Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You’d heard tales of beasts in the mountains.

Everyone had. Of course there were tales... there were few things on Earth quite like mountains. The ocean had them defeated in vastness but the ocean was constantly moving, constantly shifting and retreating and advancing. It was never the same body of water from moment to moment. That was the very nature of water, after all; you couldn’t truly conquer something that, in an instant, was something else.

... But mountains? Mountains were always there. The mountain you stared up at was the exact same that generations before you had stared up at. The same sheer rock faces, the same cloud-bathed looming silhouette, the same impossibly great trees that turned into collections of tiny specks in the high distance and peeled away in freckles at the peak to reveal the icy cap. Something so static, so irremovable... so constant and inescapable... so... easily accessible...

... And yet somehow, so completely impossible to know or conquer.

There was just so much mountain. Anything could be lurking in those thick forests... anything at all.

...

The majority of your village was situated in a neat raised valley, between two peaks that had embraced millions of years ago. It almost resembled a river; a few stray houses trickling down from the steeper areas into the bustled collection in the grassland below. It was far from impossible to get to, considering all the new roads that were being laid day by day... but who would bother to come all the way up there? 

It was, from the outside, picturesque. But everyone knew that thick forests, high mountains and less humans...

... Well, it was the perfect place for the worst kinds of monsters. The intelligent ones.

...

You’d been asked by one of the village shopkeepers to bring groceries to a woman who lived in the highest house on the mountain, a pretty decent walk away. When she was younger she’d make the trip with her husband and children with complete ease, legs trained on the same steep forested path for decades. But now that old age and sickness was beginning to creep up on her, her husband was dead and her children had left the mountains for the city life... concerned friends and villagers found it much better to have someone bring the lady’s supplies to her and save her the danger. There’d been talk of bringing her down the mountain a little, into the centre of town, where people could keep an eye on her...

... But you knew Ms. Fephar. She would die in that little house she was born in.

(Your mother always said that the homes far up the mountain bred the strangest kinds of people. The ones who, for reasons best left unknown, sought distance from the rest of humanity.)

...

It wasn’t like you’d never bought the old woman her groceries before. In fact, you were almost always the one for the job, desperate to get out of the house for once- ‘young legs and a sharp mind will make the journey a breeze’, the shopkeep said. Who could say no to such a scenic trail? A garden-edged road up the mountain that melted away into a rocky, almost-overgrown trail surrounded by skyscraping evergreens that only stayed visible and trodden because of your weekly journeys.

No, it wasn’t like you’d never been up and down before.

You’d just never been up and down in that kind of rain.

It was coming down in sheets, piercing through the thick tree canopy, dripping off pine needles, drumming against every piece of foliage on the forest floor and turning the usually scenic trail into splashes of wet mud and rock. By the time you arrived at Ms Fephar’s door, grocery bag tucked under one arm and the other holding your jacket over your head in a fitful attempt to cover your already plastered hair, you were soaked in mud from your ankles to your knees and dripping from every corner. 

“You must come in, girl.” The old lady said, voice barely audible over the sound of the rain pounding against your jacket. “It’s not safe out there.”

Her little thatched home did look delightfully warm and bright inside those worn brick walls. She was wearing a cosy sweater, too, and she looked so dry, and...

...

But no. You grinned at her, passed her the soaked groceries, and said some stupid shit about needing to head home before the paths flooded.

As if they weren’t flooded already.

It quickly became apparent to you, once the sweet old cottage’s bright windows vanished into the trees, that the journey down was much harder than the journey up. At least then you’d been able to just dig your heels in and march up, one foot after the other... the steepness of the path and the slick, waterlogged earth, the sharp stones you kicked up with every heel flick and the pouring rain blinding you and chilling you to the bone...

... You should’ve just stayed at Ms Fephar’s, and ignored your fear of getting her wonderful ornate carpets dirty.

You barely registered the slip. Most of the journey down thus far had been slipping- holding onto tree branches or clumps of slightly more solid dirt as you slid with all the grace of a dancing cow.

What you did register, however, was your face hitting sodden foliage and your heels going over your head as you began an endless fall.

---

...

... Warmth.

...

You were surrounded by something warm. You were leant up against it, and more of it was laid over your lap and lower legs...

... You let out a tiny whimper and tried to curl up, curl closer, but the thing over your lap was so thick and heavy you couldn’t move your legs at all, and as soon as you asked your muscles to move they cried out in pain. It felt like... a whole person was lying over you... your head lolled to the side...

... and the jolt from slipping over onto your side startled you awake.

...

It definitely took your eyes a few moments to adjust. It was dark, incredibly dark, you couldn’t see more than 10ft away from you...

...

But it wasn’t what was away from you that began to confuse your newly awoken mind even further. 

You were sat down, and whatever it was you were sat on felt very giving and soft. There was a thick blanket around your shoulders that’d slipped as you started awake- your back was pressed against something very large, very solid and very warm, with what felt like a few pillows placed on top of it so you had more to lean against.

... And... the thing across your legs...

... It was thicker than your own body, long, and very softly glowing a dull blue. You blinked, nonplussed... you subconsciously reached out and pressed your hand against it, silhouetting the extremity. It was warm to the touch, like a black stone that’d been soaking in the sunshine... but it felt like you were running your palm over something akin to a muscle. You visually followed the thick glowing thing through heavy lashes as it went over your thighs, did a u-turn, went over your lower legs again, trailed off... and looped back around again a few  metres away before ending by your feet. It got smaller as it reached the end... and as your vision focused, it looked almost like the massive scaled body of a sna...

...

... A snake.

“... you’re ... awake...”

...

Your breath caught in your throat; just as a breath washed over your face, carrying stray wisps of hair with it, so long and deep that whoever owned it must’ve had lungs the size of train carriages.

That wasn’t a human voice. That couldn’t be a human voice. Human voices didn’t go that deep, so deep it caressed your insides in the best and worst way. Human voices didn’t get that low and soft, low and silky, human voices didn’t have a hiss-like rush to every word...

You turned your face toward the sound...

...

The first thing you saw was a ring of blood red light that illuminated a massive skeletal face just inches from your own. You let in a tiny, panicked silent breath, pulling away a little to see more- yes, it was a skeleton. The eye sockets were wide enough for you to put your whole fist in- one was lax, drooped, empty of everything but darkness, and the other was rounded and filled with that crimson glow from that single burning ‘eye’; a thick, brightly glowing ring floating in the socket that seemed to constrict as it surveyed your face. Like a cat’s pupil. More of that dull blue glow was filtering out of gaps between unnaturally huge teeth... razor sharp, affixed to a jaw so wide and heavy you were certain he could crush your bones in his maw like carrot sticks... 

Th-the expression... you were convinced it was hunger...

But before your lethargic body could muster the energy to scream, to cry, to panic, something else that was warm was pressed insistently into your (subconsciously) raised hands. You looked down at it, tearing your eyes from the terrible face, barely able to make out the silhouette of a mug filled with a rippling liquid in the dim light.

... As well as the silhouette of the hand pressing the cup against you. Skeletal too, easily twice the size of your own.

“drink.” His voice (it sounded male... but could you be so sure?) was low, and soft... as if he was attempting to quell the fear he already knew was there just from staring into his eyes. ... Eye? ... Eye... socket...?  

“don’t move. you’re hurt. badly.”

... You opened your mouth, trying to make some kind of sound to ground yourself into whatever was happening right now. You didn’t understand, nothing made sense, you tried to force yourself to look back at that awful face again as if to convince yourself it was really there and not some horrible grim reaper ghost, w-why was... where were...

What happened to me...!?

“shhh.” His voice was entangled with a hiss. He gently but insistently pushed the mug toward your face. Without realising you were even doing it, your body seemingly still trapped in its sleepy confused automatic state, the rim of the cup met your lips and you swallowed.

...

It was so warm. You didn’t even notice the tiny sound of happiness that left your body, shoulders unwinding and mind temporarily forgetting everything- the liquid was hot and sweet, like tea with a little too much honey... heat spread from your core outwards as you continued to drink gratefully, fingers and toes and scalp tingling pleasantly. You barely registered the fizzing sound of someone striking a match...

... When you lowered the (empty) mug from your lips and opened your eyes again, the room was now illuminated with a gentle flickering orange glow.

... 

... It was a cave. You blinked- that explained how it was so warm, and dry, and quiet.

... But... it’d clearly been decorated for someone to live in. There were oil lamps fastened onto hooks that’d been embedded into the rocky wall. A decently sized tapestry depicting a beautiful winding tree was hung against one wall, and you could now see that what you were laying on wasn’t a mattress- it was various blankets and animal furs, thrown into a huge, messy pile. There was even a crudely fashioned door in the wall furthest from you, the shadows dancing and stretching across the grooves in the wood... it must lead further into the cave...

...

And then you turned to your company, as if remembering he was there. He’d lit one of the oil lamps close to the two of you.

