#sorry for putting him in a dishcloth on your dash

[mongoosefangs]

look if you're gonna draw or write or think about this guy for any length of time you have to present your bodily headcanons eventually, I don't make the rules. apologies if my handwriting is illegible. unova man learns one weird trick to attempt world domination! legendary dragons hate him! (regular dragons also hate him)

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Careless

For @b-lank-0 in return for the lovely art she drew for Witness!!! It was awesome and amazing and you can find it on my Instagram

Warnings: non/dubcon, rough sex, multiple partners, threat of violence, humiliation.

This is dark!Bucky Barnes and dark!Steve Rogers and explicit. 18+ only.

Summary: You share a floor with Bucky and Steve in Stark Tower. They’re growing tired of your general cluelessness and they let it be known.

DISCLAIMER: READ ALL WARNINGS. ALL OF THEM.

It was difficult at first. You hadn’t lived with anyone since that one year in university. After that, you had requested a private dorm; late nights filled with your roommates blaring music and raucous voices had been too much. Ever since, you had held to the pattern of solitary. You weren’t anti-social per se, more socially inept. Your childhood shyness had only grown to adulthood aloofness. So it was that you had moved into Stark Tower with trepidation.

You had been an intelligence operative for years but only recently promoted to work directly with Stark and his team. Your move to New York had been stressful in itself and Tony had generously offered to save you a fortune in rent with a tenure at his infamous skyscraper. You had accepted if only because you had no other option. Yet the prospect of living alongside those you had only ever seen on the news was even more overwhelming than merely the thought of living with others.

The actual arrangements had cemented your anxiety; stirring a constant storm of nerves within. You were to share a floor with the two super soldiers and thus far they had been less than welcoming. You supposed that was mostly your fault. Your shyness was often mistaken for standoffishness and you were clumsy to boot. Disaster was never far behind you. The only thing you were skilled at was your job and that only took up so much of your time. When left to your own devices, well, you were better off doing nothing at all than even trying.

Today was no exception to the rules. It had been almost a month since your arrival at the tower. You were slowly growing used to your roommates. You had learned to time your own daily routine around theirs. You woke up early to shower before they woke so you were gone before them and ate your meals in the common room a few floors down. When you were in the loft, you tried to stay in your room. The few times you had run into Steve or Bucky, you felt as if you were in their way. Especially after spilling a bowl of cereal on the former and elbowing the other in his rib as you tried to untangle your sleeve from a door handle.

You were in the shower when it all fell apart. You were just washing the last of the soap from your hair when the alarm began to wail. Shit! You forgot you put the kettle on for tea and you had taken a bit longer than planned. You pulled back the curtain and wrapped yourself in a towel before you dashed into the hallway. You cursed under your breath as you ran to the stove, the smoke rising as you turned the knob to ‘off’. You took the dishcloth from over the oven handle and began to fan the thick cloud away from the alarm’s sensor.

“Jesus,” Bucky’s angry voice was the last you wanted to hear. Steve followed behind as they arrived to scowl at your latest fiasco.

The alarm stopped its song and you lowered your arm and hung the dishcloth back in its spot. You gulped as you clutched the top of the towel together. Water dripped from your hair in cool pebbles down your back. You shivered as the smoke cleared and the super soldiers remained; grumbling as they crossed their arms at you.

“Sorry, guys,” You cringed, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Well you did,” Bucky growled as he neared and leaned against the fridge. He yawned though it sounded more a snarl.

“You know, we just got back from a mission?” Steve huffed, his chest rose and fell dangerously. You noticed then that neither of them were dressed. They only wore their boxers and it made you even more aware of your own lack of clothing.

“At three a.m.,” Bucky added, “So about three hours ago.”

“I really didn’t mean too. I was just making tea.” You blinked innocently.

“While you were in the shower?” Steve’s arms uncrossed, his hands on his hips now. “Smart.”

“You really need to get your head on straight,” Bucky gritted through his teeth, “This little sweet act isn’t gonna cut it forever.”

“Tony and his pet projects,” Steve chortled darkly, “He does pick the most tragic characters.”

“Hey,” Despite the active discontent aimed in your direction, your hackles rose at the jab. “I earned my place here. Same as you.”

“No, you see we’re agents and you’re, well...” Steve looked to Bucky.

“A desk jockey,” Bucky finished. “You’re Stark’s little pet. Running around, grabbing his files and his coffee.”

“No,” Your voice peaked, “I do more than that. I-I-I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“Oh look, the little mouse is upset,” Bucky chuckled, “She might even bite if we push her far enough.”

“Just leave me alone,” You grumbled and made to walk past them. They moved in tandem and closed the space between them; blocking your way out of the kitchen. “Get out of my way.”

“You gonna make us?” Steve challenged.

“Just...you two, stop, okay? I’ll go talk to Tony and have him change my room.” You hugged your chest as the towel threatened to slip.

“Hmm,” They looked at each other before their eyes went back to you, “We don’t want you to move.”

“No, we just want you to learn a few things,” Bucky smirked, “Like how this whole thing works.”

“What ‘whole thing’?” You asked dryly. You stepped back just a little under the heat of their gaze.

“Living together, working together…” Steve’s eyes strayed along your bare shoulder, “I don’t think the problem here is your general oblivion.”

“No, there’s tension, you see? Anger at first, sure, but more than that,” Bucky flexed his biceps as he spoke. “We need to get it all out in the open. Take the stress out of this place.”

You took another step back and looked around the loft. You weren’t sure you caught their meaning clearly. You swallowed your nerves. “Look, I’m just going to have my tea and you two can get back to bed.” You turned and opened a cupboard, distracting yourself as you searched for the breakfast tea. “I’ll be quiet. I promise.”

You closed the cupboard door, the tea swiftly snatched from your grip. Steve threw the box over his shoulder and it bounced into the sink. You tried to back away but found yourself colliding with another; unseen until his arm was around your middle. Bucky clung to you and shifted you next to the stove. With his free arm he reached over your shoulder and moved the kettle from one burner to the other. He grabbed your hand and raised it over the hot coil; just close enough to feel its heat.

“Now, you’re going to do as we say or we’ll just teach you the old fashioned way,” Your hand was only an inch from the burner. “Understood?”

You trembled as he held you against the stove. Your voice rose an octave as you choked out your answer. “Y-yes.”

You glanced over at Steve, shocked as he hooked his thumbs in his boxer and removed them with a single swipe. As he stood upright, so did his cock and you gasped. Bucky pulled you away from the stove and released your hand. He tugged at the towel until it fell away and you tried to catch it. Bucky’s hands were on your shoulders, pushing you towards the island opposite the counter. Your stomach hit the lip painfully and you soon found yourself bent over the island.

Steve came to the other side, his thick fingers brushed your damp hair away from your face. He smacked your ass, your feet dangling to the floor as you struggled to reach the tile. Steve’s hand knotted in your hair and he pulled your head back, his other hand on his cock.

“Don--” You were smothered as he pushed himself past your lips, grazing your teeth.

You almost bit down as you felt Bucky’s cock prodding at your entrance. You kicked your feet out and he slapped your ass with both hands. You yelped around Steve’s cock as he shoved himself further, gagging you as he met the back of your throat. Bucky entered you as he spread your ass, bottoming out as Steve did the same. Your hands gripped the countertop as you struggled to breath.

“Now, I think this is much better than arguing,” Steve remarked as his hand went to your neck. He could feel his cock as it moved inside.

The sensation of both of them inside of you was too much. The shock of how quickly it had all descended was worse. You could barely breathe, the invasion of both mouth and pussy was painful. Bucky’s metal fingers stabbed into your hip and Steve’s hand formed a vice as he held both your neck and hair as he plowed into your face. You were struggling to stay conscious as Bucky got deeper inside, well past your limit.

You gurgled around Steve’s cock, the slobber coating his length and your lips. Their grunts and the slapping of flesh drowned out any noise you made in your distress. You reached out to grasp Steve’s thighs, trying to hold him away from you. He only thrust harder and you started slapping him blindly, your eyes rolling back.

You felt yourself growing wetter as Bucky worked into you easier. Your face was on fire, both from the ongoing assault and your shame. The little flicker was growing to a spark. You felt Bucky’s grip on your leg as he forced you to bend it up on your counter at a right angle. You were even more open to him and he held your leg in place with a growl.

“Fuck, Stevey, you were right,” He snarled, “She’s not so hopeless after all.”

“Oh yeah,” Steve pulled out of your mouth suddenly. “Come on, switch.”

“P-please,” You tried to pull yourself away from Bucky’s relentless pounding. He dragged you back and pinched your ass before he removed himself. Your leg slipped down weakly.

His hands were replaced by two flesh ones and Steve entered you without warning. He wasn’t any gentler than Bucky and you writhed as you heard Bucky coming around the counter. “Don’t worry,” He grabbed your hair, “I don’t need your mouth to finish,” He stroked himself as he smirked down at you, “All you have to catch.” His hand slipped to your chin and he squeezed, “Open up.”

You were forced to obey as his fingers crushed your jaw and he rubbed himself faster, his tip tapping your lip as he began to moan. Steve’s thrusts were unwinding you as you watched Bucky play with himself. Steve moved your legs together, creating a snugger fit for his cock. You let out a long moan which peaked as your orgasm came suddenly at the change in position. Bucky hissed and white streams spurted forth, some in your mouth, more along the bridge of your nose and above your eye.

Bucky backed away as he slowed to a halt and your hips were slammed into the counter’s edge. You were empty within the second and felt another hot stream along your back as Steve came too. You slipped from the marble as he let you go and you crumpled to the floor heavily. Neither of them paid much heed as they breathed heavily above you. You could barely keep sitting up as your muscles buzzed.

“Now,” You sensed them as they came near and looked up. Spit and cum all over your face. “I think we’re ready to go back to bed.” Steve smirked as Bucky flicked his brows up. “Think you can keep quiet?”

