Chapter Text
While out in the cold winter weather with the snow softly falling, the roads were already dim with street lights and store lights being the only way to see with the added reflection of the freshly fallen snow. Having finished work for the day, you walked along the sidewalk avoiding the mounds of snow from people who had shovelled it out of the sidewalk earlier today. Had you known the temperature would have dropped so quickly from the decent weather this morning, you would have been more prepared than just a jacket, jeans and your company's employee shirt underneath. You really wished you had thought to bring at least a scarf to avoid your nose from freezing off.
Your nose tickled with an oncoming sneeze from the cold. You tried to hold in cause you didn't have any tissues with you. But a loud sneeze ripped right out of you, giving you no chance to cover your mouth into your sleeve out of conditioned good manners. You could feel your nose now begin to stuff up, a clear sign that you needed something to warm you up before a real cold could come over you.
You looked around along the streets to see if there was a Starbucks or even a tea shop to pick up a warm drink on the way home. Sadly, out of all the places that didn't have either of those, it had to be this area. However, there was a reason for the famed Starbucks to not be in this particular area.
You lived close to Mt. Ebott, where the monsters surfaced just months ago. While many of the previous (human) inhabitants had fled once they found that the monsters were here to stay, others, like yourself, didn't bother to make such a fuss over the new incoming population. The area was too relaxing and comfortable with the natural beauty surrounding the small town to bother moving to a place that may prove to be more dangerous or stressful like a large concrete city out of spite. As well, considering the people who had disliked the monsters enough to run away were now gone, those who stayed, while some not completely comfortable, were mostly indifferent to the monster population.
You yourself were mostly indifferent to the new inhabitants. You were slightly curious to meet with some, particularly those who were not scary looking, but often you were too scared to do so because of your anxiety to meet new people in general. You were rather scared to do something stupid or insult someone whenever the chance to talk to someone arose, human or monster. One time, while working, you saw a monster search for an item you knew by heart of the location from your continuous stocking of the product, their voice carrying through the store as they asked your co-worker. You sort of hoped they would have tried asking you and start up a conversation, but silently went back to stocking the shelves, resigned to the situation.
You thought about this while coming up to a particular cafe-looking arrangement with bright orange light cascading through the windows on your side of the road. The windows were fogged up so much from the most likely contrast of heat inside meeting the cold outside that you could barely see any form inside. The warm orange glow was extremely inviting, however, compared to the practically white lights of the street lights. Looking up, you saw the sign on top of the place say "Grillby's". Interesting name, you thought, probably a small diner or something. You thought again about your search for something warm to drink, maybe they had something here you could take on the walk home.
Taking a calming breath as you decided, you opened the door.
...and slowly realized you regretted it.
This was definitely a monster bar. Everyone inside was a monster that you recognized from newspapers, some of which were more scary to look at than others. There was a groups of dog looking monsters to the left at a table looking like they were playing poker. At the bar area, there was a drunk bird that seemed completely smashed. To the right there was a monster that looked like nothing buy a giant maw of lips and teeth, teeth showing more than anything else.
And at the the bar behind the counter, the most surprising being of all a person completely made of fire, cleaning a shot glass as if the flames were barely a gust of wind.
You realized you were staring at everyone in the place when the bar got eerily quiet, the only sound being some light jazz in the background. You dropped the hood of the jacket further down your head, looking at the ground in front of you to make you way to the bar area, feeling eyes on you as you went. You already opened the door and entered; there was no turning back now no matter how much your nervousness screamed at you to do so.
You felt not at all well when you finally sat down at the bar, waiting ever patiently for the rising anxiety to slow down so you could order. You still felt eyes on you, hearing voices finally starting up again as the onlookers returned to their groups. You took a breath, blinking to concentrate on what you wanted to say to the bartender. The noise of the flames from the bartender reminded you of the campfire noise you use to help sleep at night before bed, helping you relax faster to focus on what to say.
Before you had a chance to look to the man of fire to ask for a warm drink, the door opened up and a rush of the name "Sans!!" rushed out of the other inhabitants. The sudden noise made you almost jump out of your chair, but you at least stopped yourself from making an equally surprising noise. You turned a little, keeping a hand on the side of your hood to hide your face a little. What you saw was a blue hooded round looking person in black shorts and slippers (out of all footwear for this winter night) talking with the group of card playing dog monsters on the left of the entrance of the bar. Their hood was up so you couldn't see what they looked like, slightly dusted with snow that fell outside.
Turning back around, you saw the flaming bartender right in front of you, cleaning a shot glass as if nothing had happened. They looked like they were ready to take your order, you hoped.
"I, uh," you said softly, looking down at your hands nervously. You noticed the hands on the shot glass stop polishing from the top corner of your eyes."I'll have anything warm to drink, please? Non-alcoholic." You didn't want any chance of a slip-up on your way out, taking extra care with each word you said.
You noticed, more like felt, the man of fire nod and move to make your drink before someone sat right beside you. You didn't bother to look right away, recuperating from the energy you spent just to order.
"My usual, Grillbz," said a gruff voice. "And fries tonight."
The bartender nodded again and walked off, most likely to the kitchen you thought. You felt rather smaller sitting beside your new companion, especially with the noise of the crackling fire now gone from your immediate vicinity.
"Hey there," you heard the gruff voice say beside you. You thought they were talking to someone on the left side of them that wasn't your side on the right. You took a peak to see what was happening.
Only to face a skull with gaping black holes for eyes.