...

Stars help me.

You’d never seen a creature like him before. You’d read books about naga, child eating monsters that were half human, half snake. 

But he was nothing like the books. 

He was absolutely gigantic- you had no idea how big he was. You hazarded a guess at... 20, 25 feet..? But either he was clearly large enough to completely encircle you multiple times, given that not only were you leaning up against his tail... but as you’d seen before the giant mass (no wonder it’d felt like touching a muscle, it was a snake body; one gigantic muscle) was also looped over your body twice, off the pile of furs and back on again, the very tip just by your ankle. And that wasn’t including the part of his body he was resting on. He absolutely dwarfed you in every sense of the word; which explained why the sections of his tail going over you were so thick and heavy you couldn’t move your body from the knees down.

... But that wasn’t even the most different part. 

He wasn’t half human. Your eyes weren’t playing panicked tricks on you earlier, he was indeed half skeleton. He seemed vaguely humanoid in shape on the upper body but there were bones you were certain didn’t exist on a human skeleton; a palm-like bone, a piece on his elbow where the ulna and radius met, giant plate-like bones on the back of his ribcage. His bones were impossibly thick and heavily set, littered with scars and marks and nicks and grooves- his spine was like a tree trunk.  

Just his upper body was the size of most of you.

... And his face. You could see it much better in the light, now he wasn’t illuminated only by his own glowing body. There was the face you’d seen moments before; crooked sockets, one empty and one spilling out light and magic, an overfilled mouth of knife teeth.

But now, in full view... you could see that his skull sported a massive, jagged, ugly hole in the side. A gruesome injury, that perhaps that was the cause of his... eyes.

...

... a one-eyed, massive half skeleton half blue snake man... 

...

Who has you in his den.

“... do you...” That single light in his eye was going to swallow you whole. There was something so... unsettling about the fact that he didn’t blink once. You couldn’t look away. Was this how you were going to die? Eaten by a monster? “... remember... what... happened... to you?”

...

You swallowed.

If he wanted to kill me, I wouldn’t stand a chance. He could squeeze his body once and, depending on whether my organs or my spine gave out first, I’d be gone in an instant or in a moment. He could roll over and crush me to death, or suffocate me if he decided to stretch it out a little. Do nagas like to play with their food?

If he bit my neck with that maw he’d take most of my shoulder with it.

...

The empty mug in your hands was starting to cool down now.

...

But...

... If he wanted to kill me...

... Wouldn’t I already be dead...?

Your throat felt as if a snake of its own had wound around it, forcing your voice to come out in a hoarse, terrified whisper.

If he wanted to kill me, why am I on a pile of furs in his cave, wrapped in a blanket, being given hot liquids?

“I...” Barely audible, completely unable to tear your eyes from his sockets, so far above you. “I-I fell?”

Why hasn’t he already killed me?

Why is he looking at me like that?

... You remembered your teeth slamming down on your tongue as you rolled and rolled, down and down, the wind knocked out of you and hair whipping everywhere. Water in your eyes and mouth, ears, up your nose, wet grass and twigs and stones in your hair and going down your shirt, rocks cutting your legs and face, arms desperately coming in to give some kind of protection as you kept rolling, thumping and thudding over branches and roots and grass and leaves.

... You vaguely recalled curling in on yourself when your body finally came to a stop, a whimpering, shivering, numb little pile of bruises.

A ragdoll that’d been thrown down the world’s longest flight of stairs.

...

The more you started to think, the more you started to remember. You immediately looked down at your clothes, that should’ve been soaked through- they were flecked with spots of mud and what could’ve been dried blood but they were bone dry to the touch. As was your hair, your skin...

... And now that you thought about it... hadn’t his snake body been glowing before? It had been pleasantly hot to the touch...

...

...

You looked back up at him, back up at his face, lips parting.

“... D-did you...” You couldn’t believe you were asking this. Your heart was pounding. “Did you rescue me?”

His hungry expression suddenly didn’t seem quite so hungry, now that you thought about it. No... now you were looking, actually looking, not just absorbing the immediate details your prey mind was seeing in a predator... 

... he looked relieved.

As soon as your question seemed to process in his head, his dagger teeth crooked up at the corners a little into a tiny smile, crimson ring-eye dilating ever-so-slightly.

He nodded.

...

Just like that, he didn’t seem quite so big any more. 

“... y-you were hurt. and cold. lying... in the rain.” The hiss in his voice had become more like a careful purr as he lowered the upper part of his body more, bringing himself closer to your level... perhaps to make himself seem less threatening? His words were slow, deliberate... you wondered if his gigantic teeth or that nasty head injury made speech difficult.“just... brought you in. dried you. kept you warm... until you woke up.”

Your heart skipped a beat. “... Is... is that why you were glowing?”

... His grin widened a bit, seemingly glad you understood, and he nodded.

“magic... is warm.”

...

You couldn’t describe how much tension and fear left your body in a single moment. 

Seeing this giant skeleton naga monster who you thought was going to eat you smile so genuinely and somewhat enthusiastically when you realised he just wanted to help was like someone pulling the plug from your brimming sink of anxiety. This beast, this creature... he’d scooped you out of the mud and rain, had taken you into his cave den, dried your soaking freezing body, let you sleep on what seemed to be his bed with a comfortable blanket over you, looped his coils over your body and used his own (probably precious) energy to keep you safely warmed until you awoke.

He wasn’t going to kill you.

You weren’t going to die.

“Th-thank you.” You choked out, raw with emotion. “Thank you. So much.”

...

... His cheekbones, littered with miniscule scratches and marks... started to go... blue?

You blinked, unsure if you were seeing properly. No, they were definitely going blue... Like someone had leant close and dusted the bone with a soft ultramarine powder. It couldn’t be a trick of the light...

“s-skull.” He blurted, crimson eye finally breaking contact with you, darting away. He looked... nervous? “my name... it’s skull.”

...

You gave him your name too, voice significantly more relaxed than before; and you just couldn’t help it. You instinctively held your hand out to him.

...

He stared at it, for a moment. As if surprised you’d want to touch him.

...

... He took it, hand completely swallowing your own, giving it an awkward shake. His grin was so soft and happy that it didn’t matter how broken his face was- he was, undeniably, actually pretty adorable.

“... It’s nice to meet you.” You said, allowing yourself to smile too.

“... nice to... meet you.”

---

Skull took you home that night, carrying you like a princess in his giant arms with a total effortlessness that took your break away. He told you he knew the risk of going into the village, and it was a risk he was willing to take if it meant guaranteeing getting you back without incident. 

That made your cheeks go as red as his had been blue, unable to stop yourself from holding onto his neck a little tighter as he moved through the trees with a silence, speed and grace that was seemingly completely inversely proportional to his size. When he’d talked about taking you back to the village you’d been really worried, but... as he moved across the earth so softly he could’ve been mistaken for a passing housecat, you knew there was no way he’d be found. The only way anybody could know of his existence was if someone had heard your soft whispered directions to him over the gentle wind.

He placed you down in front of your garden window, and you made your way in, surprised at how even just placing your hands on the windowsill made a louder sound than all of Skull’s movements over the course of the journey. Your arms ached when you tried to pull yourself up, still recovering from your fall, and he had to give you a gentle boost by placing his massive hand under your foot... eventually, you made it into the house, feeeling slightly embarrassed at your clumsiness compared to him. 

As soon as you were inside, you scrambled to your feet and turned back around, leaning the upper half of your body out of the window to speak to him.

“Skull?” You asked, absolutely hating how loud your whisper sounded in the empty night.

His eyelight glowed such a serene red... you didn’t know the colour red could be so calming. And when he spoke, his deep voice was so soft, and low... like he was speaking only for you. “... yeah?” 

“... How did you...” Why did he look so... so handsome in the night? In a strange, otherworldly way, with the moon glittering off his scales? Was there something wrong with you? “H-how did you find me? After I fell.”

... There was that blue on his cheekbones again. He took a little breath.

“...i-i see you on the path... every week. taking... taking the groceries up.” He fidgeted with his phalanges. “and, when you didn’t come back down, and the rain was so heavy, i... i just knew something... was wrong...”

...

...

The admission that this giant skeleton naga had been watching you for potentially months should’ve frightened you to the very core. 

A few hours ago, it might have.

“Maybe next week you should escort me up.” You said, voice almost playful. “For safety’s sake, of course.”

...

He let out a small, hissing chuckle, eye socket crinkling in the corner.

“... yeah. safety.”

... 

There was a thud behind you, somewhere inside the house. You turned away, momentarily filling with panic, wondering if someone had come over to check if you were there, or maybe even had heard you speaking with Skull. You spun back to tell him to run... well, not run, slither...

... But by the time you turned back to your garden, he was gone, the only sign he’d ever been there being the indent of his tail in the grass.

---

Your mother always said that the homes far up the mountain bred the strangest kinds of people. The ones who, for reasons best left unknown, sought distance from the rest of humanity.