[your-anxious-nightmare]

Adventures in Dad-ing (10)

Summary: Virgil’s having a hard time and Roman comes to the rescue. Word Count:  Relationships: Almost official Prinxiety. The next chapter it will be.  Previous Chapters: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine,   (because i know this has problems, look up the tag adventures in dading or dad virgil on my blog archive and you’ll find all of them) Tags:  @katatles-the-fish   @karma-the-tax-collector   @analogical-mess (ask to be tagged xoxox) Warnings: R*pe mention twice (it is written like that though) Ao3

“Virgil, I’m going to be honest with you, she has a solid case. Meghann is claiming she was under duress when she left the hospital, and she has records from therapy to prove it.”

“This is going to be a long battle, and it may not end the way you want it too.”

“We can try our best, but it’s looking grim.”

Virgil is running low on hope. He’s been to four meetings with Remy’s lawyer friend, Nathan, and has yet to hear good news. How a woman that conceived a child under r*pe, neglected said unborn child in the womb and left without a trace when the kid was finally born could have any rights for custody was beyond unreasonable.

Unfortunately though, she never signed over her rights as Patton’s biological mother, and with falsified documents from therapists that don’t exist, her case is looking great.

Virgil had no one to back him up. His parents haven’t spoken to him for years, he had no friends from his past, no one in his life even knows who Meghann is. To put it simply, he was screwed.

He was sitting up at the table one afternoon, head in his hands and tears streaming down his cheeks when Roman calls. He couldn’t bring himself to answer, chest heaving with silent sobs, instead watching the screen fade to black before a message popped up.

“Hey Virge, I know you’ve got tomorrow off, wanna do something? There’s a couple of Disney movies on at that old cinema, we could even take Patton if you’d like.”

Amongst all the stress of the impending case, Virgil had completely forgotten about his not-quite boyfriend. They had been on a few dates, Virgil took him to the theatre, Roman took him to an observatory, they had both gone to the park with Patton to meet up with Logan several times after school. But the week and a half since getting the papers, Virgil had said all of maybe four words to the teacher.

Noting that it’s during the last break of school, he replies quickly, asking the man to come round when he was finished. The affirmation text is quick, and it takes Virgil the whole hour and a half to clean himself up before picking Patton up from the school and getting the house tidy.

A knock sounds at the door at exactly 5:30 pm and the small patter of feet sends Virgil’s arm flying out to catch his son.

“No running in the kitchen.” He turns the boy around and straightens up to turn off the stove before following the boy to the front door.

“Mr Phillips!” Patton shouts, barreling into the man's legs as the door is pulled open, nearly sending both of them onto the cold steps. Roman catches his balance and picks the eight-year-old up with ease, swinging him around in a hug.

“My darling Patton, I haven’t seen you in years.” Patton giggles as he’s pulled in for a hug, wrapping his arms around the man’s neck.

“We had school a few hours ago silly!” Roman tuts, proclaiming how it’s far too long before turning to the shorter man leaning in the doorway.

“Good evening Virgil, you look dashing as always.” His hazel eyes shimmer as he looks the man up and down, smirking at the Harry Potter patterned pyjama pants. Virgil just rolls his eyes, welcoming the man inside before closing the door.

“Patton, go wash your hands.” The boy nods quickly as Roman sets him back down, almost immediately running off down the hall. Virgil goes to speak when a loud bang sounds down the hall.

“I’m okay.” Virgil chuckles before leading Roman to the small kitchen table.

“I’m sorry about the short notice, and for ghosting you the past few days. There’s been a lot going on.” Virgil takes a set of plates from the kitchen cupboard, laying them on the bench and starting to dish out the meal.

“It’s no problem, I understand. I’ll still be here when you’re ready to talk.” Roman smiles, pulling off his hoodie to reveal a t-shirt with Chewbacca on the front. Virgil raises an eyebrow before snickering and turning back to his job. He quickly finishes and turns in time to stop Patton running behind him, turning him so he goes around the counter instead of in front of the stove.

“Mr Phillips, you can sit here.” Patton pushes the man towards the seat nearest the door, placed between where Virgil and he usually sit. The young boy grabs a set of cutlery from the drawer and places them on the table, climbing up as Virgil places the plates on the table. Roman smiles and sits down, draping his hoodie over the back of the chair.

“Thank you, Virgil, this looks amazing.” Using the cookbook he’s had for almost twice as many years as Patton’s been alive, Virgil had made spaghetti and meatballs. To him, that seemed pretty mundane, but the compliment still brought a light blush to his cheeks.

The three eat in what would be silence if not for Patton’s excited storytelling of both things he had done at school and home. The adults can’t stop laughing between stories, playfully teasing each other as Patton exposes their embarrassing mistakes.

“And one time, Miss Heckle from the older kids class came in and Mr Phillips spilt water on her and everyone laughed.” Patton smiles widely, tongue resting between his teeth as he watches his dad snicker behind his hand.

“Okay, enough stories. I think you’ve embarrassed both of us enough, you little munchkin.” Roman smiles, thoroughly blushing.

“I have to agree. Go clean up and get in your PJs and then we can watch a movie.” Patton nods and climbs down, knocking his fork onto the floor and splattering sauce across his chair. He pulls an innocent face and runs off before Virgil can tell him to clean it up.

Virgil picks up the plates as Roman takes the dishcloth from the sink to clean the boy’s mess despite the younger man telling him not too. They tidy up quickly, washing the dishes and leaving them in the rack to dry before wandering into the small living room.

The two adults take a seat on the small two-seater couch, Virgil turning on the tv before sitting next to the teacher. Patton comes waddling in, dragging his blankie behind him before climbing onto the couch, squishing himself between the two men. Roman laughs lightly as the tired boy curls into his father’s side, thumb securely in his mouth. There was definitely enough space on Virgil’s other side, but the older man attributes it to the boy’s protectiveness of his Dad. Patton asks to watch a Disney movie, and Roman is quick to suggest Cinderella, getting an excited agreement from the boy.

Not even half-way through the film, Patton falls asleep, curled against Roman with one hand grasping his dad’s shirt and the other still in his mouth. Roman’s arm rests on the boy’s back, rubbing small circles as he sings along quietly. Virgil can’t help but snap a quick picture as he stands to move his son to his bed.

“I can carry him.” Roman offers, noting Virgil’s own tired look. He smiles lightly before leading the man to Patton’s bedroom and helping him tuck the boy in, flicking on the night light before pulling the door mostly closed.

“Thank you for tonight Roman.” Virgil leads the man back to the living room, both taking their seats on the couch to finish the film.

“As I said, it’s no problem. I quite like seeing you, and seeing you with the adorable bean is even better.” Virgil smiles before turning back to the tv, scooting ever so slightly closer to the teacher. Roman notices, moving his arm to rest along Virgil’s shoulders.

The film finishes and Roman looks down at his chest to see Virgil frowning.

“What’s wrong, ShadowHeart?” He asks, brushing the hair out of Virgil’s eyes as the younger man turns to face him.

“Can I rant to you about my first world problems?”

“Always.” Virgil nods, sitting up and clasping Roman’s hand from his shoulder, holding it between both of his on his lap.

“Basically, Patton’s mother came back,” Roman’s eyes widen, an almost happy look gleaming in the green pools. “Not a good thing, don’t smile yet.” He nods quickly, straightening his face and turning a little bit more towards the troubled man.

“Backstory time, buckle up Princey. She was possibly the worst partner I could’ve ever had. I was young and naive and I just wanted someone to call my own, no matter the stress or trauma it would cause.” Virgil explains the conditions in which Patton was made, leaving out the part where he was forced into it.

“She found me at work that day I was late and gave me a handful of papers. She’s taking me to court for custody of Patton.”

“There is no way in hell that woman would ever win a case for custody after that.”

“I have no proof, it’s my word against hers. She has all these reports from therapists saying she was going through a tough time, painting me as the abuser, I have nothing. I have no one to back me up bar myself.”

“You have me.” Virgil looks up, tears in his cold eyes as Roman’s face hardens. “If you will let me, I will stand by you through all of this. I will back you up, I’ll find a way to get Patton’s records and prove he was treated poorly in utero. And I will stand by your side through it all, as Patton’s teacher and, if you’ll have me, your boyfriend too.”

“Roman, I couldn’t-”

“You’re not dragging me into anything Virgil. I want to help you. You and Patton have an amazing life here, I don’t want her to ruin that. She has no backing for being a good parent, she’s coming back when he’s 8 years old, long after he would’ve needed her most. You have raised Patton to be such a kind, smart young boy and it’s time you don’t have to brave it alone. Let me help you, even just as a friend if you’d prefer.” Roman rambles, grasping Virgil’s hands tightly.

“I don’t know.” It’s been years since he’s called another person his partner. After Meghann and that man that told Patton lies he wasn’t sure if he knew how to trust another person like that.

“You can say no Virgil, I’m not going to force you into this just because I have feelings for you,” He pauses, taking a breath as he watches Virgil’s fingers run over his knuckles. “I can tell you this isn’t how I wanted this to go. I had planned to take you to dinner and make a dramatic speech over a glass of wine and you’d fall head over heels for me in an instant, but I guess I can compromise for a night of spaghetti, Cinderella and backstories.” Virgil snickers, a smile reaching all the way to his cool eyes.

“I want to say yes. I want nothing more than to call you mine but…” He fades off, looking across the room at a picture frame of himself and Patton, “I want him to be safe.”

“We can ask him,” Virgil looks back in surprise. “We can ask Patton tomorrow or another day, whenever you’re comfortable, how he would feel. His opinion matters too, especially if he thinks it’s a bad idea. If he’s okay with it, you can answer then.” The smile returns to his face and Virgil can’t help but lean over, pressing his lisp to Roman’s cheek.

“Thank you.” Virgil stands to put on another movie, but neither pays attention, both too caught up in the man curled up against their side. Not halfway through, Virgil is fast asleep, curled up against Roman’s chest, the latter having laid down to best situate the two of them. Legs intertwined and hands rested softly on chests and mid backs, both sleep soundly through the night, leaving the world’s problems for later.

[dragonasheswrites-blog]

The Heaven We Didn’t Choose, Chapter 11: In Which Dinner is Delivered

...To a very hungry and very confused ambassador.

