Chapter Text
Oh this was a great day. A fucking Marvelous day.
Sarcasm, obviously.
Today was single handedly the worst day that he had ever had at work. The little secretary job wasnt much, but it was a hell of a lot better than serving tables at that god awful truck stop that he had been at..still didn’t help that some new temp spilled coffee all over him. Now, the easily second degree burns, ____ could deal with. It wasn’t the first time coffee had been spilled on him(fresh coffee mind you), but to make matters worse he had no way to have someone bring a new shirt over to the office building. The shirt was wet and stuck to his burnt skin, stinging when it was pulled away from it, the temp kept apologizing for the incident every time he laid eyes on him, people kept staring at him when they walked by the front desk, and, finally, his boss was pissed at him. Apparently he was the one at fault.
Yeah. So after he got bitched at about company policy and dress code, he left to clock out for the day. It was was about 4 o’clock in the evening in December, snow was falling quite slowly at the moment. It was just dusting the ground right now, but the weather this morning promised a good three inches tonight. Great. Just a perfect addition to this day. The cold wasnt helping his burn either as he pulled his jacket close around him. His shirt was more or less dry now, so that was a partial upside it seemed.
While normally he’d love to walk the long way home around the local park, it was cold and his chest and stomach hurt from the coffee burn. He opted to just walk through the park as a short cut today to save himself some trouble. On his walk he had noticed a shorter ice monster walking down the street, a nice hat made of ice on its head. He smiled and waved a bit in greeting, the Monster not even glancing at him. Eh well the Monster was about three feet in height. They probably didnt notice, seeing as ____ was about 5‘ 9‘’ himself. Monsters in this area of town was becoming more and more normal. It had been..eh..2 years? Or maybe closer to a year and a half, since the Monsters came from Mt Ebott, a very local mountain. Boy, had that been a crazy day. ____ remembered how he woke up, ready to go to one of his two shit jobs, only to get a call saying that the place would be closed, his boss at the time telling him to turn on the news.
Shock was probably the first thing he registered when he watched the local news, seeing the headline being ‘MONSTERS. REAL OR ELABORATE HOAX?’ across the screen as the reporter spoke frantically.
Next, he was a little fearful and confused as he saw images on the screen of these..monsters. There were hundreds all walking out from this cave that led into the mountain..no..maybe thousands..He couldnt help being scared. Weren’t most humans fearful of the unknown?
About a year and a half passed since then(maybe? He wasnt quite sure. Maybe he could look up the news article about it sometime to confirm how long it had been) and his own fear had dissolved into more...curiosity, if anything. Coming out of his thoughts, he hummed softly to himself, turning into the park and walking along the path at a slightly quicker pace than usual. No one seemed to be out today and that was understandable, seeing how cold it was. So, when he noticed some kids by the playground of the park, he was a little curious.
He slowed his pace a bit and watched. He could see now that one child was a monster, yellow with no arms. He was dressed for the weather, a thick red and yellow striped sweater and scarf. The other two...huh..they looked to be at least 15 or 16, much older than the young looking monster. There were some soft alarms going off in his head, but it wasn't until after one of the teens shoved the monster down and started to kick him that the real alarms start sounding. His body moved on instinct alone, making a sharp turn and running quickly toward them. He got his phone out and called out to them, hoping to scare them off with a bluff.
“H..hey!” He called out, hearing his voice break.
“I'm calling the cops, you little fucks better get away from them!” He said, phone pressed to his ear. It was then that the two teens froze, looking at him.
“Dude..I can't get in trouble again, my parole officer will kill me” one muttered to the other and with that, the two delinquents bolted. Once they were out of sight, ____ hurried to the child, who was trying to stand up with major difficulty.
“Hey, are you okay? H..here don't try to stand up” he had seen the poor kid take a few blows to the head and he was already concerned about the possibility of a concussion.
“Um..here we go” he said, helping him sit up and then looking him over. He had a few scrapes and bruises..but he looked like he was in quite a bit of pain...damn kids.
“Okay let's try standing up now” he said and slowly helped him stand. He saw how he swayed and ____ frowned.
“I'm taking you to your parents. Are they around here anywhere?” He asked and the kid spoke for the first time as he was picked up.
“..n..no..at home” he replied, whimpering softly. Well..ugh, looks like getting home would have to wait.
“Alright..can you tell me where your house is? “ he asked and the little guy just said in the monster district. It was a start at least.
“Okay..we’ll get you home then. What are you even doing out here by yourself? You need to have your mom or dad out here with you..” he said softly and started to walk along toward the Monster District. God he hated that name for it. It sounded so..segregated. Like..this is where Monsters lived. This is where they should live. Sounds a lot worse when you think about it like that, right? He couldn't be live it had been easily over a year now, and yet people still treated Monsters like..monsters. He lived a decent five minute walk away from the ‘Monster District’ so it wasn't long before he was over in there. There was no one out still and ____ was panicking. How the hell was he supposed to find this kid’s house. Coincidentally, this monster kid’s name was actually Kid. Funny right? Finally, as he was walking and talking to Kid. he spotted a small group of people.
“H-Hey!” he called out, running along toward them quickly, making sure not to jostle Kid. Their backs were to him and once he yelled out, they stopped and looked back at him. He could see them now. One was a tall goat woman in a thick winter coat that went down to her calves and boots. With her was a small human child, holding her hand. He couldn't tell if they were a boy or a girl, but eh that wasn't really the issue at the moment. The last guy was was a shorter Skeleton, wearing a thick looking blue jacket and..shorts, oddly enough. There seemed to be a moment of confusion before all three of them looked panicked, the skeleton looking at ____ in a more accusing way if anything.
“Oh my stars! What happened?” The woman asked and ____ stopped in front of them.
“Some kids were messing with him in the park. I dont know if he’s hurt bad, but he got kicked in the head a few times..Do you know where he lives?” He asked and the woman nodded, holding her arms out to him.
“I’m a teacher at the school in our district. He’s a friend of my child Frisk” she said, her voice soft but obviously worried. ____ handed Kid off to the woman, Kid whining softly as he was jostled.
“Thank you so much ma’am. I was really worried about getting him home.” He said and the woman nodded.
“Of course. We should go, its quite cold out here. I don’t want either of these two getting sick” she said and balanced Kid in one arm, holding Frisk’s(their child apparently) hand with her free one.
“A..Ah..yeah. I hope he’s okay. Um..you all have a good day!” he said awkwardly and saw them off. He swore that skeleton was glaring holes in him. It made him shudder as he hurried off back towards the park to get to his house, which was still on the opposite side of it. It seemed to have gotten even colder and he whined softly to himself, walking quickly. Finally after what felt like forever, he made it back into his tiny one bedroom apartment. He would be happy once he could get some burn cream on his chest and stomach and some dinner. Well..things couldn't be too much worse right?