If only she knew why you purchased that cottage for two, so far from the rest of town, but so close to a secret cave in a tightly packed grove of evergreens.

...

... But was it really so strange to love a monster who loved you back?

Chapter Text

You knew the water would be cold today.

It was relatively calm, with the only waves being small and far between, lapping gently against the rock you were stood on as you pulled your arms through your wetsuit, zipping it up the back with only a little difficulty. The ocean was crystal clear... when you peered down into it, you could see the bright streaks of sand metres below you, the looming dark rocks, the rippling shadows of seaweed rocking back and forth in the gentle current. 

It was always at its coldest when it was clear. No tiny floating particles to hold the warmth from the day’s sunshine. 

Speaking of the sun- it was starting to slip toward the horizon now; the speckled clouds around it had been all but set alight in a golden haze. You always aimed to be out in the evenings, after the casual swimmers and tourists had abandoned the beaches- at this time of day, when the sun was bleeding warmer colours into the sky and the quaint cafes had closed, the only people who entered the water were local surfers who knew how to respect the small strip of sea they’d been allowed to enter. Who knew to keep to the beach and its far more forgiving waters.

Unlike you. You’d only been on the beach to walk across it, waving at a few of the guys and girls in the ocean you knew from around town and sometimes even pausing to see if the wave they caught carried them the length of the beach or if it unceremoniously dumped them in a barrel of foam and salt. 

Today, however, you’d been too excited to stop.

You left them to their waves and clambered onto the rocks at the end of the bay, walking further and further around the cliff face, hopping from rock to rock, until you were entirely out of sight of the surfers and the beach.

Until you were in silent waters.  

... And once you found your usual perch, a flat, smooth rock with enough room to put your stuff down, you were good to lay out your towel and get changed.

From experience you knew it was better to just jump straight in instead of wasting time getting nervous about the possible temperature or lowering yourself in slowly. In the winter, you’d never jump straight in without getting accustomed first in case it was so cold you gave yourself a heart attack... but at this time of year, in the late summer, there shouldn’t be any problems. You stood, tying your hair back, stretching your arms to limber and warm up inside the slightly restrictive neoprene. You had your wetsuit so you could stay in longer than usual, your new things that you were excited to use... and the top half of a diving mask around your neck.

(... You wouldn’t use the mask until a little later. You always preferred for the first dive to be without it, just to get that sense of freedom that came with the saltwater rushing over your exposed face. But later, if you wanted to see him under the surface, a diving mask would be necessary.)

You rolled your shoulders, took a breath, held it... 

... And, using the rock as a push-off point, jumped and dove under the surface. 

You were right, it was pretty cold; saltwater flowed over you, hitting your hands and face the hardest, and a little bit rushed down the back of the wetsuit and over your sensitive spine- but it wasn’t quite as cold as it was a few days ago. It was nowhere near as bad as you expected, and actually quite nice... refreshing... even under the surface, you couldn’t help but relax.

As soon as your head had gone under, your entire body knew where it was.

Home.

... And that was when you could finally try out your new thing.

Flippers!

They were tightly secured to your feet and decently long- just not extra long, like diving fins. You didn’t want to accidentally kick the reef. The added power to your feet meant that just a few slow kicks easily drove you forward and downward, straightening up to glide along the bottom, silence surrounding you. You opened your eyes despite the light salt sting, peering at the white-green sand below, the endless saphire distance, the looming life-covered rocks on your sides, the rippling mirror surface above... it was blurry and distorted to your land-accustomed human eyes and that gave it a strange, almost dreamlike appearance. You softly pushed your hands into the sand, disturbing it and sending up a tiny puff of silt, a bubble of excitement in your chest... you’d never managed to swim this quickly on one breath!

You couldn’t wait to show him.

Eventually, you recognised the feeling of the need for oxygen starting to creep up on you. So you pushed the seafloor again with both arms, this time propelling yourself upward, each kick down powerful enough to send a small current that disturbed even more sand. You felt as if your usually clumsy human body was, for once, actually meant to be in the ocean.

You broke the surface, breath coming out in a rush. It was immediately so much louder; birds, wind, waves... you gave your eyes a quick wipe to get the worst of the salt out, sighing to yourself, instinctively treading water.

...

You turned around, glancing at the uncovered rock you changed on and spotting your brightly coloured towel, taking note of how far you’d gone in one dive.

...

A shiver.

... You could always tell when he was near. 

Everything would go quiet.  

The tiny glinting silhouettes of fish under the surface, instead of weaving through the seaweed (and sometimes curiously approaching your legs) had all vanished; darting into their cracks and crevices. A shadow had fallen over the whole reef... Everything seemed to, much like you had a few moments earlier, take a deep breath in and hold it.

...

“sweetheart... baby... my moon wrasse, my precious lil’ bipedal bundle of love and joy... i gotta ask you somethin’...”

You didn’t even feel the current shift as he approached, you didn’t see a ripple out of place, you didn’t hear a single splash out of time with the waves against the nearby rocks. But immediately, you felt strong, thick skeletal arms close around you from behind, and a heavy drawl purr directly into your ear. You couldn’t help but wonder how long he’d been lurking just out of sight.

“what the fuck are you wearing on your feet?”

...

You giggled, spinning in his comfortable hold to face him and looping your arms around his shoulders, chest to chest.

Just seeing his grin made you feel so much better, his glowing red eyelights, forgetting about everything that had happened in your day. That broad, skeletal smile with a glinting golden tooth in the corner... the sea water that beaded on it when he surfaced always glittered so magically in the light.

Your boyfriend was... interesting, to say the least. A monster, a being who might as well have come from another world entirely. A siren, to be exact. Half skeleton, half shark, and with a long history of humans becoming meals when the fish became too few and far between. He was almost 14ft in length from head to tail tip, his tail half was longer than you. And there was no doubt of the power in his body... or in his razor jaws.

He was a hunter, a killer, a predator... 

... But then again, humans were too. If anything, your species was the most cruel out of the two of you... the cruelty was just in the head, not the physical body. So it honestly wasn’t that strange that the two of you could fall in love... you just wished the rest of the world would see it that way.

“They’re flippers!” You said, enthusiastically, beaming at him and moving your feet gently, careful not to kick him by accident. Not because it’d hurt him- you didn’t want to break them. “I bought them yesterday, I’ve been absolutely itching to try them all day long. They make me swim so much faster and further.”

He raised a brow. He liked to tease your inability to move quickly in water. “you? swimmin’ fast? that’ll be a sight to see.”

“Not my fault I’m built for land.” You pressed a kiss to his cheekbone, used to ignoring the taste of salt against his smooth face. “I’d like to see you go for a run, handsome.”

“mm... true...” His nasal cavity brushed your ear in a pseudo-nuzzle. “but you’d laugh too if ya saw me wearin’ a pair of badly made plastic legs on my torso, waddlin’ across the shore like a newborn turtle. cus that’s kinda what you look like.”

“Pff- they’re not that bad!” You splashed water into his face (forgetting for a moment that he was, in fact, an ocean-dwelling monster, and therefore could not care less about water), kicking away from him with a few precise leg movements. 

He couldn’t stop himself from snorting very slightly, just his head and neck visible above the water line. “my first thought was ‘is that my girl, or is that a seal whose lower half got in a terrible accident with a sawblade?’”

“Whatever, asshole.” You splashed again, and he splashed back with his giant clawed hands, equally as playfully, probably deliberately missing. “They’re great.”

He chuckled, as smooth as the mirror-flat surface of the ocean on a calm summer night. “my precious lil’ lionfish.”

“... Aren’t lionfish an incredibly invasive species?” You narrowed your eyes. Although they were slightly more tiring because you had to move more weight, it was so much easier to tread water when you had the flippers on your feet- you didn’t even have to use your hands, for the most part. Slow kicks were enough.

“well...” He rolled onto his back, closing the distance you made with several kicks with a single, swift movement of his massive tail, until his head bumped against your chest. “you invaded my heart.”

“... You cheesy dumbass.” You mumbled, as affectionately as an insult could sound, holding either sides of his skull and pressing another kiss to his face-this time his forehead. It just felt so good to see him... even a single day apart felt like too much.

“your cheesy dumbass.” He purred. “anyway- you gonna show me how those flippers work or what?”

... You grinned, moving your diving mask up over your eyes and nose, pressing it until you felt it seal... and took a deep breath in, rolling over in the water and diving straight down. As you kicked toward the surprisingly far sea floor (yikes, when did it get that deep?) you felt a rush of water and saw his massive form gliding past you in a flurry of bubbles- he moved under you, looping you, grinning the whole time and clearly enjoying teasing you for being slow.