First: Chapter 1: In Which a Child Makes a Friend

Previous: Chapter 10: The Trouble With Letting Go

Next: Chapter 12: In Which Leaves are Crunched

Click here for the story overview.

Sans scrubbed at his bowl, giving a little grin when the cheese sauce came off without too much fuss.  That had been his mistake the first time they made mac ‘n cheese: he’d left the dishes for later, and had wound up getting in trouble with Boss when the sauce took too long to scrub off.

As long as he didn’t think about how much work he was doing it wasn’t too bad, really.  Attie usually followed him around everywhere and insisted on helping, so he didn’t have to do everything himself, either.

“Dry,” he said, handing the bowl off to his helper.  She took it from him, tongue between her teeth, and carefully rubbed a dry dish towel over it.

“Done!” she declared, placing it with over-exaggerated care on top of a small stack of other dishes.  “Can I wash the silverware?”

“Sure,” he said.  He peeled off his rubber gloves (he’d found out the hard way that food, water, and bones don’t mix well) and handed them over.  Attie swapped her towel for the gloves and carefully put them on, stretching her tiny fingers as far as she could into them.

The gloves went up to her elbows and were far too big for her hands, but there wasn’t much she could do to hurt the silverware.  She awkwardly fished a pair of spoons out of the dishwater, rubbed a dishcloth over them until the cheese sauce was gone, and tried to hand them to Sans.

“Rinse ‘em off,” he reminded her.

“Oh!  Right!”  She turned on the water and rinsed them off before handing them back to him for drying.

The little girl bounced impatiently on her toes, splattering tiny droplets of soap water across the kitchen, as Sans put the dry dishes away.  He looked at her for a long moment, tilting his head from one side to the other and tapping his jawbone.

“Ooookay.  I guess we’re done.”

“YAY!!!” The gloves flew off and landed on the floor halfway across the kitchen.  He retrieved them and tossed them back into the sink, listening for the telltale pitter-patter of feet that announced Attie’s presence.

She slid precariously into the dining room and scrambled onto the chair she’d claimed as hers, phone clutched in both hands.  “I can call Mommy now, right?”

“Sure.  But only for a few minutes; you’ve got more homework to do.”

“But it’s Friiiiiday!”

“Yeah, ‘n that means it’s the last day of school for the week.  But remember what Undie said: if you don’t finish on Friiiiiday, you have to do schoolwork on Saaaaaturday.”

Attie groaned in a way Sans knew wasn’t truly serious and dialled.  Her little feet kicked back and forth as she waited.

Her entire body crumpled after a moment, and Sans felt his own mood sink as well.  “She’s not picking up,” Attie said.

“She’s probably asleep again.  She needs lots of rest, remember?”

“Yeah.  But she was awake and talking to me earlier!”

“She sure was, but she might be tired again.  Remember when you woke up in the middle of the night a few days ago?  You went back to sleep after, right?”

“Yeah, but that was the middle of the night .  It’s the middle of the day right now.  Why is Mommy sleeping so much in the middle of the day?”

“You tell me.”

She sighed.  “Because she’s still sick after what the assassin lady did and she needs to sleep so she can heal up all nice and healthy.  That’s what you told me.  I still think she would heal faster if she was awake, though.”

“Do ya, now.”

“Yes.  Also, then I could go see her.”

“Well, let’s finish up the last bit o’ this schoolwork.  I’ll text her like always so she doesn’t worry; I’m sure she’ll text or call or somethin’ when she wakes up.  Okay?”

“Okaaaaay.”

The rest of the school day dragged by for Sans.  It wasn’t so much that the schoolwork was boring (at least, not any more than usual), but that Attie seemed to be entirely unable to focus.  Sans could empathize.  It seemed like a small eternity before she dragged out her paper and pencils and began to half-heartedly scribble some kind of picture for her art project.

Then Sans’s phone vibrated.

“Is it Mommy?”  Attie asked, nearly tripping over her chair in her mad dash for Sans’s seat at the table.

“Woah - hang on there, kid!  Gimme a sec.”  They both stared intently at the phone as the messaging app loaded.  Sure enough, the screen read:

Frisky Dreamer 4:45 PM Sorry I fell asleep.  Didn’t realize I was so tired.

The noise Attie made had his skull ringing.  “Okay, okay, settle down, alright?”

“MY MOMMY’S AWAKE!!!”

“Yeah.  Now do you wanna text her back or should I?”

“We both can!”

Sans sighed.

You 4:49 PM No problem I know the feeling

Frisky Dreamer 4:51 PM Is Attie there?  Is she okay? Oh.  Never mind.  She just texted me.

“Mommy wants to know if we’re both okay!”  Attie said.  “Can I take a picture of you?”

Sans hesitated.  He was absolutely certain that Frisk didn’t want anything to do with him.  “Uh, why don’t I just take a picture of you and send it to her?”

The kid rolled her eyes.  “Because she asked about both of us.  That means we have to send a picture of both of us.”

“Well, you’re outta luck; my phone doesn’t have one of those little cameras on the front.”

“That’s okay!  Mine does!”  She began scrambling up onto Sans’s chair, hampered by the fact that she couldn’t do much to move the skeleton currently sitting in it.

With a low grumble, Sans scooted away from the table far enough to lift Attie into his lap.  “There ya go.  Oh, wait a sec.”  The kid’s pigtails were looking a little lopsided.  He took the hair ties out and carefully re-gathered her hair, making sure not to pull to hard or get the fine strands caught in his phalanges.  “There.  Now you’re extra cute.  Happy?”

“Not yet; I still need to take the picture.  Smile and say ‘cheese!’”

“‘M always smiling, kid.”

She laughed.  “I mean a real smile.”

“You think you can tell the difference?”

“I know I can.  So smile really big like you’re happy, okay?”

He let his mouth fall into his default wide grin as the flash went off.  Attie hummed and examined the picture, frowning.

“That’s not a real smile, Mr. Sans.  We have to try again.”

She did try again.  Several times, in fact.  Finally, she came up with a picture that she declared “okay, but not great” and scooted off his lap to send it to her mother.

Sans caught a glimpse of it and felt his face growing a little red.  He really wasn’t photogenic, being a literal skeleton and all.  He wasn’t even sure what was going on with his mouth in that picture; it looked like he was scowling as much as smiling.

Frisky Dreamer 5:00 PM Not a fan of the camera?

You 5:00 PM SO Can we come visit today or r u 2 tired?

Frisky Dreamer 5:02 PM You can come.  Might want to check with the guards, though. Oh, and why do you use textspeak only half the time?  I know you can text in full sentences.

You 5:07 2 much werk Work

Frisky Dreamer 5:09 PM ...Right. By the way, can I ask a favor?

You 5:11 PM Whats it worth 2 u?

Frisky Dreamer 5:12 PM Add it to my tab. Can you bring some food in? Probably need to sneak it in; the docs don’t like outside food.

You 5:15 PM Uh sure Whaddaya want?

Frisky Dreamer 5:17 PM Something not too rich or smelly.  I’d go for plain bread at this rate.

You 5:19 PM I’ll see what i can do

He looked through the cupboards.  Undyne and Boss had gone on a competitive shopping trip a few days ago so there were groceries, but once again it was an eclectic mix of gourmet noodles and random ingredients he was pretty sure they had selected for the packaging more than the contents.  With a grin on his face, he grabbed a few things from the cupboard and a leftover container from the fridge, then stuck them in his inventory.

“Hey, kid, wanna head out?”

There was a pause, then Attie looked up from her phone. “What?”

“Wanna go see your mom?”

“YES!”  She dashed off to get ready.

A few minutes later they appeared outside Ebott Medical Pavilion, hand in hand.  Attie had adapted well to teleporting over the past week; she barely seemed to notice it anymore.

“You remember the way to your mom’s room?”

She thought for a moment.  “I think so?”

“Go ahead and take us there.”

“But what if I get lost?”

“I’ll be right here; I can ‘port us back outside if we get really stuck.  Okay?”

“...Okay.”

She did pretty well, all things considered.  She went down the wrong hallway after leaving the elevator (it was confusing; the hallways really did all look the same) but she was resourceful enough to correct herself after realizing that the room numbers were wrong.  Finally, they arrived at the new and improved security checkpoint outside Frisk’s room.

“I did it!” she said, bouncing on her toes.

“Yeah.  Great job.”

“Can I give your ID to Mr. Lesser Dog?”

Sans eyed the aforementioned canine, who was wagging his tail hard enough to knock them both over.  “Uh, sure.  Just watch for the-”

Thump.

“...You okay there?”

Attie picked herself back up and dusted off the knees of her jeans.  “I’m fine!”

Lesser Dog whined and leaned over, realizing that he’d hurt one of the few humans he liked.  Attie smiled and reached up on her tiptoes to give him a brief and gentle scratch behind the ears.

Beside him, Doggo shifted in what looked like a nicotine deprivation dance, but Sans knew better.

“Can I pet you too, Mr. Doggo?” the kid asked.

He thought it over for a moment, then leaned over with a long sigh.  Attie giggled.  Sans knew that Doggo wanted to be pet just as much as Lesser Dog did, he just would rather give up dog treats for life than admit it.

Literally.  The question had, actually, come up once or twice.

*Bone friend and little pup good boys,* Lesser Dog woofed, handing Sans back his ID.  *Can go in to see sick momma puppy.*

“Thanks, LD,” Sans said, giving the dog a scratch under his chin.  He snorted when the dog’s neck extended a little.  “You keep a good watch, yeah?”

*Lesser Dog and packmate Doggo will watch very good!  Dogs are good boys!  Won’t let anyone smelly past!  More pets?*

“Maybe on the way out, pal,” he said, steering a giggling Attie into the hospital room.  He didn’t want a repeat of what happened the last time they’d seen Lesser Dog on duty; it had taken hours to get his neck back to a reasonable length, and he’d been growling and snapping at everyone in sight the whole time.

Frisk, thankfully, was still awake.  “Made it past the attack dogs?” she asked with a smirk.

“Yyyup!”  Attie said, bouncing on her toes.

“C’mere, you.”

