Dinner was, without a doubt, an… experience. If all tacos were made the way ‘Sans’ made his, then you never wanted to see or smell hard corn taco shells again. You didn’t even know that people put glitter in food! And ate it!! HE DIDN’T EVEN REACT WHEN THE MEAT WAS BOTH UNDER-AND-OVERCOOKED?? SOMEHOW?? Luckily, ‘Papy’ seemed to understand your plight and… snuck the remains of your plate into his hoodie pouch?? What was even up with these constructs? At this point, you, hoping you wouldn’t regret it, dropped your guard around them, going as far as to joke around with ‘Sans’ to the ever-growing horror of ‘Papy’.

“AW, PAPY, LET’S TACO-BOUT IT! I WAS JUST SPEAKING INGEST!” You had to muffle your extremely inappropriate laugh in your napkin at the utterly dead look on ‘Papy’s’ face.

“kill me. you suck, y’know?” He buried his skull in his arms in defeat.

You gave him a big smile, pretending to not see the narrowing of ‘Papy’s’ eyesockets. “So sushi!”

He lifted his skull to give you a baleful glare, and promptly vanished from his chair. “Woah, what??” You abruptly turned to ‘Sans’, unconsciously tensing up again. Constructs are incapable of the complexity of the higher types of magic, unless they’re Pacted by the forbidden...

If anything, ‘Sans’ seemed confused by your sudden spike of distrust, although that could just be to throw you off. Speaking of which, where was their summoner? You hadn’t seen them whatsoever while you were, well, wine-and-dined wasn’t quite appropriate, given an introductory meal that didn’t introduce much of anything at all. Except for mentions of ‘Alphys’, who clearly was someone to be wary of, some glitzy performer called ‘Napstabot’, and a higher-up called ‘Toriel’. “PAPY’S JUST PRANKING YOU THROUGH SPACE-TIME AGAIN! HE DOES IT ALL THE TIME TO BE INCURABLY LAZY AND BOONDOGGLE ALL DAY!” He said, giving the door with strange, multicolored flames flaring from underneath it upstairs the stink-eye. Eyesocket? Ugh, were you supposed to use skeletal anatomy terms?

“So, I hate to pop the question, but…“ You fidgeted, feeling as though something was very fundamentally wrong with your circumstances. At first you assumed that they were going about it in one of the old ways, but then less and less started to add up. It seemed, for all intents and purposes, that just the two constructs lived in this mansion of a house, but why? What happened to their summoner? If they got a new one, why did they hide them? It wasn’t taboo after all, people would understand! “Why have you brought me here? Is there something you want me to do?” Not like there really was much you could offer, what with your half-finished art degree and lackluster build. Besides, it looked as if you coming here was an accident from ‘Papy’ messing around with a machine of some sort.

“WANT YOU TO DO? WELL…” Please let it be relatively low-risk, you definitely weren’t in shape enough for the likes of what your dads do… “MAYBE YOU COULD BE MY FRIEND?”

“Come again?” That seemed easy enough, but why?? You had so many questions. You felt a sinking in your stomach. There had to be a catch. “Wait, before I say yes, where are we? It’d be nice to know where to pick up some Shong Ride.”

“SHONG… RIDE? I’VE NEVER HEARD OF THEM!” How could this be? They were the top Chinese takeout place in America, which you assumed you were still in. I mean, you were still speaking the American version of Common you were familiar with.

“Well, uh, anyhow... Sure, why not?” Sans gasped, his eyelights expanding to fill his eyesockets with five-pointed stars.

He suddenly jumped up, only to give you a bone-crushing hug. “REALLY?! WOWZERS, I PROMISE YOU WON’T REGRET IT!!”

“Can’t… breathe…” You wheezed, pawing at his arms.

“OH! RIGHT, WHAT’S YOUR NAME, HUMAN?” Why did he keep calling you ‘human’?

You told him your name, rubbing your sides. That’ll be sure to leave a bruise…

“THAT’S A NICE NAME!” Sans paused, clapping his mittened hands together. “SINCE IT APPEARS YOU HAVE NO PLACE TO GO, WOULD YOU LIKE TO STAY THE NIGHT OVER? YOU CAN TAKE MY ROOM!”

You could feel an ominous shiver go down your back from the direction of the flaming door...

“Yeah, okay then.” Hey, you weren’t gonna turn down those puppy-dog eyelights! Just look at him! You couldn’t make him cry!

“PERFECT! WAIT RIGHT HERE, I’LL BE RIGHT DOWN!” He jumped up the steps to the door with streamers and a ‘SANS ONLY!!!’ sign taped across it.

You listened in bemusement as a muffled thump went off in what was presumably Sans’ room. Did… did Sans really leave those notes about feeding this rock? At this point, you could believe almost anything about these eccentric brothers. “YOU DIDN’T HEAR THAT!!”

He rushed back down, a slight sheen of blue? on his skull. Was that sweat? Magical sweat?? Did skeletons sweat???

“YOU CAN GO INTO MY ROOM NOW, BUT I HAVE TO WARN YOU!!” Sans posed dramatically, a hand on his hips. “PAPY SNORES, SO!! YOU CAN WEAR THIS OLD THING!!” He dropped a ragged, baby blue bunny-eared sleeping muff into your hands.

“Thanks…?” It felt like it’s made of cotton. You shrugged, resigning yourself to constant japery at the skeleton mansion. Well, guess you’ll have to check out his digs then.

You spared a brief glance at the other doors that stretched into the distance beyond Papy’s room, but decided it was better not to get on the skeletons’ bad sides and walked into his room as Sans busied himself below, observing the half-filled bookshelf, the rocketship-themed bed, which you guessed you were sleeping in, and the table of painted action figures. There was a large painting? photo? of a single cartoonish bone against a blue background on the wall, and a teal rug on the ground patterned with more cartoonish bones. The bookshelf, on closer inspection, was lined with trashy romance novellas and children’s books. Huh, you didn’t take Sans for that type. Also, where did those plastic bags of bones come from?? Should you be concerned??

Other than that, it was, overall, a fairly normal room. You checked the time on the chunky device on the table, fastidiously avoiding looking at the page open. 9:17? You didn’t think it was this late…

After completing your wind-down routine (change, make sure all doors and windows are locked, clean self, keep weapons at hand), you turned off that device, hoping Sans wouldn’t mind, and the lights. It was a little weird to be sleeping in some stranger’s bed (and a skeleton, no less), after meeting them only a few hours ago, but it wasn’t like there was anywhere else you wanted to go, and they didn’t seem to be dangerous. You hoped they weren’t dangerous.

You yawned. They better not be dangerous…

Darkness.