As he did, you got a spectacular view of all 14ft of him... his thick skeletal upper body was sturdy, and his upper right arm was covered in swirled unintelligible sirentongue carvings that almost made him look tattooed. On his spine, just below his shoulder blades, was that iconic shark dorsal fin... his lower body, a steely blue-grey, almost perfectly resembled that of a tiger shark. Complete with the expertly angled pectoral fins, notched tail fin and ripple-like effect on his back... his whole body was littered with scars, particularly on the sides of his lower half.

If you were out here alone, you never would’ve dove this far from the rocks. Local or not you still had that instinctive nagging fear of deep open water and what could possibly be lurking out there, just out of sight. Before you met Red your somewhat-daily swims never left the safety of the winding reef.

But when Red was here with you... you knew for a fact that nothing that could harm you would dare to get close. All sizes of fish, smaller sharks... hell, you were pretty sure that even sharks larger than Red himself would’ve deserted any area he made it clear he was in. He was, without doubt, an apex predator.

Your first meeting had been rather comedic, all things considered. You spotted him watching you change on your usual rock after going for a swim and you both panicked- him that he’d been spotted, you screeching and lobbing your snorkel at his head while covering your almost-naked body with your towel. It didn’t even hit you until you’d ran all the way home that the person you’d seen spying on you had not, in fact, been a person at all; as he splashed to move away in his panic you’d absolutely seen some kind of tail break the surface.

At the time, you’d been convinced it was a mermonster- the less aggressive, vegetarian cousin of the predacious siren. I mean... no siren would bother getting that close to you, an easy meal, without intending to sing and lure you to your death.

Right?

Nevertheless it’d taken no small amount of courage to return to the rocks after that. If it was a mermonster it would’ve been an incredibly rare sight; they were shy, to say the least, and liked to keep to themselves. And mermonster or not it’d been one hell of a scare- he’d clearly been hiding, too, not too far from your usual changing perch. How long had he been watching for? The thought of someone seeing everything you did while you thought you were alone was more than enough to have you lying awake at night as your brain replayed every possible thing you’d done on that rock. You’d stripped, sure, but you’d talked to yourself, you’d sung, you’d even done horribly embarrassing little dances to warm yourself up before going in.

Even just in your shower, the possibility that anyone (let alone a magic stranger) had been watching over the past few days made your cheeks go so red you were certain the water was going to evaporate on impact. Could you ever show your face near the ocean again?

...

It took 2 days before curiosity overwhelmed you and you had to go back.

And it was there, on that rock, that you properly met Red; he’d waited in that spot to return the snorkel you threw at him, grinning and very obviously flirting. You’d been hesitant to get in the water with him for almost a week but he eventually lured you in with that wonderful voice and strikingly charming personality... 

... Had you known he was a siren a little earlier, you wouldn’t have only been hesitant to get in the water- you would’ve been hesitant to even go near that side of the entire bay.

To be fair to you, it wasn’t easy to tell whether a monster was a siren or mermonster without seeing their lower half. Mermonsters had a wide variety of lower halves, but always of a prey species... anything from the usual scaled fish tails to eel tails, manta ray wings and even jellyfish. (Stingers included).

Sirens, on the other hand, had the lower halves of predators... like dolphins, pinnipeds, orca... with shark sirens easily having the most attacks on humans and causing mass panic whenever they were sighted off coasts. 

... Honestly, Red’s teeth should’ve given it away; those massive serrated fangs were never going to belong to an herbivore. But you questioned yourself, considering you weren’t already dead. Maybe he was just... 

... Naturally pointy?

It wasn’t until he convinced you to get in the water with him that you realised he was, actually, a massive shark. But when you (nervously) brought up that fact he just shrugged it off nonchalantly, running his phalanges across your shoulder and telling you in his wonderful soft voice that you were ‘certainly cute enough to eat, but not that way’.

And just like that, he had you.

He liked to say your meeting was magical, and romantic- that he’d gone to the reef in order to hunt stray humans, instead finding you swimming there, and he was so taken with your beauty that it crossed all boundaries and made him keep coming back to hide in the rocks just to see you for a few moments. You couldn’t help but feel it had a little more to do with the skin-tight swimsuits you’d been wearing at the time, or the fact that you regularly stood on the rock and changed in full view of the reef thinking that no one could see you... 

... And it wasn’t like he was afraid to let his physical attraction to you known.

Even now, as you used your new flippers to power yourself down into the water (letting out half a breath through your nose to equalise the growing pressure inside your face mask), Red used his comfort and speed in the water to circle you and squeeze your butt. You yelped, accidentally letting a flurry of bubbles out of your mouth and spinning around to look up, losing your momentum; by the time you’d turned he was gone and all you could see was the ethereal blue light from the surface glowing through the water.

A few months ago you wouldn’t have been able to get this deep for this long. But all your time messing about in the water with Red had also made you much better at holding your breath, much better at diving in general... he re-emerged from behind you, blocking your view of the surface, and pressed a kiss to your neck, almost encircling your small body with his tail. You could tell he’d been waiting all day for this- he enjoyed the surface but he clearly much preferred being affectionate in the water where he was completely at home. He peppered your neck and jaw with kisses, and let out a happy growl when you returned a few on his cheekbone and teeth.

“you’re right, my lil’ anthias.” He said, mouth almost right up against your ear. His voice was much deeper in the water and almost sounded like he was speaking through a filter, but it was still impossibly clear compared to how you would’ve sounded. “you’re much faster with flippers. still a cute slowpoke, though.”

You made an infuriated little ‘MMPH’ noise in the back of your throat, playfully pushing his massive solid chest. All it got you was a chuckle and another butt squeeze.

Eventually, after what felt like forever but was three minutes at most, arms wrapped around his shoulders and just enjoying the weightless feeling and the view of the rippling surface above you, you tapped him three times on the shoulder- your agreed signal for ‘I need air’. He didn’t waste any time in getting you up to the surface, seemingly deciding it was too far for you to make safely on your own. 

The sky had changed significantly in the few minutes you were under the water; as soon as you broke the surface and took a breath, water trickling off your face, you had to remove your mask and just stare up to admire the blazing orange sunset for a moment. Somehow, seeing the sky was always different from the water... even though you were technically further away you somehow felt closer to it. As if it were enveloping you.

Red recovered your attention, tracing a line across your forehead and down the side of your face. He was... grinning to himself...?

“it left a big sucker mark around your eyes...” He said, corners of his sockets crinkling. 

“... Always does that..” You were still slightly out of breath, taking long inhales through your nose.

“doesn’t mean it ain’t fuckin’ adorable. nice breathin’ today, you were under for almost four minutes.”

“Hah, hell yeah!” You threw your arms up for a second, relying on your legs clamped around his middle to hold yourself above the water- an action that made him laugh and latch his arms around your middle, seemingly to catch you if you slipped. “But dammit, sometimes I just wish I could go without the mask and...”

...

Both of you seemed to realise what you just said, and you felt the atmosphere shift. Your arms came down.

...

...

You instead moved to hug yourself close to his ribcage. You tucked your head into where his shoulder met his spine... and in return his cheekbone rested on your soaking wet hair, arms firmly around you too.

To an outsider, seeing you two from a distance, you would’ve just looked like two stupid human lovers, frolicking and then embracing in the calm, clear ocean.

...

... If only.

...

You wanted to stay like that, forever. Cuddled up close, bobbing with the smooth waves, the sound of seagulls in the distance. The sky a slowly darkening canvas of oranges and reds and blues.

...

“... did you think about it?” He asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“...” You nuzzled further into his hold, staring across the expanse of water over his shoulder, into the neverending flat horizon. “... I still don’t know.”

... He pressed his face closer into your hair, too. 

“... s’okay. really. we’ve got lots of time.”

“I dunno if I’ll be able to keep sane when winter comes. It’ll be too cold to spend more than an hour or so in the water.”

“i can come up to the rocks.”

... You squeezed your eyes shut, savouring being held.

“... It’s... it’s just not the same...”

...

...

“... don’t cry, angelfish.”

... 

“I-I’m not.” You lied, blinking your eyes open again, pulling back slightly to press the heel of your palm against your eye. “I just have a wet face from being under.”

... He brushed a bony thumb over the other cheek, then brought it up to his mouth, serrated teeth parting to let his glowing crimson tongue flicker out and lightly swipe across the phalange.

“... your tears always tasted much sweeter than saltwater.”

... Red had mentioned it, a few months ago. He hadn’t asked you about it since he told you.

Sirens could reproduce, if they wanted to, but that wasn’t the only way of making more sirens. If an adult siren chose to, they could weave their magic into the Soul of someone who had recently drowned. They could sing, lure the pieces of Soul back together, back to them... back to the body it’d attempted to abandon. And this revival, while surrounded by the very essence of the ocean on all sides, imbued the Soul with something new...

... Sirens could revive a drowned Soul as another siren. A permanent physical change. No more legs, no more land... and in return, an ageless life out in an endless sea.

...

Red could turn you into a siren. The two of you could be together, forever, travelling the world with no worries or cares... sometimes you openly wondered what kind of siren you’d be, and Red always joked you’d be a seal because you were ‘soft, cute, small and tasty’...