Attie ran at her mother, skidding to a stop just short of the hospital bed before gingerly crawling onto it to give her a hug.  “I missed you,” she mumbled into Frisk's shoulder.

“I missed you too, baby boo.”

They sat like that for a moment, and Sans shifted awkwardly.  He felt like he was intruding.

There was a funny rumbling noise, and Frisk’s face started to turn pink.  Sans grinned; after living with a little human shadow for a week and a half, he knew that sound.

“Hungry?” he asked.

“Maybe.  A little.”

Sans dug into his inventory and, with an elaborate flourish, pulled out a plastic fork and…

“...Tuna?”  Frisk’s voice was almost a full octave higher than normal.  She looked a little sick.  “I ask for something bland and low-profile, and you bring me...a can of tuna.”

“I cod not pass up the opportunaty."

Attie wiggled off the bed and stomped over to her babysitter.  “Mr. Sans, stop being silly with my mommy!”

“Heh.  Sorry, kid.”  He patted her right between her pigtails, then put the can back in his inventory.  After a moment of poking around, he withdrew the leftover container.  “Wanna show your mom what you made?”

“Yes!”  She grabbed the container and the fork he offered her and presented them both to her mother.  “We made macncheese, like I told you.  I think this is our best one yet!  We had to go to the store last night for extra cheese because Mr. Boss doesn’t like to buy cheese, so it’s suuuper fresh!”

“The only bread we had in the house was hot dog buns,” he explained, shrugging.

Frisk gave him a long look, carefully opened the container, and grinned.  “It looks great, Attie.  Thank you so much!”

“You’re so welcome!  Mr. Sans helped, too.  You should say ‘thank you so much’ to him, too.”

Sans opened his mouth to say that it really wasn’t necessary, but-

“Thank you so much, Sans.”

“Heh.  It’s nothin’.”

“I mean it.  Thank you, Sans.  Thank you for everything.  Including, of course, the mac and cheese.”

His eye sockets met hers, and he felt a jolt of...something.  Surprise, definitely.  Frisk...she hated him, right?  Heck, he deserved it!  But..she looked really, genuinely grateful.  When was the last time someone (besides Attie) had thanked him?  “I...uh, you’re welcome.”

They both looked away at the same time.

“Mommy?”  Attie piped up.  “Why is your face all pink like you’re embarrassed?”

“Um…”

“Oh!  Do you wanna kiss Mr. Sans?”

“ATLAS HOPE DREEMURR!”

Sans pulled the hood of his jacket up, knowing full well it wasn’t nearly as effective as he hoped.  This kid…

“Is that a ‘no?’  Undie says the blushing thing means you’re embarrassed or you want to kiss someone.”

Frisk gave a noise that sounded like a growl and took a few quick bites of the mac ‘n cheese.  “This is really great,” she said, a touch too loudly.  “You’ve gotten really good at this, Attie.”

The kid gave a devious little smile.  “Thanks,” she said, patting her mother’s hand.  “It’s okay.  You don’t have to talk about it until you’re ready.”

Sans coughed.  “Attie, listen to yer mom.”

“But she didn’t tell me to do anything!”

“Didn’t you ask me not to tease ‘er?  She’s still sick.  Stop bein’ so…” he waved a hand in the general direction of the woman he was not looking at.  “...silly.”

Attie sighed.  “Okay.  Sorry, Mommy, for embarrassing you.  Sorry to you also, Mr. Sans.”

“‘Tsokay.”

“You’re forgiven.”  Frisk dug into the mac ‘n cheese with the air of someone desperately hungry, but wanting to make her food last.

“We can make more,” Attie said, watching her mother closely.  “I didn’t know your tummy was so empty or we could have made some more before we left.  Right, Mr. Sans?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“But we didn’t know.  Mr. Sans said they would probably give you some sugar ‘n stuff through the bag thingies, and that you would get enough water that way, but I don’t think that counts as eating for real.”

Frisk hummed.  “I agree.  This is much more pleasant.”

Sans coughed into his hand.  “So why’d you want us to bring ya food?  Don’t they feed you here?”

“Well...yes.  It’s just...hmm.”  She took a few more bites, eyes narrowed in thought.  “Do you know my doctor?  Dr. Ray?”

“Yeah...I’ve met ‘im.”

“What’s your opinion?”

He looked at her, not sure where this was going.  Why was she being so...friendly?  Was this a trap?  Frisk could switch from friendly to aggressive very quickly when she wanted to.  “I.  Uh.  He’s a doctor?”

“Your honest opinion.  I think...well, I want to hear what you think of him.”

He sighed.  “I think the guy’s an asshole.  He doesn’t think much’ve other folks; doesn’t seem like it’s aimed at monsters particularly, though.  He just doesn’t like people he thinks are...hmm.  Lesser than him?  ‘M not sure how he decides that - education level, maybe? - but if you don’t fit his criteria, he thinks you’re basically worthless.

“He might not be aware of it.  He certainly thinks he’s right all - or at least most - of the time, and being aware of such a huge character flaw would puncture his ego.  He probably just thinks that he knows better than other people, and they should listen to him because he’s a doctor.  He seems alright at his job for all that; it’s probably a point of pride to do well.”

Frisk nodded.  “Do you think he’s a liar?  What reason would someone like him have to lie?”

“Depends on the lie.”  He studied her face.  She looked...wary.  What did all this have to do with food?  Had someone threatened her?  At least she could defend herself, probably better than he could...now that she was conscious, anyways.  “He might lie to protect himself or his job.  If he made a mistake, he might want to cover it up.  Doesn’t strike me as the type to lie for someone else, though, unless it suited his purposes or helped him somehow.”

“So you don’t think he’s malicious.”

“Not unless you’re a threat to him.  What he’d do if he thought you were tryin’ to hurt his reputation or upstage him…’m not sure.  But in general?  Like I said, guy’s an asshole.  ‘Course, I haven’t had any huge soul-searching conversations with the guy.  Could be completely wrong ‘bout him.”

“I don’t think so.”  She laid her fork into the empty container firmly.  “Sans, I haven’t given you enough credit.  You really are a lot more observant than you think.  I appreciate your input on this.”

He shuffled his feet a little.  It wasn’t...it was just how he was, how he’d survived so long on his own with a little brother to look after, not anything special.  “Tch…’ts nothin’.  What’s all this about?  And what’s it got to do with food?”

“Dr. Ray was acting strangely when I first woke up this afternoon.  I pressed the call button and he walked in instead of one of the nurses.  He told me that I’d been unconscious due to an accidental overdose.  He followed that up by being weirdly insistent that I eat, and...call me paranoid, but I didn’t trust him not to ‘accidentally’ add something extra to my food.”

His grip on his magic slid a little, and he felt his eye burn.  An accident?  Attie had been separated from her mother, unsure of whether she’d live or die...and the doctor was calling it an accident??

He couldn’t believe it.  And from the look on Frisk’s face, she didn’t believe it either.

“Calm down,” she said.  “There’s nothing we can do now.  He said that the matter was being handled, and that it wouldn’t happen again.  Of course, then he tried to take my phone.”

“What?  Why would he do that?”

“Consider this.  If you’re right, and he was trying to protect himself - his reputation, his job, whatever - he wouldn’t want me communicating with people who knew the truth, at least until he could run damage control.  Make sure he got his story straight. I assume someone does know the truth?”

“Uh, yeah.  Attie ‘n I were just leavin’ when you were...attacked.”

“Wait, so I was attacked?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No!”

Attie gave a wet sniffle.  “It was really scary.  There was an assassin lady and somehow she got past the dogs, but she was wearing the nurse clothes.  Sponges?”

“Scrubs,” he corrected.

“Right.  She was wearing the nurse scrubs, but she was on your bed and you were trying to get her off of you and she put some kind of poison medicine into your bags.  Then she started fighting Mr. Sans even though you told him not to fight her, but I think that’s okay because he didn’t let me get hurt.  Not even a little bit!”

Frisk looked at her daughter for a long moment, gripping her arms like she wasn’t sure the kid was really in one piece.  Then she looked over at Sans.  “Maybe you should start at the beginning.”

He did.  He explained how he’d tried to contact Frisk on the day of the incident, but how she’d been unresponsive most of the day and asleep when they’d arrived.  He told her how they’d been kicked out of the room by the nurse.  He considered telling her that the nurse had made him uneasy, but...he didn’t want to make it sound like he was some kind of hero.

Instead, he played up Attie’s concerns: how she’d been worried, and had insisted they go back to the room.  The actual fight he described as factually as he could: the order of events, what he knew of the nurse’s movements, and the arrival of the dogs.

Frisk nodded along, looking a little overwhelmed.  “I...don’t remember any of that,” she said, finally.  “I remembered weird flashes of emotion, but nothing detailed or reliable.  I mostly just recall...burning?”  She rubbed her arm above where the needles were taped to her arm.

“I believe it.  Alphys ‘n some of the human doctors are still tryin’ to figure out everything that was in that bag the nurse hooked you up to.  They think she may’ve dosed you with something over time as well, but gotten impatient when it didn’t work as fast as she wanted.”

“She was a nurse, then.”

“Yeah.  ‘M kinda out of the loop, but I did a little digging on my own.  She was employed by the hospital as of three weeks ago, at least.”

“How do you know?”

“The local paper ran a story about the hospital and she was one of the nurses interviewed.  Gave her name as Graciela Lira, though I heard rumors that might not be her real name.  ‘Ts hard to tell; she apparently was a foster kid at some point, so her paper trail’s a bit hard to follow.  No one expected her to go after you, though.”

“Interesting.  Let me guess: she’s a monster specialist.”

“Worse.  Monster pediatric specialist.”

Frisk gripped Attie a little tighter.  “And...they still let her practice here?”

“Well, not right now.  Attie ‘n I saw the whole thing, as did Alphys’s security cameras; whatever the hospital told Undyne, she pushed back hard with evidence.  She’s got the nurse - whatever her name is - in custody.”

“Good.  I wouldn’t want someone like that around children.”

This was definitely outside Sans’s comfort zone.  It was almost like they were allies or something.  Granted, Frisk was probably still high on painkillers, but she wasn’t being nearly as aggressive as she usually was, even after his little joke earlier with the can of tuna.

