Chapter Text
It's raining. You sit at the countertop at a 24-hour gas station and stare out at the blackness of the night. The rain was coming down lightly. You sip on your coffee and sigh, looking down at the pack of cigs and lighter you bought.
'How much longer can I keep going like this?'
Your chest hurts when you look over at the cashier. You see his name and a set of numbers above his head.
Joshua
LV 3
EXP 35
'He hates his job, almost as much as his mother.'
Ever since monsters had come to the surface about four years ago, swarming out in clusters, you had started seeing these numbers. Well, to be fair, they had told you that eating monster food could make weird things happen to you.
But most people don't see stats or, if they looked hard enough, another person's soul after eating a slice of monster cake.
This had ruined your life. Seeing your family's stats, seeing your partner's stats...Seeing their 'descriptions'. Seeing into the core of a person and discovering so much hate...
You were a coward. You ran.
Your grandparents had left you an inheritance when you were younger and you hadn't spent much of it before now. A month on the road hadn't even touched a portion of it. You knew you could settle down anywhere for a new life really.
So, why had you come to Ebott?
It was a question not even you could answer but you felt the need to come here. It was the central area for all monsters and yet...
You were drawn here.
You sipped more of your coffee and tiredly looked out at your car. It was about three in the morning. You had stopped here for gas and something to eat then you were just going to sleep in your car, or if the coffee worked, go find a motel.
So why were you sitting here?
There was a feeling in your chest telling you to stay in place. You were waiting.
Finishing your coffee, you decide to head out and have a cig. As you walk out the door, you put your hoodie up and run into someone's chest.
"Ugh, sorry." You look up and see a skeleton monster.
He was tall, wearing an orange hoodie.
Stretch (Papyrus)
LVL ???
EXP ???
'Could really use a smoke.'
You couldn't help it. You stared up at him in shock.
"hmm, mind letting me by there pal?" He had a soft smile on his face, but you could feel his annoyance. Not from you directly though, he must've had a rough day.
"I, yeah." You shake your head and move around him.
Standing outside, you couldn't help but to look at him and wonder:
'What the fuck is with those numbers?'
You sat on a bench just outside the gas station, quickly packing your cigs and trying to think this through.
Maybe it was because you hadn't eaten monster food in a while?
You unwrap the package and pull one out.
Nah, you had eaten a monster candy by accident a week ago when you were feeling tired. You are so tired.
You light up the cig and take a deep breath of it.
It's driving you crazy. You've read every book you could get your hands on, which unfortunately was only two, to read about monster history and souls. None of it explained your condition, but there had to be-
"hey, mind if i bum one?"
Being jolted out of your thinking stupor, you look up at the orange hoodie. You stared just above him, at his stats, as you held out the pack.
He snickered before taking one and sitting beside you.
"first time seeing a monster?"
You shake your head, holding out your lighter.
"No, I've just never seen a monster like you." You say honestly.
He lit his cig and looked at you a moment too long. You reached to take back your lighter and realized...
He was looking above your head.
He could be the answers you need. He could help you. All you had to do was ask.
You aren't determined enough...
You stood, looking down and started walking to your car while throwing the half-smoked cig on the ground.
You fumbled with your keys in a rush. It was stupid to come here. You needed to leave. Maybe leave the country and just run from all these problems. There was an itch deep inside you, deep inside your soul, telling you to run.
But he refused.
Your keys were suddenly out of your hand. You stared at your hand confused before tensing as the orange hoodie breathed some smoke out right behind you. How the fuck did he sneak up on you so fast?!
"has your right eye always been green?" It didn't sound like he was asking, it was a statement. "i can tell you can see stats."
You sucked in a breath, shaking as you felt that urge to just 'go' more than ever.
" (y/n), you don't need to be scared." He said. You were so scared though. You were terrified. "i'm guessing this is all new to you, i can help you understand if we just sit and talk."
You didn't want that.
"if you want, we can just-"
Suddenly you felt like you were falling, then you were in the backseat of your car. You gasped air desperately as if you had been suffocating. You held your throat and closed your eyes.
'What was that?! What is happening to me?! Why can't it just stop!?'
A few minutes into hyperventilating, you hear soft knocks on your window. You can't look up though. You can't move. You're terrified it'll happen again.
The car unlocks and the door opens. A skeletal hand gently touches one of your's on your throat still.
"first time usin' a short cut huh? its okay. just breathe deep."
You listen to him and start taking deeper breaths.
"there." He sounds more relaxed suddenly.
Your eyes start to water as you shake.
"C-can you tell me what's happening?" Your voice is small.
"yes, but i need to take you to my home. we can get more help there, okay?"