... But ...

...

He’d have to drown you.

Neither of you were quite prepared for that.

... 

... He sighed, softly, threading his claw-like phalanges through your hair.

You trusted him. You trusted him completely.

... It just seemed like he didn’t trust himself.

...

“C’mon.” You pulled away a little, moving your hands to the front of his ribcage. “I can’t afford to waste time being sad, I need to keep warm so I can stay in after nightfall.”

...

He grinned, squeezing your hips, seemingly shaking off the negative emotions just as quickly as you decided to shake off yours.

“aight. you wanna warm up? y’ve got a minute to swim as far away as you can before i start huntin’ you down. we’ll see if you can actually evade me this time... now you’re all excited about your flippers.”

“If I win you have to take me for a swim on your back.”

“deal.” He let go. “better skedaddle, fairy wrasse. i’m already counting.”

...

You didn’t win.

But he gave you a ride anyway.

Chapter Text

There was something... strange about your boyfriend.

And you weren’t saying that to be rude! Of course, everyone was unique. No two people acted the same. And there was always going to be some odd things about someone with an... injury like his.

Copper was... not the kind of person you’d miss in a crowd, to say the least. For one, he was large. Impossibly tall (later measurements you did together found he was almost exactly 7ft tall) and broad shouldered, built like a brick wall. His arms weren’t conventionally ‘ripped’ but his biceps were as big as your head and there were clearly huge and powerful muscles shifting under his skin... there were no washboard abs in sight with this giant but he looked like he could snap most adult men you knew like twigs.

... His sheer size was likely the first thing people noticed about him- it was definitely what you noticed. He was so large that on your first meeting he cast a shadow so big it completely enveloped you.

But the next thing one would notice is his eyes. 

... Well... his right eye, in particular. 

It was white, clouded, milky, like an orb of glass so covered in minute cracks and imperfections that it had misted over. It had lost most of its transparency and although the faint rim of an iris that moved in tandem with his other brown eye could be made out he clearly didn’t have vision through it. It was almost impossible to look away from.

And as soon as your attention was taken from the eyes, you’d see the scar- the most likely cause of the dead and milky eye. It was thick and long, starting somewhere near the middle of his scalp, widening to reveal a path of light scar tissue almost two inches wide... and then it travelled down his face, carving through dark skin, slicing through his eyebrow and finally tapering off on his cheekbone, passing over the eye. The scar tissue on his head refused to let any hair grow, so it cut a decent chunk out of his thick masses of his long, curly sable brown hair to leave an open balded area that he was incredibly embarrassed by and often covered with some kind of cap or beanie.

(You helped him shave one side of his head to give him more of a deliberately asymmetrical look. It suited him- and he really appreciated it.) 

... And that, unfortunately, wasn’t the only scar he sported. In private, under the layers of clothing he piled on to hide his body, were what seemed like hundreds of pinkish and silvery faded scars. He had two on his jaw where something had caught him turning away- that was the easiest one to see. His arms had groups of parallel grooves where claws had taken chunks of muscle that never properly grew back. His massive hands were leathery, littered with pockmarks and cuts, well-worn fingers and palms covered by rock solid calluses... he was missing the top of his pinky on his left hand. His chest and belly were marred with long and short slashes, even some that looked like deep and wide stab wounds that would’ve been fatal on a smaller man. 

...

It was easy to see why it took him 6 months of steady relationship to take off his shirt in front of you for the first time. 

But those weren’t the things that concerned you.

You liked his body- something it seemed to take him a long time to believe. You adored his solid hands; the hands of a hard worker. You loved tracing your fingers over his massive chest with your eyes closed, feeling every groove and divot and knot. You weren’t scared to hold eye contact with him and see the milky dead eye staring back at you.

From the first moment you met him, he was just... unforgettable. Unavoidable. You started the world’s most awkward conversation about the weather when he took the space behind you in the line in your favourite cafe, and he blurted out a few responses, apparently totally taken aback that you not only bothered to talk to him but seemed to want to continue talking. His speech impediment that slowed and slurred the way he spoke was oddly charming to you... and when you offered for him to sit with you, the smile he gave you with that resounding ‘yes please’ made your heart soar high enough to completely ignore the faces of the other patrons.

... Maybe that’s why he liked you so much. You weren’t scared, and you didn’t care what others thought. He liked you, you liked him, and you weren’t afraid... a relationship had caught up on the two of you before you even realised.

But...

... As you spent more time with your boyfriend, more weeks and months... as you began looking past the obvious things a normal person would immediately avert their gaze from... you realised there were other, much stranger things about him that seemed to fly totally under the radar. 

Because most attention was drawn to the horribly disfigured and blinded eye, hardly anyone noticed that the other healthy eye was stunning- it seemed brown but when the light bounced off it just right, it was an intense bright red. He had a red iris.

Because of the huge scar that balded a quarter of his scalp, no one’s line of sight drifted down far enough to notice his teeth. It was strange enough that one was golden but the more you looked the more you saw they were very unusually sharp. Not enough to be obvious and deliberate... but there was just an extra point to them that didn’t seem to be common on other people. 

And no one paid attention to the unscarred patches of skin... no one but you. After spending night after night curled up next to him and familiarising yourself with every detail, after the two of you bonded more over time, you started to notice these increasingly strange things that worried you.

Some days, his skin was wrong. It was subtle but you saw it... it was like... like when you look at a repeating pattern for too long and your eyes start to trip out, confusing and blurring the dimensions. Some days it was perfectly normal but other times, in early morning, or in the middle of the night, it would... i-it...

... You couldn’t describe it. It just wouldn’t look like skin. Too smooth. Not shadowed or textured enough. Too... 

... fake.

Am I going crazy...!?

There were other things, too. His working eye was just a little too red in the dark. Sometimes he didn’t blink for noticeably long periods of time. Sometimes, in the corner of your vision, his shadow had a smooth head, like it didn’t have any hair on it... he would grin and his sharp teeth were just a little too sharp, sharper than normal. 

One time, when you grabbed his hand, it felt for a split second like you were grabbing warm clay.

... You would’ve brushed it off. Every time he asked you if you were okay when you’d clearly seen something that just wasn’t right, you brushed it off, not wanting him to think you disliked his appearance. How would you explain that to someone who was so clearly deeply disturbed by their own body? “Hey, by the way, sometimes your face looks fake. Haha.” You couldn’t just tell him that.

You wanted to brush it off. You wanted to ignore it and just pretend it was because he was such an unusual character overall, and the nagging of your family was getting to your head.

(A lot of your friends and family really didn’t approve of Copper as your partner, simply because of his physical oddities.)

You wanted to forget about it.

...

But the weirdnesses just kept piling.

...

And then...

... The worst was one night, when you awoke to him getting himself out of bed. That was normal... he was so heavy that when you laid in bed together you always ended up rolling toward him, and when he got up the shift in the mattress and the lightly squeaking bed woke you up. You ignored it, far too comfortable... you barely registered the sound of his feet crossing the floor. His footsteps were unmistakable- slow, heavy. Some vague noises in the bathroom, a toilet flushing, a sink running... him returning... he was a pretty light sleeper so this wasn’t abnormal...

... The bed sank again, this time on the edge; he was sitting on it.

... You peeked one eye open, barely, still drowsy and fuzzy-headed... his back was to you...

...

His hair was gone and his skin was completely milk white.

Your eyes widened.

A beat passed.

He didn’t change.

You immediately gasped- loudly- and sat bolt upright in bed, the covers falling off you- that wasn’t your boyfriend!?- Copper jumped, turning to look at you, clearly taken off guard-

...

Normal. Nothing was out of place. His rough, sepia brown skin and waves of untamed shoulder-length hair were all there, as they should be.

“... y’ok?” He asked, his deep, soothing voice noticeably absent of the usual huskiness that came with him being tired. His reddish working eye was boring into you.

... Your heart was pounding.

“Y-yeah. Sorry. Weird dream.” You mumbled, averting your gaze and quickly laying back down, your back to him.

No.

You were not okay.

You didn’t shut your eyes again; you stared at the wall, swallowing. It was just the moonlight, you told yourself as he laid down again, exhaling deeply and going back to sleep. The moonlight hitting his skin must have made it look strange, or something.

... But that doesn’t explain where his hair went.

Well maybe... maybe you had something in your eye. A bit of that weird gunk that forms when you sleep just... was blotting out his head.

... But... his head was so... smooth...?

...

You sighed, rubbing your face and rolling onto your other side, forcing yourself to tuck in and close your eyes. You focused on his breathing... his deep, impossibly slow breathing...

...

You fell asleep telling yourself over and over again that you were imagining it.

...

But you woke up to Copper staring at you.

(Nothing out of the ordinary. He was prone to staring bouts.)