Was this how Ambassador Frisk Dreemurr treated people she could actually stand to be around?  If so, he wanted to-

-DEFINITELY not do anything, especially after Attie’s stupid comments earlier.

He coughed.  “Well, hopefully you, uh, don’t go through that again.  The Guard’ll hold her until you feel better so you can interrogate her yourself.”

“...The human government is just letting this happen?”

“Yeah, not sure why.  My guess is they want something from us; your mom’s been in meetings all day, every day.”

It was traditional among monsters for the victim of an attack (or, in the case of a child, the victim’s guardian) to be the chief interrogator when bringing the attacker to justice.  The human government tended to frown on the practice, what with the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ thing they believed in, but they had been strangely accommodating in this case.  Either there was something about this lady that would’ve been dragged to light in a human court system or they were using her as a bargaining chip to get what they wanted out of Tori.  The Queen of Monsters was notoriously vindictive towards anyone who harmed her family, to the point where it clouded her judgement.

“...Sans?”

“Hmm?  Sorry.  Just...thinkin’.”

“Anything important?”

It still sat oddly with him that Frisk - of all people - was asking for his input.  “Just...theories.  Can’t prove anything.  It just...nothing about this seems right.  The timing of the attack, the way it was planned, the person who carried it out...and now what that doctor told you; it doesn’t add up.”

“If it was planned, it was done quickly.  Very quickly.  Either that, or…well.”

Or she didn’t really have appendicitis.  It was unlikely, from what he read, but still.  Either situation was worrying. Was it easier to induce a medical condition or to organize an assassination attempt in a matter of days?

“Are you done with grown-up talk?”  Attie asked, wiggling impatiently on the bed.

Frisk laughed.  “For now.  Sorry.”

“Can I show you my pictures?  I made you a whole lot while you were sleeping.”

“Sure!  Show me what you’ve got.”

It took almost a full hour for Attie to go through all the pictures she’d made.  Most of them, to Sans’s eternal embarrassment, featured him in some way.  And of course, each one had a story.

“This is Mr. Sans when he accidentally put his shirt on inside out and backwards because he was so sleepy.  You can see the tag on the front.  Oh!  And this is when we went to the park with Undie, and Mr. Sans tried to swing and fell off.  That’s why he’s on the ground.  I thought he was hurt, but he wasn’t.  This one is Mr. Sans and I drinking our juice after training.  It tastes reeeeeally bad…”

And so on.

“All of them look wonderful,” Frisk said after Attie had arranged the pictures back into a stack.  “I’m glad you’re doing well.”

“Me too.  I was worried I’d miss you a lot, and I did, but it was also fun doing schoolwork with Mr. Sans.  He knows a lot ‘bout science!  Do you think he can help me with my science sometimes after you’re better?”

Sans tensed.  As busy as he’d been, he’d almost forgotten that Attie wasn’t going to be in his life forever.  Frisk was going to heal, then she’d take her daughter home.  And he’d probably never see either of them again outside official functions.  After all, he’d seen Attie only two or three times in seven years, not including the time she’d been living with him.

All Frisk said was, “We’ll see.”

Which, in his experience, pretty much meant “no.”

It didn’t matter, he told himself as Attie chattered on about something.  He hadn’t even wanted to watch the kid in the first place.  He’d be glad when she was gone.

Well, he amended, not glad.  A week ago he would’ve been happy to see her go; but after so many nights of worry and nightmares, and so many days of tutoring and kitchen accidents, he’d maybe gotten a little...attached.

That really wasn’t good, under the circumstances.

A knock on the door interrupted Attie’s story of something Undyne had done the other morning.  He knew the routine well enough to know who it was.  “Time to go,” he said, collecting the empty container from dinner.  “Say good-bye to your mom.”

Attie sighed.  “Good-bye, Mommy.”

“Good-bye, Attie,” her mother responded.  “I’ll miss you.”

“I know.  But I’ll be back tomorrow!”

There was a strange look on Frisk’s face when they left; something resigned and a little sad.  She hid it well, but Sans was a master of reading expressions.

He just didn’t know what to make of it.

[felidarachnid]

Secret santa

Happy Christmas to @angrymonster​ !! Sorry it’s a day late but here’s a little Secret Santa-themed fanfic for you. 

­­Junkrat reached a greedy hand back towards the plastic bowl of paper, flexing his fingers restively. Mercy covered it protectively and stared at him in consternation. “What are you doing, Junkrat?”

“Gotta pick again,” he said cheerfully, waggling the little scrap of paper in his other hand.

She smiled a little ruefully. “I’m sorry, that’s not how it works!”

Junkrat furrowed his brow. “But – I didn’t get Roadie.”

“That’s the point, you muppet,” sighed Tracer, already tucking her own paper slip neatly into her pocket. “Means you get to pick a present for someone you might not normally gift something to!” She tapped her pocket smartly with two fingers. “It’s fun, see?”

“Oh.” Junkrat looked at his paper and then back up at Roadhog. “Who’d you get?”

“No!” interrupted Mercy, slicing her outstretched arm between the pair. “You mustn’t share your Secret Santa with anyone. Not even close friends,” she added meaningfully, eyes sparkling.

“It is a Secret Santa,” pointed out Lucio, somewhat exasperated. “C’mon, Trace. I wanna catch the end of Hana’s stream before she goes offline.”

“Coming!”

Mercy ducked awkwardly out the way as the pair dashed out the room, narrowly missing knocking the Secret Santa bowl from her arms. She sighed. “Well, I’ll go and distribute the last names to Torbjorn and the others. Typical of them not to show up…” And she left in a flurry of motherly disapproval.

Now that he fully understood the concept, Junkrat found himself warming to the idea of this…Secret Santa thingy. It sounded fun, and he usually liked giving presents to Roadhog, so he couldn’t see why he wouldn’t enjoy this.

“What d’you reckon, ‘Hog?” he grinned, jogging to catch up with his bodyguard as he stomped down the hallway to their shared room. “I’m thinkin’ like…mebbe a toolset? I think I got some spare screwdrivers lyin’ around…”

“You’ve already forgotten who you have, haven’tcha,” rumbled Roadhog, and Junkrat knew he was rolling his piggy little eyes under the mask.

“No! Yes – shu’up!” Junkrat snapped defensively, surreptitiously sneaking a peek at the crumpled scrap of paper. “I know who I got – ol’ – ol’…Sym…Sym – metric…”

As he spoke, an image of a poised, beautiful young woman swam into his mind and he faltered a little. They had barely spoken but Junkrat had developed something of a crush on Symmetra these past few weeks and he blushed at the thought of giving her something so personal as a Christmas gift. Roadhog chucked to himself as he read the name over Junkrat’s hunched shoulders. “Gon’ be interesting to watch this play out,” he said teasingly, clapping Junkrat on the back and stomping off to their en-suite shower.

Once Roadhog was safely out the room, Junkrat shuffled over to his desk and began quietly digging through his pockets. He wrinkled his nose as he examined the handful of lint, sand, metal screws, cough sweets – and a single solitary coin. Morosely he picked it up and turned it in his long fingers. “Hey – Roadhog?”

There was an assenting grunt from the next room, steam emanating from the open door.

“What d’you think – I mean, like…just say,” Junkrat coughed, trying to keep the question casual. “ – like…d’you feel like another – y’know, another heist?”

After an awkwardly long pause, he heard the shower tap squeak and a damp Roadhog leaned through the doorway, still absurdly wearing his mask but with limp grey locks hanging loose around his head. “No.”

“Oh, c’mon!” Junkrat’s voice took on a wheedling, whining tone. “S’been ages, and you’ve been feelin’ restless too, I can tell it!”

“No,” repeated Roadhog, pointing at Junkrat with a loofah. “We’ve gon’ straight since joinin’ Overwatch. You know that.”

“But I’m bored as,” insisted Junkrat in the high-pitched, demanding voice that usually made Roadhog give in.

“Y’ain’t,” sniffed Roadhog, now wrapping his head in a fluffy white towel. “You just realised y’dirt poor and now you want some cash to buy a present.”

It didn’t matter how many times it happened, Junkrat always responded to Roadhog’s moments of surprising perception with shock and indignation.

“How dare you! A – fuckin’…present? Me?!” Tomato-red in the face, Junkrat was hurriedly pretending to be angry to cover his embarrassment. “You think I’m goin’ soft?”

“Nah, not soft,” admitted Roadhog genially. “Just tryin’ to crack onto a bird.”

“Fuck off!”

“I’m not helping you with this one,” insisted Roadhog. He hoisted Junkrat up by the back of his trousers and gave him a gruff pat on the head before chucking him into the corridor. “Go learn how to woo a lady the honest way.”

---

“ – I will, of course, pay you,” the woman said quietly, folding her arms tightly about herself. “For both your assistance and your discretion, you understand.”

“I want the money before tomorrow.”

“I can give you half in the morning, and half afterwards?” she replied somewhat doubtfully.

“Yeah…yeah, sure thing,” he hissed back in a terrible stage whisper.

She frowned at him. “Why are you whispering?”

“…I dunno, just seemed right.”

She cast the man a funny look and then sighed heavily. “I feel so…ashamed ….no offence to you, of course, it’s just…I shouldn’t have to resort to this.”

“Hey,” he shrugged. “Ain’t nothing wrong with getting someone else to do your dirty work.”

The woman shuddered and forced a smile. “Yes, well. Thank you for understanding. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Which was how Tracer and Ana found Mercy sitting at the kitchen table, head in her hands and steaming herself over an enormous cup of tea, and Junkrat whistling through his teeth as he –

“Are you washing up?” said Tracer incredulously.

Junkrat spun around, suds flying, and held up his rubber-gloved hands in feigned innocence. “What? No!”

Mercy gave a little shriek and sent her teacup flying across the table. “Ana! Lena!”

“Do I got to clean that up too?” said Junkrat slightly grumpily, indicating the tea-stained table with a sponge.

“No…no…” Mercy mumbled, flustered, and she began distractedly wiping the mess clear with a dishcloth.