You shake, every fiber of your being telling you this was a bad idea. If you went with him, you were going to have a bad time.
Your head is swarming with ideas of all the bad things that could happen to you. All the bad things that did happen to you, happening again. Nightmares surfacing up. But you wanted answers. You wanted control. You didn't want to run away again. You summon up everything you had in you.
You are determined.
You look at him finally, tears streaming down your face and nodded. He gave you a soft smile that erased all those bad thoughts. There was something so comforting suddenly about him.
He closed your door and got in the front seat. You laid back and he drove. Against what your mind was telling you, you drift off in a restless nap as he pulled out of the gas station.
You didn't feel much better when you woke up. Your mind had settled though in your quick nap. You rub your eyes and look at the orange hoodie.
"you doing okay back there?"
You nod before looking down.
"hey," he had been quiet for a few minutes but caught your attention now, "what part of the car is the laziest?"
"Huh? Um..." You look at him confused.
"The wheels, cause they're always tired."
With how tired you are, it takes a minute to register he just told you a joke. He looks nervous for a moment, then you crack a small smile.
"Heh, that's a good one."
Brightening up a small amount, he glances at the house then back to you.
"it was a bit of a 'stretch', but that's my name after all."
You giggle before shaking your head.
"If I couldn't see your name, I'd think you were telling me a 'tall' tale."
He chuckles with you at your pun.
"don't be nervous. things will be okay."
The way he says it, you believe it.
His words fill you with determination.
You smile once more before opening the car door. You both exit the car and walk towards the door. He opens it with a key, the end of it shaped like a skeleton head.
The house is big, almost a mansion. It made you wonder how he walked to the gas station. Maybe it was closer than you thought but, things were difficult to string together in your lack of sleep.
"stay here for a minute," Stretch says before disappearing.
Well, you had one question answered. You look around but don't really take in many details. There was a coat rack, however, you preferred to keep your coat on for now. There was a small table with a bowl full of keys. All the keychains made you smile softly. There was an archway, leading out to the rest of the house. What really had your attention, were pictures hung on the wall. There were many skeletons in the pictures. They looked somewhat similar, but even how you are, you could see the differences clear as day. They were taken at many different places, the beach, on a snowy mountain, and everyone in the living room in Christmas sweaters.
You heard something strange. Like a very quiet wind rushing for a moment. You looked at the archway and saw Stretch and two other skeletons.
Sans
LVL ???
EXP ???
'Interested in anomalies."
Red (Sans)
LVL ???
EXP ???
'Happier than he had been previously.'
You quirked an eyebrow up at them. They were staring you down. Sans doing so casually, while Red seemed to have a natural glare.
'Yet he's the happy one?' You thought.
"So, uh, what's mine say?" You asked, pointing up at the stats above your head. You couldn't see your own stats.
"sounds like we have a lot to talk about. we should do it over coffee." Sans said.
Coffee sounded amazing as long as it wasn't that gas station crap.
"Okay." You gave Stretch a nervous look but he seemed at ease with these two.
They walked to the kitchen and you followed. Everything was starting to get dizzy. You were used to the dizziness though. If anyone noticed, they didn't say anything.
"you can get comfy," Stretch said when you all entered the kitchen.
Sans and Red sat at the table. Not all that eager to be near strangers, you lean on the counter a little ways from Stretch. You look down at the floor, listening to Stretch make some coffee.
"stretch didn't tell us much, so would you mind sharing your story kiddo?" Sans was keeping his voice casual, but you look at him closer.
He was very tense.
It made your hands shake so you put them in your hoodie pockets.
"You know my name already so I won't start with that. I guess I started seeing stats about two years ago. Ate some monster cake and started seeing 'em." You look away from Sans, feeling uneasy,
"what stats do you see?" Red spoke for once.
"Um..." You stare at him for a moment, then at his stats, which visibly makes him uncomfortable, "I can only see names, LVL, EXP, and a small description. If it makes you feel any better, I don't see your numbers for LVL and EXP." You offered.
His shoulders drop and it does seem to put him at ease, which only makes you more tense. You look away to the checkered floor again.
Was it checkered or was your vision being funny?
"you should sit." Stretch touches your shoulder.
You look up at him surprised but moved to sit where he guided you. He sat you next to Sans. You kept looking down. Stretch put a mug of coffee in front of you and, surprising you, what looked like a burger in a wrapper.
"Thanks." You say quietly.
"don't worry so much. we haven't encountered a human with magic before," As Stretch spoke, you go to take a sip, "but the coffee should help, I can see your magic is low." You stop.
You grimaced before setting the mug down without taking a drink.
It's quiet for a moment. You feel that itch in your soul to run.