He was normal, at least; you searched his face but were unable to find any irregularities. It definitely made you feel better, and you relaxed a tad, smiling at him... yeah, the previous night must’ve been some kind of hallucination. Maybe you were just exhausted from a long day, and being woken up in the middle of the night wasn’t good for your brain... you ‘saw’ and assumed things before you came to your senses.

“... i wanna... talk. ‘bout... somethin.” He mumbled.

You yawned, assuming it was a small matter. “... Yeah. Sure.”

He got out of bed, gesturing for you to follow. You didn’t really think- you pulled back the covers and swung your legs over the edge, shuffling across the room. Your hair felt incredibly fuzzed up some of it was tickling your nose; you assumed your bed hair must be pretty fantastic.

... He pulled the blinds shut on the window, cutting out a significant portion of the light. You furrowed your brow but he just turned back to you, taking your little hands in his, holding them like he was holding a baby bird. 

There it was again- his eye seeming just a tad too red in the darkness.

“close your eyes.”

... What? You must’ve made a confused or questioning face, because he just replied with an imploring look, giving your hands the gentlest squeeze physically possible. Was it just you, or did he seem nervous? 

“please.”

...

“... Uhm... Okay. Sure.” You shut your eyes. “How long do I have to keep them shut for?”

...

...

Oh no. You did not like this- not one bit. Why wasn’t he replying? You forced yourself to keep your eyes shut in case this was some kind of surprise or something. 

“Copper?”

...

“y’love me, right?” He sounded terrified. What the hell was going on? You started to feel slightly sick. Was he... breaking up with you, or something? “k-keep ‘em shut.”

You forced yourself to nod. “... Of course. Obviously.”

“... and...” A swallowing sound. “... ya would... like me... n-no matter what i looked like...?”

...

“... Yes?” You were starting to get really nervous. A knot had tied itself in the pit of your stomach, and you could feel your brows creasing with how hard you were forcing yourself to keep your eyes shut. “Copper, what’s going on?”

“... i-i’m just... i want you to know... the truth. ‘bout me. what i am.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“just trust me.”

... He took a deep breath in, and a deep, shaking breath out.

“... have you heard of monsters?” He asked, very gently.

... Weird question. “... Well yeah, literally everyone has. I don’t think there’s anyone who hasn’t.”

“can you... tell me what y’know?”

“... Uh... well. They’re really powerful and intelligent magic creatures, who live for like, hundreds of years...” Your mind was really trawling up the old info it had collected... last time you remembered being taught about monsters was in highschool. “They can be any shape or size, usually massive, so humans normally avoid them... and, uhm, because humans hunted all the smaller ones down, monsters are usually the super smart with really intense and powerful magic.” Talking to him was definitely making you a little less nervous, but you still didn’t like this whole situation. Not being able to see his face was throwing you off. “A few bigger types eat people but it’s pretty rare for any attacks to actually happen. They live in the mountains and rivers and oceans, n’ stuff... deserts too, I think... far away from large groups of humans...”

He made a small humming sound of affirmation. “yeah, all that. ... ‘cept one bit.”

“... Which bit?”

“they... don’t just live in... remote and rural areas.”

“... What do you mean by that?” 

“there are monsters... a lot closer than you might think.”

...

...

You couldn’t help it. You had to open your eyes. That statement threw you for such a fucking loop that you had to be absolutely certain he wasn’t grinning like an idiot and pulling your leg about something...

...

Everything stopped.

You weren’t looking down at human hands.

W-what was holding your hands... what you thought was your boyfriend’s rock hard calluses...

... It was actually rock hard bone.

You were holding huge, pale, completely skeletal hands. Bigger than Copper’s normal hands- much bigger. Your entire hand was the size of the skeleton hand’s palm.

...

You looked up, to where Copper’s head would’ve been.

And found yourself looking at a chest. A vast expanse of a chest that blocked the light, silhouetting the whole form.

...

You looked up even further.

Eyesockets.

The head on this gigantic body, twice the size of you, was a huge skull. Deep, void-like eyesockets, one empty, one sporting a burning red ring of light that illuminated most of him. A maw of blade-sharp teeth and a jagged hole in the side of the skull with a crack that went right through the eye, ending at the cheekbone...

...

Oh no...

The teeth parted ever-so-slightly, and your boyfriend’s voice came out.

“... i didn’t want to tell you.” His iris was so bright it was glowing against the rim of his socket. “... but... i didn’t want... to lie to you anymore...”

...

No sound was coming out of you.

Th-that couldn’t be him. C-could it!? Your focus was darting all over the monstrous skeletal face like fish darting in a pond. N-no. W... what...!?

...

You tore your eyes away from his face to look back at his massive hands.

...

... On his left pinky, the topmost piece of bone, the ‘distal’ phalange...

... was missing.

...

This was him.

This was Copper.

...

Oh my God.

You looked back up, taking in the entire face in a whole new light. The gaping jagged hole in his head that cut right through his face and cheek was exactly where your boyfriend’s head scar was, curve for curve. The two silvery scars on his human jaw were tiny, almost imperceptible parallel nicks across the bottom of the mandible, th-the clawed grooves on his arms were instead cuts in raw bone below his shoulder...

... Your line of sight met that red, glowing ring, that was transfixed on you with a strange nervous constriction to it, as if he was spending every second under scrutiny dreading your reaction...

...

It’s him.

You forced in a shuddering breath, suddenly realising you’d forgotten to breathe.

“C...” Why did it feel like there was a baseball lodged in your throat? Why did you feel like you were staring up at a giant? This must be a dream. You must’ve still been asleep. “...C-Copper?”

... His shoulders dropped like mercury on a cold day as he looked down at you, corners of those nightmarish rows of teeth lifting into what your gut immediately told you was a smile of relief.

He let go of your hands, dropping heavily onto his knees, instead using his giant arms to hug you close. The skeleton body was so large that even when he was kneeling he was still taller than you... you barely registered him pulling you in, or your face pressing into his shoulder... all you could focus on was his voice.

His voice was the same.

“y-yeah. yeah, it’s me...”

It was instinct, if anything- your own tiny little hands gripped his shirt so tight your knuckles began to ache. It felt so strange to be close to him like this, and not being able to bury your face in his masses of curly hair, or feel the familiarity of padded muscle and skin. It was just bone...

“Y-you’re...” You felt choked. Confused. Overwhelmed. Nothing was processing. It wasn’t a dream, was it? In a dream you wouldn’t feel several of his giant ribs pressing against your chest.

“... a monster.”

A monster. The word suddenly felt so taboo. How many times had you called someone a monster as an insult, right in front of him? You felt like you wanted to cry and scream and pass out all at the same time but all you could do was stare at the wall over his shoulder, unblinking.

“... most monsters... live in cities too.” He said, in that same drawl you loved so much, while you desperately clung to him. “... we just... had ta figure out... how to pass as human.”

“Th-that’s why your skin...” Your temples hurt, voice a whisper. “And your shadow, they...”

...

You didn’t realise you’d said what you’d said until he seemed to... 

... Stiffen a little.

...

“...uhm.” A pause. “... what?”

...

He didn’t sound angry. Or alarmed. 

You couldn’t... quite place your finger on what emotion that little question seemed to possess...?

You relaxed your hands a little, feeling his huge collarbone under the fabric.

“... Y-your skin.” You repeated, not sure how to muster up the courage to make your voice any louder. If you just didn't look at him you could pretend you were still talking to the human Copper... even now, your head was swimming, searching for ways this could be some kind of practical joke. “Sometimes, it was... it looked smooth. F-fake.”

...

He let out a tiny chuckle, thin and awkward. 

... You didn’t really understand what was funny...?

“... aw geez.” A hand removed itself from your back, and you heard the unmistakable sound of bone clacking gently against bone. “that’s, uh... that’s not supposed to happen...”

...

You leant back a bit to see his face again, and he looked down at you with that raw, glowing light. He was... definitely jarring to look at. Faces weren’t supposed to have holes in them. Your mind kept telling you it couldn’t possibly be him, it couldn’t be your boyfriend, but...

... God, the more you looked at him, the more this skeletal face seemed to meld into the ‘human’ one you knew so well.

Your gut was accepting the truth faster than you were.

He chuckled again, just as awkwardly as before, when your clearly confused gaze didn't waver and you didn't make a sound. He was rubbing the unbroken back of his skull with his massive hand.

“i guess... today’s as good a day as any... to find out... i ain’t very good at shapeshifting...”

...

You couldn’t help it. You snorted, a crease forming between your brows that was a mix of confusion and amusement. 

What?

“Y-you mean...” You started to pick up a little volume, now that you were focusing on something that wasn’t your own fear. “...all of the stuff I saw was because you’re just... bad at 'shapeshifting'?”

His cheekbones started to dust with a light carmine colour. A blush? “w-well, when you put it like that...”

...

Dude.