“What on earth is going on?” asked Ana, who’d watched all this with a wry smile and a twinkle in her eye. “Angela, I thought it was your turn to do the dishes?”

“I know!” wailed Mercy with a suddenness that made Junkrat drop a plate in shock. “It’s just…I’ve been run off my feet! I’m so tired…I have so many chores to catch up on…I haven’t done laundry in a week…”She gazed up at Ana with brimming eyes. “I’m sorry…and it’s just…Junkrat was so willing to help…”

“Oi!” interrupted Junkrat, with all his usual lack of sensitivity. “For a fee, mind!”

Even more embarrassed by this, Mercy buried her face in her hands and groaned.

“Angela,” said Ana gently, sitting down at the table and putting an arm around the doctor’s shoulders. “You should have told us. We all know how hard you work…”

As Ana gently coaxed Mercy into unburdening herself, Tracer sidled over to Junkrat with a cheeky grin. “So…getting paid to do chores now, are ya?”

“Piss off,” he muttered back grumpily, rinsing the soap from a handful of forks.

“Bit different from your usual line of work, isn’t it?” pressed Tracer cheerily. “What’s going on?”

“I said, leave it!”

“You must be saving up for something reeeealllly special!”

“I said leave it!” snapped Junkrat, pointing at Tracer with a dripping yellow-gloved finger. “Nun’ya business. Now push off, I got stuff to do today.”

Tracer left him with a glimmer in her eye and a smirk that may have been slightly too knowing for his liking.

---  

After a long frustrating day,  McCree had been looking forward to ending it in front of the television with a cold drink in one hand. Which was what he’d been doing, at least until he couldn’t ignore the whispers at his open door any more.

“If yer gonna come in, come in,” he called testily. “Can I help you?”

Tracer and Lucio tumbled guiltily through the doorway, pushing and shoving each other in their attempt to not be the first.

“Sorry Jesse!” grinned Tracer, shooting upright. “Actually, we were looking for - ”

“Junkrat!” exclaimed Lucio, grinning from ear to ear. “What you doing in here, dude?”

Sitting next to McCree on the sofa, pathetically hunching his shoulders in a futile attempt to look inconspicuous, Junkrat was clutching a pair of jeans in one hand and a large needle in the other.

“Hm? Oh, I’m just gettin’ him to fix some of my stuff,” grunted McCree. “All my best jeans are plumb fulla holes.”

“Shut up,” growled Junkrat, studiously staring down and refusing to meet anyone’s eyes.

“I didn’t know you could sew!” said Tracer gleefully, planting herself firmly on the sofa between Junkrat and McCree. “Man of many talents, aren’t ya?”

“So what’s all this about?” asked Lucio, sitting himself on Junkrat’s other side. “Word is, you’ve been doing odd jobs for just about everyone in the Overwatch base.”

“It’s nothing,” snarled Junkrat, pulling a thread taut and snapping it with his teeth. “Mind yer own business.”

“I was right though, weren’t I?” grinned Tracer. “You’re so saving up for something.”

Blushing bright red, Junkrat shot to his feet and thrust the newly-repaired trousers back at McCree. “There. I’m goin’ to bed.” And he stormed out the room, stumbling slightly on his one good leg as he did so.

“I need someone to help me stamp mail for fans!” yelled Lucio at his retreating back. “I’ll come find you, yeah?”

McCree sighed and cast a mildly disapproving look at Tracer and Lucio, giggling for all they were worth. “You two are a nightmare, yer know that? Leave the poor kid alone.”

“But I know I’m right,” said Tracer insistently, leaning forward to help herself to a handful of Jesse’s crisps. “I was sayin’ to Lucio, I bet Junkrat is saving for his Secret Santa present. It’s the only explanation!”

“And what if he is?” said McCree with feigned nonchalance.

Lucio shrugged with insincere innocence. “Just means we’re curious about who he’s got, that’s all.”

“I bet it’s Dr. Ziegler,” said Tracer with a smug grin. “He definitely has a crush on her.”

“Just because you do, doesn’t mean everyone does,” snorted Lucio, giving Tracer a playful shove. “Nah, I reckon it’s Genji. I think Junkrat secretly likes him more than he lets on…”

“Yer both wrong,” said McCree, with an air of supreme superiority, allowing an irritatingly knowing smile to creep onto his face. Both Tracer and Lucio stared at him incredulously.

“Who is it?” they asked in unison.

“Well now, that’d be telling,” grinned McCree, tapping his nose. “Ain’t Secret Santa if I tell, now is it?”

“Then how do you know?” demanded Tracer.

“I’m jes more observant than you two,” chuckled McCree. “Blindingly obvious who he’s runnin’ around for, when ya see it.”

The other two could only shrug helplessly, and resign themselves to wait.

---

Roadhog awoke on Christmas Eve with a warm glow in his belly that he had not felt for quite some time. While the thick snow flurries outside and the mug of hot cocoa he was handed at breakfast were not his idea of a proper Australian Christmas, he still nodded his appreciation and took his seat at the crowded table, secretly delighting in the glitteringly festive decorations. Not that he wanted to admit it – he still had a reputation to uphold, after all – but he did really enjoy Christmastime. He’d even made a little extra effort with his Secret Santa – unconsciously he patted the little clumsily wrapped package in his pocket as he helped himself to hot food.

Junkrat shuffled sheepishly into the packed room a good half hour late, and surreptitiously took a seat at his bodyguard’s side.

“Here.” Roadhog shoved a plate of mince pies at him, and reached over to pour him a drink. “You alright?”

“Yeah…yeah, I just – got stuck in the Sellotape,” muttered Junkrat, moodily picking tape and wrapping paper from his fingertips. “Bloody stuff.”

“I’m proud of ya,” said Roadhog suddenly, thumping Junkrat on the back. “Just…never seen you work so hard for somethin’. You did good.”

Uncomfortably Junkrat squirmed and coughed. “Ahh…shut up, you donkey. Who’s goin’ soft now, eh?” But Roadhog could tell he was secretly rather pleased.

“So when you goin’ to give it to her?”

“Shut up!” hissed Junkrat, eyes darting furtively around the room as he hunched over his plate of mince pies. “Later.”

‘Later’, it transpired, really did mean much, much later. Mercy and Reinhardt had planned for the party to last all day, and presents were exchanged back and forth throughout the many meals and rounds of karaoke and dancing. Throughout it all, Junkrat remained stubbornly in his chair and Roadhog wondered what on earth he could be waiting for.

It was only much, much later that Junkrat finally found his opportunity. By this time, Reinhardt and Torbjorn were very drunk, and regaling the room with a spectacularly awful rendition of ‘Come On Eileen’. Symmetra had politely but quietly excused herself to a sofa in the adjacent room and was comfortably curled up when Junkrat found her.

She glanced up as he shuffled over, slightly pink in the face. “Hello. Are you enjoying the festivities?”

“Oh…um, yeah…yeah, it’s great. You not?” Awkwardly Junkrat hovered beside, evidently debating whether or not he should sit down.

Symmetra smiled slightly, evidently unaware. “Oh no, I am. Just that sometimes I prefer to enjoy them…from a distance, as it were.”

He nodded a little too vigorously. “I get that.” After a few seconds, Junkrat decided that it was better to sit down than continue towering over her like this, and he collapsed onto the cushions.

“Listen…I, er…” Nervously he scratched his neck. “This is kinda…silly…but…I mean – y’know…” He swallowed, and furiously wished that the words would just leave his mouth with the beautiful ease that she seemed to adopt.

“Everything at Christmas is about being a little silly,” commented Symmetra, with an amused smile that sent a warm glow through his chest.

“Yeah…yeah I guess so,” he grinned back. With some trepidation he withdrew a tidily wrapped package from behind his back and presented it to her, determinedly not looking at her face. “Um…Happy Christmas?”

He had already decided he didn’t want to watch her reaction, so when she took the gift in silence he could only guess what she was thinking. There was a gentle rustling and crinkling of paper and she complimented his tidy wrapping.

“Yeah…first try!” he coughed awkwardly, privately remembering the carnage of torn paper and tape that he’d left in his room after a full hour of failed wrapping attempts. At least he’d gotten it looking perfect in the end.

There was an agonisingly long pause and he was just working up the courage to turn to face her when he felt a sudden warmth accompanied by a breeze of fresh perfume, and Symmetra kissed him shyly on the cheek. “Thank you, Junkrat!”

In a daze he raised a hand to his face, probing the skin as lightly as though she had burned him. He was so shocked he barely saw Symmetra gently lifting the silver and blue chain from the box and looping it over her head.

She held her arms out, smiling a little bashfully. “What do you think?” The necklace glittered against her dark collarbone, a delicate chain of silver threaded through rough-cut blue crystrals the size of her thumbnail.

He caught his breath, unprepared for how well he’d chosen the colours. “…looks amazin’. Really.”

Delighted, Symmetra ran a finger over the jewelry. “It’s so beautiful, thank you! Where did you get it?”

Flushing even deeper, Junkrat gave her an embarrassed grin. “I – er – made it, actually.” Privately he reminisced on the stress of saving up as much as he could, only to find out how expensive nice jewellery really was. He’d clicked through pages of the perfect pieces, staring dejectedly at the price tags totalling several hundred dollars and more. It had been Roadhog who’d suggested that maybe he spend the money on some pretty stones instead – and how hard could it be to make them into jewellery himself, really?

Symmetra drew a breath. “Really? I’m – I’m impressed. It’s lovely, really.”

“Well, you make such amazin’ hand-made stuff, I just thought it might be a nice idea,” he said before he could stop himself.

“Oh…” Symmetra gracefully lowered her eyes, unable to keep a pleased smile off her face. “That’s…very kind of you to say.” She leaned forward and pulled Junkrat into an embrace, and he could feel her smiling into his neck. “Merry Christmas, Junkrat.”

He closed his eyes and breathed in her scent. “Merry Christmas, Symmetra.”

---

From the other room, Tracer and Lucio watched this tender exchange with some surprise, both elbowing one another and gleefully chattering. “I never would have guessed!”