"got a problem with monster food kid?" Red all but snarls at you.
Stretch gives him a look.
"Abit." You admit. "When I eat or drink monster food, it makes my eye hurt."
Things feel tenser before Stretch claps his hands and smirked at Sans.
"told you."
"that proves nothing." Sans sighs quietly, but not even he seems to believe it.
"Prove what?" You ask confused.
"it's a long story." Sans looks at you, but seems a little more at ease. "four years ago, when monsters came out of the mountain, did anything weird happen?"
You shrug.
"I wouldn't know. I was in a coma when it happened. I got in a bad car crash."
"you lost your eye then?" Red asked.
You jumped at that and looked down at your lap. You felt lost for a moment. Everything was screaming at you to run.
"red, that-"
You didn't hear the rest of what Stretch was saying. You felt that falling sensation and suddenly you were in the backseat of your car.
You look around, for a moment terrified that it happened again. But then, you felt so tired. You stopped caring and just laid back, staring up at the ceiling of your car.
Your fake eye was hurting. Your right eye had been damaged in the crash and they had to take it out. When you woke up, your mother had picked out a glass eye for you. A green one. She said it was perfect for you, despite your normal eye being (e/c).
There's a pain in your chest but...you can't bring yourself to care. You drift off.
You wake up hearing the car door open. You don't even sit up, despite your rest, it was too much effort still.
"shit, her soul is going to split apart." Stretch said, moving over you. "i'm going to bring you back inside, okay honey?"
You can't even make a noise as Stretch wraps your arms around his neck and he wraps his arms under your back and your thighs. He pulls you out and then carries you like a bride. Your eyes slide shut for a moment. When they open, you're laying down and you see Red.
Red (Sans)
LVL ???
EXP ???
'Despite everything, hates seeing you hurt.'
" 'mm fine." You mumble quietly.
Red perks up, noticing you woke up.
"don't move too much, Stretch is whipping something up to get some magic in you." Red still sounds tense and angry.
Seeing the description in his stats, you feel determined.
You sit up slowly and give him a smile.
"Really, look, I'm okay see? I can't really control the hiding in my car thing. Sorry if I scared you."
Red looks at you surprised for a moment before frowning.
"you're really not okay."
"I'm human, I can hold myself together better than you think."
He looks above your head for a moment and seems to be put to ease for the moment. He's sitting in a red chair and you notice that you're sitting on a couch. You lean back in the cushions and sigh out tiredly.
"you can sleep after you eat somethin'."
"Yeah, bud..." You mutter, eyes sliding shut. "I'm fine, just resting my eyes." You say, trying to ease his worry still.
He was a tense guy and made you very tense, but you didn't want him to worry still. You didn't like it when people worried about you.
"hey, honey." Stretch sat next to you.
You peeked your eyes open and saw Sans standing next to him, looking a little worried.
"Ya know, I'm really fine despite sleeping in a car is really 'tire'ing." You smile at them.
Stretch smiled back and Sans looked much more at ease.
"you've used up about all your magic, you need to drink this okay?" Stretch said, handing you a milkshake.
You hold it but don't drink from it right away. You were worried about your eye hurting so bad you had to take the glass eye out.
Stretch broke your thoughts by touching your shoulder.
"kiddo, i know you're worried about your eye but we've all got our eyes hurt. if we were human, we wouldn't have an eye there either." Sans said.
You look down for a moment before sighing and taking a sip. It was hard to swallow, which didn't matter too much. The magic was immediately absorbed and disappeared on your tongue.
Your eye started hurting right away so you tried to focus on the flavor. It tasted like vanilla and honey.
"Heh, its good." You smile at Stretch. "Thanks."
"i'm pretty good with the sweet stuff." Stretch smiled. "we'll talk more in the morning, i think its a good time to relax and take a break."
"Sweet." You mumble with the straw in your mouth. You look up at Red, surprised to hear him chuckle.
You felt a little pride hearing him chuckle. The room seemed to ease with serious business put on the back burner.
"i have some things to look up, i'll be here for breakfast." Sans said, "hey, kiddo. mind if i borrow your hoodie? i'll give it back in the morning."
You hesitate before setting your drink down and handing him your well-loved black hoodie. You had it for years and it definitely showed with the small stains you had tried to wash out and small snags and tears in it. You handed it to him and he disappeared. You sat back, feeling exposed in just your army green tank. Stretch handed you the shake again.
Red sighed loudly before sitting next to you. Stretch slung his arm on the back of the couch while Red turned on the tv.
You stared blankly at it while sipping at the milkshake. You were too tired to notice you were resting your head on Stretch's arm, or Red getting closer to you.