You really couldn’t help it. You started to laugh a little; the idea that all of the bizarre, deeply wrong and strangely horrifying things you’d seen that’d been tormenting you over the course of the relationship was just because this massive skeleton monster was bad at holding a form was too much. The mix of relief and absurdity of the situation was turning into a light hysteria that began to crack you; he noticeably loosened.

“i-i tried, okay?” He said, in an embarrassed higher pitch (though high pitch for Copper was still several octaves below your tone), but you could tell by the tone of his voice he was putting on a bit of show to get more laughs out of you- like an adult faking a scandalous tone to make a child snicker. “holdin’ a form is really difficult.”

“L-last night you had no skin!” Your timbre was getting higher and your voice louder; it felt much easier to look at Copper’s skeletal expression when it was clearly a face of pure relief and you were trying to hold in giggles. “And when you do have skin sometimes it looks like a badly rendered video game character! Y-your teeth are way too sharp, sometimes you don’t blink, your eye is bright red-”

“i thought humans could have red eyes?” He said, a crease forming between the brow bones despite his widening smile.

“Yeah, but like, less than 1% of the population has it!” Your voice was incredulous, humour gently washing away the terror you'd been thrown into headfirst only moments ago. “And it’s because of albinism, it’s not something naturally occuring like blue or brown.”

“albiwhat?” ... his shoulders sagged further, and he glanced away. “oookay, maybe... i’m a lot worse than i thought.”

You facepalmed with both hands. “Oh my God.”

He broke into soft laughter, and... fuck, it was infectious- you laughed too, small and somewhat quietly. The nervousness and relief had melted together to make you easy to poke over the edge. You had to admit... laughing with him made the situation a lot easier to digest.

Your boyfriend was a monster. A gigantic, mythical monster. Hardly something most people could boast about, huh?  

“L-look, Copper, baby,” in a burst of an emotion you didn't recognise, you reached up and put your hands on either side of his giant face, on the cheekbones. They were so small on his head... and it was so strange to be touching something that felt that... otherworldly. But the more you spoke to him and touched him, the more your brain accepted it was still the man you adored... the easier it became to touch him. A spiral. And the more you accepted it was him, the more you could... pretty much ignore his horrifying features. “I love you very much. But you gotta research something before you pretend to be it. Okay?”

When you willingly held his face, the fist-sized ring of light in his socket dilated like ink in water, and his smile grew so wide it caused the corner of his working socket to pinch into almost human-like crinkles.

... Somehow, he was... cute.

...

... And just like that, you allowed yourself to relax, breathing out.

It was still your precious moron in there... human or not. 

Who cares if his hands are large enough to crush your skull? Who cares if his teeth are big and sharp enough to take off your arm? 

... It didn’t matter how dangerous something was... if it was attached to him, you knew for certain it could never be used to hurt you. 

...

“maybe... you can give me... some advice.” He said, soft, hands coming up to press over yours. “since you’re... the resident human expert... in this household.”

“In return you’re telling me everything about monsters.”

A shaky nod.

...

...

Something was forming in the corners of both sockets. Something... red, and liquid-like...

“... Copper?” Your voice lost the giggly mirth as you looked closer. “Are you...?”

He was still smiling, but... red liquid spilt out his sockets and trickled down his cheekbones, running past your hands and dripping off his jaw. It was warm to the touch.

... Tears...?

“s-sorry.” He mumbled, letting go of your hands to hug you again, bending downward to press his face into your shoulder. You felt completely enveloped by him- his voice was suddenly so gentle, so thin. “sorry, sorry... i-i just... fuck, i was... i was so scared you’d run... my human form a-ain’t the prettiest picture, and... that’s the better version...”

...

You hugged him back, chest starting to ache. 

... He didn’t want to tell you, did he? You were realising that very quickly. He was, clearly, absolutely terrified of letting you know. He could’ve just hidden himself forever, he could’ve kept on living with you as a ‘human’.... You wouldn’t have ever brought up the strange feelings you had- you never would’ve confronted him with your gut instinct that something was wrong, writing it off as unfair paranoia. He could’ve lived a perfectly safe life.

But instead... 

... He risked everything to tell you the truth.

...

“... Look at me?” You asked.

He pulled back a little, massive face inches from yours, now streaked with red tear tracks.

And just like that, it suddenly seemed so strange to be afraid of him.

... You kissed him.

Chapter Text

“you’re back again? i must say, one could make a farthingale with the amount of hoops you’ve walked...”

Immediately, you spun around, looking for the source of that damn voice- the voice of that absolute devil who had been tormenting you nonstop for what felt like hour after hour after hour-

There! He was sitting in a tree with bark the colour of orange peel, on a bow several feet above you, hanging one leg over the edge with his trademark laziness.

That damn cat- you felt your nose wrinkling as your face pulled into a scowl. Right now, he’d taken his skeleton form- sporting a white shirt, black shorts and a blue cloak with a fur-trim hood. But even his skeleton body wasn’t correct; on his skull there were two, large cat ears, covered in a soft ermine-white fur that blended seamlessly into the bone of his cranium. And beside him, laying flat along the branch, was his huge tail; exceptionally white and furry, but the top was striped with a tabby pattern in a bright azure blue.

He was grinning down at you with that infuriating grin, and those vertical slits of blue light in his deep black sockets.

“Y-you... you!” You stomped your foot. Your hair was a bird’s nest, your white stockings and little lavender dress were flecked with the bright pink mud (why was the ground green, but the mud neon pink!?), and the bow in your hair had seemingly found it completely impossible to just sit straight on your head since you fell down into this topsy-turvy hellscape. “This is your fault!”

Everyone you’d previously met on your never-ending journey through Wonderland had seemed terrified of the concept of passing through these winding woods. Even Papyrus, who was ever so kind and quite possibly the least mad and infuriating person you’d met so far, warned that his brother ‘the Cheshire’ was ‘NOT WHAT HE USED TO BE’. That he’d ‘LOST HIS WIMPLAGS’ and ‘COULDN’T TELL A YADWHAPPER FROM A SHINKLESCRAG!’. 

Even the craziest, oddest and most nonsensical of monsters who most evidently did not have your best interests at heart had warned you not to enter. Everyone seemed scared out of their wits of the monster inhabiting the trees, of the ringmaster of the darkest, most winding ways in Wonderland... the thing behind the tree line. They said he protected them from the king’s guard and those who attempted to march on the polite lower lands of Wonderland... but nobody who went in had ever come back out.

Aside from Papyrus, of course. He seemed exempt from all Wonderland’s rules, and you couldn’t say you didn’t love him for it.

... But... in the end, you had no choice. To escape this world and get back home, you needed to reach the palace... and to get to the palace you had to ‘PASS THE QUITE POSSIBLY IMPASSABLE FOREST’.

... And when you did enter the woods?

Why, the cat everyone had been so ridiculously scared of...

... He was nothing but an infuriating trickster who called you ridiculous pet names and pointed you in circles!

His eyelights enlargened a little, from slits into almond shapes, and his stupid grin stretched wide across his face as he stared at you unblinkingly. He vanished in a poof of glittering lazuli smoke and reappeared right in front of you, at your eye level, hanging upside-down with his legs hooked over another branch.

“oh, my little mouse, i’m so flattered...” His voice was gentle, deep, rolling... and intertwined with a soft purring he seemed to constantly emanate when you were the subject of the conversation. “your mind must be so very occupied with thoughts of me for you to blame me for such a simple thing as walking the wrong way...” 

“All I did was walk forward, Cat!” You gestured wildly, completely at your wits end. At least when you’d first met him you’d pretended to not be aggravated by his very presence, but now? You were tired and your legs hurt and you just wanted to go home, back to where paths led where they were supposed to and the trees didn’t pick up their roots and move like a lady hiking up her skirt to go for a stroll. Walking for hours could do terrible things to the brain and as of now you were completely and utterly beyond any attempts at politeness. “I kept my eyes on the palace and I walked in a straight line. And yet here I am, again!”

“well, that’s the thing, sweet pet...” He cooed. The name made your cheeks flush with a mix of anger and embarrassment- something he seemed to adore. “going forward only gets you back where you started.”

“That makes no sense at all.” You crossed your arms over your chest.

He hummed, his bushy tail curling in the air like an unfurling fern and his sockets lidding. “oh, but it does.”

He vanished again, reappearing on the body of the tree, standing perfectly horizontally without a care in the world. He began to saunter happily, taking a casual stroll on the tree, all the way around the thick orange trunk.

“you see, precious?” Once he made a full rotation he crouched down, ears twitching happily at your agape expression. “if one keeps going forward, one simply goes in a great big circle.”

“Th-that...” 

...

You rubbed your temples. Well, at least for once he’s making some sense. So forward didn’t take you forward, back didn’t take you back, and attempting to follow the wiggling and winding pathways just brought you around again to the centre of the woods?