“See?” said McCree, appearing suddenly behind them, unable to keep his face clear of a smug grin. “Told ya. Blindingly obvious.”

[dragonasheswrites-blog]

The Heaven We Didn’t Choose, Chapter 12: In Which Leaves are Crunched

...And Sans starts to realize just how lost he is.

First: Chapter 1: In Which a Child Makes a Friend

Previous: Chapter 11: In Which Dinner is Delivered

Next: Chapter 13: In Which Nothing Good Lasts Forever

Click here for the story overview.

Saturdays, Sans decided, were breathtakingly beautiful when caring for Attie.  Not quite as good as Sundays, but amazing all the same.

He was laying on his bare mattress, eye sockets barely open, looking at his phone.

“9:05,” said his phone screen.

Beautiful.

He didn’t have to go to his hot dog stand (or any of his other jobs) because he was watching Attie.  Boss and Undyne did something with the Royal Guard on Saturday mornings, so they were both occupied.  Attie hadn’t had a nightmare, so she was still asleep in Boss’s room.  It was just Sans, his phone, and a lazy Saturday morning.

He quickly crushed the thought.  He had too much bad karma for it to last-

Ding!

Aaaand there it was.  He reluctantly tapped the message notification on his phone.

Bundle of Joy 9:06 AM Hello Mistr Sans!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You 9:07 AM Hey kid

Bundle of Joy 9:08 AM Are you awake?????

You 9:11 AM Nah

Bundle of Joy 9:12 AM Okay!!!!!!

There was a long pause.  A few reckless birds that hadn’t flown south for the winter were making some kind of racket outside the window, but he decided to consider it a comforting reminder of being on the surface rather than an annoyance.  His eye sockets had started to slide shut again when-

Tap tap tap tap taptapTAPTAP

He curled in on himself, willing away the sound of tiny approaching footsteps from the hallway.

The door to his room creaked open slowly.   Painfully slowly.  He could feel Attie’s eyes on him, but she insisted on opening the door one millimeter at a time.  It was an amateur mistake; there was no way he could see the door in his current position so sudden movements weren’t a concern, and opening the door slowly made the squeaking long, loud, and obvious.  She would’ve been better off opening it quickly, hiding, then sneaking in through the open door when his guard was down.

The urge to tell her all this faded after a moment.  He just hoped she’d go away.

“I know you’re not really sleeping, Mr. Sans,” she whispered.  She whispered like Boss did: loud enough to raise dust.

He stayed quiet.

“Okay.  I’m gonna go make a peanut butter waffle like you showed me yesterday.”

“Yer not allowed t’use th’ toaster without a grown-up,” he grumbled.

“Then you should probably come and help me?”

“Not the way it works.”

He knew she was pouting.

“Hey.  Why don’tcha give me...hmm...another five minutes, then we can make breakfast.”

She made a funny noise that sounded excited, but he wasn’t curious enough to figure out how she did it.  “Okay!  I’ll wait back in Mr. Papyrus’s room!”

The pitter-patter of little feet disappeared back down the hallway.  Sans noticed that she’d left his bedroom door pointedly open.

Exactly four minutes and fifty-two seconds later, he rolled himself off the mattress.  He landed on the floor next to it with a dull thump and a clatter of bones, and gingerly pushed himself upright.  A beeping noise from down the hallway made him grin; he’d shown Attie how to use the timer function on her phone for cooking purposes, and she used it for everything she could now.

The kid herself appeared a moment later.  “Are you awake?” she asked, cocking her head at him.

“Ugh, yeah.”

“Great!!”  She bounced on her toes.

“...Let’s go make you peanut butter waffles.”

“Okay!”

Sans still felt half asleep, but he managed to get a pair of waffles out of the back of the freezer (where he’d hidden them from Boss) and into the toaster.  Attie had perched herself on the counter with the peanut butter, eating it by the spoonful.

“Attie, I’m pretty sure your mom wouldn’t be happy about you doin’ that.”

“But you’re not my mom.”

“...Fair enough.  But you hafta eat all your breakfast.”

“Okay!”

He started a pot of coffee.  The human internet was a wonderful source of information: he’d been able to find clear instructions (with pictures!!) on how to operate and clean Boss’s fancy coffee machine within seconds of searching for it.  Coffee went a long way towards improving Undyne’s mood, so he’d been getting up a few minutes early to start a pot before she showed up each morning.  It was a self-defense measure.  The idea of having a whole pot of coffee to himself, instead of sharing it with a fish-faced Royal Guard, was tantalizing.

“Can I try some coffee?”  Attie asked.  She’d started asking every morning after Undyne praised the benefits of caffeine once too many.

Sans responded as he always did: “Gotta ask your mom.  Besides, I think you’re crazy enough as it is.”

“Okay!”

The waffles popped out of the toaster and Sans put them on plates.  (He would have happily eaten his right out of the toaster, but Attie insisted on the plates.)  His little helper spread peanut butter on each waffle, then handed one to Sans.

“Bone appetit,” she said, face solemn.

“And to you.”  He saluted her with his waffle.

He finished his quickly and texted Frisk a picture of Attie, slightly melted peanut butter oozing through her fingers and onto her plate.  A good four texts in, he remembered that Frisk was actually conscious now and reading her messages, and by then he’d already rambled on about peanut butter and waffles longer than any self-respecting monster would admit to.

The advantage of having the house to himself was that Attie could take her time getting dressed.  He’d figured out last Saturday that she liked wearing strange color combinations that even he - a complete fashion heathen - knew looked bad together.  He indulged her for most of the morning until she got tired of changing clothes and wound up in a red and blue striped shirt and jeans.

“How do you want your hair?” he asked, once she was dressed and bouncing around the living room.

Attie was prepared for this question.  She pulled her phone out of the pocket of her jeans, opened a web page, and showed it to him.  “I want this one!  ...Please.”

“That looks a little complicated.  Sure you wanna sit still that long?”

“Yyyyep!”

“Okay, but you asked for it.”

The hairstyle was the most intricate one she’d asked for yet.  The picture showed a little girl’s hair braided along her hairline in a kind of circlet shape.  ‘Crown braid,’ the instructions called it.

Sans gave a mental shrug.  It didn’t look like any crown he’d ever seen, but humans were strange.

It took half an hour of pulled hair and false starts, but he managed to get Attie’s hair woven and pinned into the desired shape.  “Done,” he said, collapsing back onto the couch.

“Thank you!” she yelled over her shoulder as she dashed down the hallway to the bathroom.  A squeal told him that she’d seen herself in the bathroom mirror and either really liked his work...or was very upset.  He was willing to bet on the former, but there had been that incident with the French braid...

The smile on her face when she finally reappeared was contagious.  “Thank you, Mr. Sans!” she said.  “I look really beautiful like a real princess!”

“Uh...aren’t you kinda a princess?  I know your mom is, ‘cause her parents are the king ‘n queen.”

She tilted her head to the side.  “I don’t know.  I don’t get to go to the big parties and everything, and no one calls me ‘your highness’ or anything like Mommy.  Do you really think I’m a princess?”

“You sure look like one today.”

“Yay!!  Oh, should I wear a dress, then?”

“Woah, hey, didn’t you...uh...just get dressed?  Yeah, you wouldn’t wanna get your pretty hair all messed up changing clothes again, right?”

“Okaaaaay.  But will you at least take a picture and show Mommy?”

“Sure, kid.  I do every day, don’t I?”

Once the picture and nothing else was sent to Frisk, they sat down on the couch with their phones.  “Okay,” he said.  “Same as last week.  You pick a place and show it to me, and I’ll check with Undyne.”

Attie hummed happily in agreement and got to work.  After a moment, she handed her phone over.  “This one?”

The map app on her phone was displaying a huge wildlife refuge at the base of Mt. Ebott, winding between monster territory and the city itself like a fat slug.  “That’s...I’m not sure that counts as a park?”

“Look at the name!”

He did.  ‘Mt. Ebott National Park,’ the phone said.  “Well.  Huh.  I’ll check.  But you know there won’t be other kids at this “park,” right?”

She shrugged.  “Most kids are weenies.  The kids at the embassy are okay, but mostly other kids don’t want to play tag or wrestling or capture the human.  And they cry if you push them over, and then parents get mad.  The kids at the embassy don’t cry when they fall over; they just get back up and keep playing.  ‘Cept the really little kids, but no one pushes them over on purpose because we’re s’pposed to look after the little kids.”

“...Welp, okay.”

He texted Undyne about going to the park Attie had picked.  She texted back almost instantly with a slew of questions, but since she gave her approval he ignored those.

“Undie says we can go.  She’s busy, but since there shouldn’t be anyone else there we don’t need an escort.  We just can’t leave trash and stuff behind, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Now.  What do you want for picnic lunch?”

Attie wanted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  That was fine.  What threw a wrench in the plan was her desire to make the sandwiches, and despite how much she practiced spreading peanut butter on bread it still seemed to get everywhere.  Sans resigned himself to following her around with a wet dishcloth cleaning up as she splattered peanut butter and dripped jelly across the kitchen.

“Done!” she finally declared, brandishing two lopsided sandwiches at the skeleton hovering behind her.

“Woah-hey!  Watch where you swing those!”

“Sorry!”

The sandwiches were wrapped and packed in Sans’s inventory, along with a bag of apple wedges (the easiest snack aside from popato chisps, which Boss didn’t allow in the house), a water bottle for Attie, and as many napkins as he could fit.  By some cruel quirk of the inventory system, each napkin took up an entire inventory slot.  He reluctantly removed his trombone and stashed it in his room to make space for the blanket Attie wanted to sit on.  Hopefully they’d be back before Boss, anyways.

“Okay, kid.  You ready to go?”

“Yyyyep!”

“A’ight, then.  C’mere.”  Once Attie was secure, Sans concentrated on the map he’d been shown of Mt. Ebott National Park and took a step forward.

Long-dead leaves crunched under his sneakers, and Attie wiggled almost out of his hold.  He kept his fingers tangled in the kid’s jacket as he evaluated his surroundings.  Only leafless trees, interspersed with the rare pine, surrounded their clearing.  They were alone.

