turned hazardous as you entered the part of town that wasn't so well maintained due to poorer residence. Muscle memory allowed you to avoid the holes in the road, your feet leading you on safely despite the dark, until you heard something shoot past your ear and hit the wall behind you with a thud. Your body froze over, eyes darting around to identify whatever the hell just almost knocked out out cold, eventually coming to a conclusion that it was the brick that so innocently now laid on the pavement.
A fucking brick.
"You could have killed her…"
Damn right they could have! Your shock was slowly turning into rage as you turned around, ready to curse out anyone who stood in the dark, but the sight before you made your body freeze all over again.
There stood Sans, surrounded by a group of humans, all holding rocks or bricks of some sort. His skull was cracked… and he was backed against a wall.
"Leave him alone!"
The kids laughed, but it was short lived as you picked up the brick that had landed by your feet and threw it at their heads, managing to headshot one of them, who staggered backwards. It might have been a brick, but… well, as you always feared, the fact that your bark was worse than your bite proved itself in the most uncomfortable situations.
"Hey dude, you okay?" "Shit, we gotta call the police on her." "Throw back, it'll be self defense!"
The intimidating, large rocks were now aimed at you, and you were rendered immobile as they were launched right at your head. For a very scary second you thought that this was it. The end. You were a goner.
You didn't even have the moment to squeeze your eyes shut, and you still regret that you didn't, as you felt the slight shift in the air, like it had grown heavier around you. A roar shook the ground and a flash of blinding, white light, missing your face by just a centimeter, vaporized the rocks that were just about to hit you.
Too shocked to scream, you collapsed to your knees, the pure terror had stolen every bit of energy in your body. Your eyes were wide, filled with so much fear that it felt like you were screaming through them instead. They weren't focused on anything, just as was your hearing, that totally missed the screams of terror of the boys that were now running for their dear life.
But then you remembered Sans, and you were filled with determination. Determination that helped you get on your feet and finally focus your senses enough to make the world less blurry of a mess.
"Sans, are you-"
You had reached out to him, but never got to finish your sentence as a sharp-tipped bone was pressed to your neck and you came face to face with something that haunts your dreams still to this day. Skull cracked, black liquid dripping down the white bone, and one eye glowing with a blue flame, Sans stared you down, grinning ear to ear.
"Didn't I tell you to stay out my way?" his voice, calm, cocky, powerful- the voice of a being that knows can squash you like a fly- had you trembling.
Without a second thought, you turned and ran, not stopping until you were in your apartment, tripping over several holes and almost falling over thrice. The door to your apartment had never been this agonizingly heavy, but when you were trying to push it closed behind you, it felt as if it were made of steel and the key made out of concrete as you tried to lock the door.
That night your pillow became soaked in tears.