You finished the milkshake a few minutes into the show. Stretch took the cup from you as you started to doze off.
Your eye was throbbing badly but you didn't want to take the glass eye out. You didn't like the empty socket it left. You slept lightly, trying to deal with the pain. Just as you started to really settle down, it seemed all the magic entered your system.
You gasped and held your right eye tightly, leaning forward in pain. Vaguely, you heard your couch mates saying something to you, but you couldn't make it out.
The pain was making you deaf. You stand up and head back to the kitchen, muttering curses the whole way there. You grab a hand towel and lean over the kitchen sink. You turned on the water to distract yourself. You hand was shaking as you pulled out your prosthetic eye. As soon as it was in your hand, you expected the pain to end but it only dulled down.
"Fucking shit..." You grumble.
"hey," Stretch put a hand on your shoulder, "does it still hurt?"
"Its not too bad when its out." You kept your head down, staring at the fake eye.
You let the water run over it for a minute before drying it off on the hand towel quietly.
"i'm not as good at healing as papyrus but let me see." Stretch said, trying to touch your chin to get you to look at him.
You flinch away from his touch though.
"It's all healed, its just the magic. Guess it doesn't like having an empty space where one shouldn't be." You shrug.
"kid, you should let stretch take a look," you almost look at Red but stop yourself, "its probably trying to form something."
"Form something?" You asked confused.
"your magic is trying to form a new eye. its likely that since your magic isn't stable its having a hard time forming one." Red explained. "just let 'im."
You hesitate, which Stretch took as you giving in to their wishes evidently. He turned your head up. If he was bothered by the empty socket, he wasn't showing it.
"just stay still for a minute." His hand is coated in a green glow. He covered your eye and you shudder and start to pull away when you felt his magic seep in.
Stretch grabs your shoulder though. "c'mon, its not so bad you babybones."
"Mnf." You grumble but stand still.
It takes a while. The green magic is strange but warm. It's soothing after you get use to the strange seeping feeling. You stared up at Stretch for a bit, watching his look on concentration before closing your eye and trying to relax.
Stretch finally took his hand off your eye and you looked up at him. He looked shocked then got a smug smirk.
"i told both of you!" He turned to Red, crossing his arms.
You turned and looked at Red, who was staring at your socket. You looked away quickly, feeling self-conscious.
Stretch pulled out his phone and turned the front camera on before handing it to you.
"look!" He sounded proud.
You look at the phone and pale seeing that your socket wasn't empty anymore.
The socket was entirely, endlessly black with an eyelight in the middle.
"I...I," You were stuck looking at it. A little white pinprick. An eye. You had your eye?!
"kid, you doin' okay?" Red asked, reaching to touch your shoulder but stopping himself and putting his hand in his hoodie pocket.
"I, uh..." You hold Stretch's phone back to him, "Thank you...? I'm just, I'm," You stumbled over your words.
Stretch stopped you by wrapping an arm around your shoulders. You lean into him naturally, not even thinking about it. Your eyes go half-lidded and your world is starting to get shaky and fuzzy.
"lets get you to sleep." Stretch still sounds proud as he leads you back to the couch. You pass out as soon as you sit down.
You wake up in the morning, curled in a blanket and your head resting on Stretch's leg. Stretch was sitting straight up, head tilted back, snoring away. You start to sit up but stop, seeing Red leaning on him with Stretch's arm wrapped around him. They're pretty cute asleep like this. It takes you a full minute to realize Stretch's other hand was on your shoulder, clutching it lightly.
Not wanting to wake either of them up, you lay your head back on Stretch's leg. Odd, for being bone, it wasn't uncomfortable. You start to drift off, thinking how crazy you were for coming here last night.
Could they really help you? It's not like they could help you be normal again. Idly, you rub your new eye tiredly. It's not like you could ignore the descriptions you had seen on your family either.
'Your adopted mother.'
'Your adopted father.'
'Wonders why wasn't she good enough to be an only child?'
You squeeze your eyes closed to hold back tears. You had never known. You had asked your parents if you were adopted and they tried to deny it.
'Is use to lying to you.'
'Has no guilt lying about this.'
'Wishes you had never been adopted.'
You curl up in a tight ball, trying to push the memories to the back of your head as you rest. Even after some sleep, you were exhausted. You felt Stretch's hand grip your shoulder a little tighter before relaxing again.
It didn't matter anymore. You had left all that behind, taking only the fortune your 'adopted' grandparents gave you for whatever reason. Maybe you could stick around Ebott for a while.
You start drifting off at the thought of your own little apartment and walking to coffee shops in the morning for a brew, then hanging out with faceless friends who cared.