Seasonally-challenged birds aside, Sans considered the area he lived in to be pretty quiet.  Sure, the neighbors and the traffic from the nearby highway made some noise, but it was a background hum he didn’t notice anymore.

He certainly noticed the lack of it, standing there in the middle of the wilderness.  He could barely hear any sounds, actually.  He was tempted to check his hearing, but the sound of Attie’s feet kicking up leaves confirmed that he wasn’t falling down just yet; it was just unnaturally silent.  There were no birds or other animals that he could hear.  The slight breeze ruffled no leaves.  A few dry branches clattered somewhere in the distance, sounding a little like bones, but it was distant and gone in seconds.

“Can I make a leaf pile and jump in it?”  Attie asked, wiggling harder.

“Eh, sure.  But stay where I can see-”

She had already bounded off.  Sans followed at a much lazier pace.  He gave her about an hour - an hour and a half tops - before she wore herself out and needed to eat to refuel.

Eventually, Attie collapsed into her giant pile of leaves and declared herself hungry.

“Oh thank the stars,” Sans groaned from under the neighboring pile.  She’d buried him - he checked his phone - an hour ago when he’d gotten tired of helping her gather handfuls of leaves into piles.  It was surprisingly cozy…

...until little hands began shoving the leaf pile off him.  “C’mon!”  their owner said.  “It’s lunchtime!”

He spread out the blanket and handed Attie her sandwich, the apple slices, and all the napkins.  He wasn’t really an outdoors-y person, not like some monsters he could name, but he had to admit that there was something kinda pretty about this place she had picked.  The trees were varied enough that it wasn't a copy of the pine forest near Snowdin, but the atmosphere reminded him a little of his old home.  He’d hidden in that forest often enough to have an appreciation for trees in general.

“The trees are really pretty even without their leaves,”  Attia said between bites.  “Did you take pictures and send them to my mommy?”

“I took pictures, but I don’t have reception out here.  Gotta get back to town to send them to your mom.”

“Okay.”

They sat in silence for a bit longer.  Sans gathered up the trash in a bag and found - to his amusement - that once categorized in such a way, he was able to store all the leftover sandwich and apple bags and dirty napkins in a single inventory slot.  Magic was weird.

“I wish we could stay out here forever and ever,” the little girl said, sounding half-asleep.

“Oh?  Wouldn’t you miss your mom?”

“She could come out and live here with us too.  She has to go to work, though.”

“What about, uh, school?  And friends?”

“I do school from books, silly!  And I could visit my friends.  They all work at the embassy, at least sometimes, ‘cept you.”

It was a strange thing, that tingling that spread outwards from his soul at those words.  When was the last time he’d had a friend?  Had he ever?  Sure, it was just a little human kid, but...well, it made him regret not being a little nicer to the kid’s mom a few years back.  Had Frisk been this carefree and innocent once upon a time?  Had monsters taken that from her?

Had he…?

“Mr. Sans?”

“Yeah, Attie?”

“Am I your friend too?”

He leaned back onto his leaf pile and closed his eye sockets.  “Yeah, kid.  You’re my friend too.”

She sighed and laid down beside him, her fingertips tapping on his in a strange rhythm.  For once, he didn’t mind the contact.  He knew with absolute clarity in that moment that he would willingly die for this obnoxious, precocious, brilliant little girl.  Laughter bubbled in his empty chest at the thought.  There was no reason to suspect that they would ever be in a situation where that would be necessary, or would actually do any good, but that was the first thing that came to mind.

She was going back to her mother as soon as Frisk was released from the hospital, probably in a few days.  Granted, it could be a few weeks with how bad Frisk’s luck had been lately, but the fact remained that eventually Attie would go home.  She would go home to her mother and move on with her life.  Would she even remember him?  She’d only known him for a week and a half.  Sans himself couldn’t remember much from when he was seven years old, and considering what he’d gone through at that age it both relieved and frightened him.

Attie would forget him, someday.

“Mr. Sans?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re thinking too hard again.”

“Oh.  Sorry.”

“It’s okay!  I just don’t want you to be sad.”

“Uh, thanks.”

She hummed a little.  “Mr. Sans?”

“Yeah?”

“Can we go back to your house now and call Mommy?”

“Sure, if she’s awake.”

He hauled himself upright and held out a hand.  She took it without hesitation, smiling so wide her eyes squinted.

She...trusted him.  It was almost inconceivable, after less than two weeks, but she did.

Sans knew with a sinking feeling that he’d betray that trust somehow.  The thought made his shortcut a little more bumpy than usual, but instead of complaining Attie immediately demanded that he always make his shortcuts that “fun.”

“...No promises.  Now don’t you have someone to call?”

She squealed and ran off to locate her phone.

You 2:14 PM *12 picture messages sent Picnic at mt ebott

There was no response.  Was Frisk alright?  He caught himself worrying that she hadn’t eaten anything since the mac ‘n cheese, but forced the thought away.  She wasn’t his problem.

...But what if she had eaten something, and it had been poisoned?  Humans were weirdly susceptible to poison.  He curled his twitching fingers into a fist to keep them from drumming on the table.  This kid and her mom were going to be the death of him.

“Mr. Sans?”

“Yeah, Attie?”

“I can’t call Mommy.  She isn’t picking up her phone.”

“Yeah, she hasn’t texted me back, either.  Whaddaya wanna do while we wait for her?”

She thought hard for a long moment.  Sans braced himself for anything.  “Friend” or not, this kid had a downright disturbing sense of humor sometimes.

“How about we play…TEA PARTY!”

Disturbing, indeed.

By the time Undyne vaulted dramatically into the apartment several hours later, Sans had resigned himself to his fate.  He’d been forced to ‘dress up’ (in nice clothes, which meant he had to do laundry, which Attie - the little goblin - absolutely loved) and was wearing his single formal outfit: a button-down white shirt and black slacks.  Attie had changed into a flowery skirt and top, and had insisted on finding an old bedsheet to use as a tablecloth for the skeleton brothers’ stained dining room table.

What made all that worth it was the look on Undyne’s face when she realized they had raided her ‘secret’ tea stash.  Coffee may have been her one true love, but tea came in a close second.  Boss kept some on hand for emergencies.

“WHAT THE EFF?!?” she screamed, waving a spear wildly.  “SANS, WHY?!?”

“Attie wanted to play tea party.”

“Yeah!” the girl piped up, taking a tiny sip from her coffee mug.  She’d been pretty upset to find that the skeleton household didn’t have any proper teacups.

Undyne looked more conflicted than Sans had ever seen her.  On the one hand, she was known to be extremely protective over her property, which automatically included all caffeinated beverages within arm’s reach.  (And she had a surprisingly long reach.)  On the other...she had a proven fondness for Attie, and Attie was obviously happy.

To his surprise, fondness for the little human won out...this time.

“Well you’d better pour me a cup, nerd,” she said, dispelling her spear and throwing herself into the chair across from Sans.

Attie giggled and dashed into the kitchen for another mug.

“So,” the captain said, eyeing him, “You’re still alive.”

“You saw me literally yesterday morning.  Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s an ongoing surprise.  I thought the kid’d run you ragged after a day or two, especially after you collapsed the first time you worked out with us.”

He shrugged.  It was a fair assessment.

“You’re not half bad at this, y’know.”

“What, at tea parties?  You know me, Cap’n; never one to pass up the pretty dresses.”

Undyne took a point of HP off him with her swat.  “Don’t be cheeky with me.  No; I mean you’re good with Attie.  It’s downright weird.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” he drawled, winking.

Whatever she was going to say was interrupted by Attie prancing back into the dining room with another mug of tea balanced carefully between her hands.  It was made more complicated by the fact that she was wearing oven mitts.  Sans braced himself to mitigate the almost-inevitable splash of hot liquid, but she managed to get the mug onto the table in front of Undyne without incident.

“Thanks,” Undyne said after a gulp of piping hot tea.  “You’re becoming a real chef.  You’ll give Papyrus ‘n me a run for our money someday, huh?”

“Yyyup!  I’ll beat you both, and then Mr. Papyrus will have to be nice!”

“He’s still gettin’ mad at you?”

“No, but he yells a lot.  Mr. Sans usually sends me to a different room when it starts so it doesn’t hurt my ears.”

“...Well, as long as you’re both okay.”

All three sipped their tea in silence for a moment.

“WAIT!”  Undyne slammed her mug down on the table with a firm thud.  “I almost forgot!  Attie!  Your mom’s getting out of the hospital!”

“YAY!  ...When?”

“Tomorrow or Monday, we think.  We’re waiting on some tests; don’t think they’ll let her go tonight, someone’s being a real ass about things.  It’s stupid.  Now that she’s awake she can pretty much take care of herself.”

“Wow!  That’s great!  Then I can visit her at my house instead of the stinky hospital!”  She hummed to herself a little.

Sans shared a glance with Undyne.  “Hey, uh, kid...don’t you wanna go home?”

“Yep!  But Mommy’s still sick, right?  I always have a babysitter when Mommy’s sick or I’m sick, so we don’t get germs all over each other.”

“I don’t think germs are a big concern here.  Appendicitis isn’t contagious.”

“...What?”

“Nevermind.”  He turned back to Undyne.  “So, uh, when’s the kid goin’ home?”

“We’ll see.  Frisk might need some time to get settled.  We’ll arrange something.”  She sighed, downing the rest of her tea.  “Well, it’s been great, nerds.  Gotta go check on the Dogi; Dogaressa might be going into labor.”

She left in a whirlwind of color and sound only marginally less intense than the one she arrived in.

“Mr. Sans?”

“Yeah, kid?”

“What’s a labor?”

“Work.  In this context, it means...uh, it means she’s having her puppies.  Y’know how they’re inside her right now?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, they’ve gotta come out.”

“Oh.”  She pondered this for a long moment.  “Does that mean they’re getting born?  Mrs. Dogaressa promised that I could pet them when they get born.”

“Uh, sure, kid.”

There was a blessed moment of silence, before:

“Mr. Sans?”

“...Yeah?”

“How did the puppies get inside Mrs. Dogaressa?”

“Just...finish your tea.”