“by the way, little mouse...” In the split second it’d taken you to look away from him, his voice had migrated- you spun around, spotting him lounging in another tree a distance away and quite a bit above you (this time the bark was midnight blue), his position reminding you of a leopard relaxing in a tree and waiting for prey to pass underneath. He lazily pointed to a small yellow path. “if you really wanted to get somewhere... you would go that way.”

Aha! Finally something slightly useful! You couldn’t help feeling a modicum of relief as you looked up at him. “That way?”

He cocked his head, eyes and grin suddenly blank. 

“which way?”

...

You blinked, brows creasing. 

“... You said I should... go that way.”

“what way?”

“That way!”

“but there’s no way.”

...

When you looked back at the little pathway that’d been there only moments ago, it was nothing but thickly crowded trees.

“Cat!”

He sniggered, resting his chin on his hand.

You exhaled sharply through your nose and turned to walk down the nearest path, uncaring of where it would lead; so long as it was somewhat away from him and his infernal grin. It sloped upward but was somehow covered with water, which is why you hadn’t taken it originally- but now you were quite uncaring and the feeling of water sloshing around your shoes as you stomped forward. It was relatively shallow and as long as it didn’t get your dress you’d be alright; you could just remove your shoes and stocking and let them dry while you carefully moved barefoot.

I’m... I’m sick of wonder and nonsense! You bit the inside of your cheek, marching away. Once I get out of this place I’m going to be nothing but incurious and sensible for the rest of my life. And I’m going to get a dozen large black dogs, with great big jaws and teeth and vicious tempers, so no cat will dare set foot anywhere near my home and I’ll never have to look at a feline EVER again-!

“oh, don’t be like that.” He said, in his sing-song tone, from... below you? You looked down-

He WAS your reflection!

You shrieked, jumping up in the air like a terrified cricket, tripping over your own feet when you landed and staggering back a few paces before falling on your butt in an awfully loud splash that threw droplets up into the air, which then rained down, pattering on your head and soaking almost your entire body.

You heard his disembodied laughter ringing around you, clearly taking no small amount of joy from catching you so off-guard.

...

...

You just... stayed where you were sat. 

In the water.

...

His chuckling faded when he seemingly realised you hadn’t had the reaction he’d intended.

... You were a grown woman, for heaven’s sake. Almost an adult. You pressed the heels of your palms against your eyes, gritting your teeth- you were engaged to be married back in the real world, no matter how much the man or the concept frightened you, your days of snivelling and wailing were far behind you.

...

... And yet here you were. Sitting in a large puddle, dripping with water, covering your eyes and biting your lip... about to cry because you’d no doubt ruined your favourite dress.

...

You succeeded in swallowing down your desire to cry like a child and instead just sniffled, once- a small sound but nonetheless a dead giveaway of your emotional feebleness. 

... With your eyes covered, you missed the once-in-a-lifetime sight of a Cheshire without a smile.

...

“... you know... saltwater is terrible for plants.”

An invisible thumb brushed against your face, wiping away a tear you hadn’t realised you’d let loose. You removed your hands from your face, confused, only to see a pearly white and impossibly wide grin floating just in front of you, as if the air itself had cracked a smile.

... The rest of his body formed around the smile, wisps and thick twirls of blue smoke gathering into a solid form... like the opposite of blowing out a candle. But the form that took shape around the smile wasn’t the skeleton.

Instead, he’d taken on the body of a large, slightly overweight but incredibly fluffy white cat, decorated on the head, back and tail with blue tabby stripes. He was reclined in front of you, taking a leisurely swim in the air, once again proving he was exempt from gravity’s demands.

... His eyes were the most wonderful collection of blues- light in the middle and dark on the edges. Around the sharp black pupil were mottled light sky blues and maya blues... but around the rims, it was vivid lapis’ and sapphires. You couldn’t deny that as a feline he was just about the prettiest creature you’d ever seen; it was such a pity the beautiful form contained such a wretched trickster.

“... I-I’ve heard as much.” You mumbled, pulling yourself together a little, wiping the rest of the wetness off your face yourself.

“so don’t go watering your rosy cheeks with tears. you’ll only make them wilt.”

...

You snorted.

“Is that your best attempt at being pleasant?”

“perhaps. besides... i’m sorry.”

...

The phrase took you totally by surprise, and you blinked at him.

“... You are?”

His grin widened, pupils dilating. “i merely wanted to play with you a little. but it appears i let myself get... somewhat overzealous.”

... You stared at him, for a moment. 

He really was a quizzical thing, wasn’t he? You couldn’t say you’d been expecting an apology from him. You were hardly upset to receive one but he really hadn’t struck you as the sort of creature to accept faults in his own behaviour... the more you thought you understood him, the more he pulled the carpet out from under your feet.

He (very quickly) rolled into a ball that kept rolling in on itself until he vanished- shortly reappearing by your side, standing weightlessly on the surface of the water. “are you hurt at all?”

... You sighed, looking down at your completely soaked shoes, stockings, petticoat and dress skirt. “Emotionally, yes. Otherwise? No.”

He let out a tiny, hissing laugh; you couldn’t help but feel yourself swelling with pride at having made him laugh without being the subject of the joke.

“well,” He purred, trotting ahead a little. “i presume you’re not going to dry yourself any faster by sitting in that puddle. and wounds, whether emotional or no, do tend to fester in dirty water.”

You clicked your tongue. “I don’t know... this world is so utterly devoid of logic that maybe I can dry by being wet.”

“come now. don’t be silly.” He vanished, reappearing several paces ahead of you, ears turning to you and tail curling in the air... grin seeming suddenly a lot warmer than before. “that would be madness.”

... You couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, rolling your eyes a little... but pulling yourself to your feet nonetheless, waiting for the shower of water that rained down from your drenched dress and petticoat to stop pouring before you moved.

He cocked his head again, turning and starting to walk down the path. “i know the perfect place to dry out. allow me to lead the way.”

“My, what a gentleman.” You said. But you didn’t hesitate to follow the happily guiding feline, despite the unpleasant squishing of your wet stockings in your shoes as you trudged. “Though forgive me if I’m expecting you to lead me right into the mouth of another river, Cat.”

“heh... forgiven.” There was something quite adorable about how his little fluffy white paws trotted across the ground. “i can’t deny i was considering it.”

You narrowed your eyes. “I would advise caution with further pranks. I’m in a foul mood and I may suddenly find myself overcome with the desire to boot your little body over the horizon.”

“charming thing, aren’t you?”

“Pot, kettle.”

He led you down the path, eventually out of the water- the more you travelled with him the more a route seemed to carved itself out of nowhere, the trees parting for him and bowing out of the way like servants in a grand castle. It did feel quite nice to watch the branches that’d been tearing at your hair and face for hours peel back, until it all opened into a neat little clearing with a single, leafless tree in the centre of a field of purple grass. The sun was beaming down and it already felt several degrees warmer...

... Certainly enough to lift your spirits a bit.

You hummed, removing your drenched shoes and stockings, leaving the former on the ground in full sunshine and hanging the latter over a low branch. After that, you took a seat with your back against the tree... taking a deep breath in, and an equally as deep breath out. The grass felt rather nice on your legs, warmer than normal grass.

Your mother would lose what little was left of her mind if she saw you in your dress with completely bare legs, but...

... Well, she wasn’t here, was she?

...

... the Cheshire, who’d been sat watching you perform your tasks (you really hoped he wasn’t expecting you to remove your dress and sit there in your chemise), suddenly decidedly trotted over to you... 

And jumped up into your lap? 

He was surprisingly heavy- a decently sized cat, no doubt about it. You lifted your hands up in surprise as he made himself quite at home; kneading the dress over your bare knees before stretching, a very happy expression on his feline face as he settled himself down to rest.

...

... You weren’t sure why, but... you felt far more forgiving of him when he was in his cat form. Tricks and slights and impolite behaviour could be ignored and forgotten because it was, quite simply, in the very nature of a cat to do such things. You expected that sort of thing.

... So you allowed him to sit on your lap, listening to his gentle, rolling purr.

...

You couldn’t help yourself. He looked so very soft, so very fluffy. You reached a hand out... and stroked him from between the ears to the ridge of his back.

... Lord, he was the softest thing you’d ever touched. The kind of fur your hand just sinks into, a pure cloud of white and blue.. It was impossible to stop the tiny gasp that escaped your mouth, or your hand as it reached up and petted him again. So soft!

He didn’t protest; in fact, his wonderful eyes closed, his purring getting stronger and louder as he kneaded your dress. You took that as an invitation to continue eagerly petting him and enjoying such wondrous softness.

...

... You didn’t know why everyone had been so afraid of you going into the woods. The oh-so-terrifying Cheshire was nothing more than an overly friendly cat.

Eventually, as you let the sunshine warm you up, your petting just turned to gentle scritching behind his big silky ears... and before long, he was napping on his side, and your hand was merely idly resting on his intensely fluffy, almost downy soft body.

...

“Cat?” You asked, after what felt like forever relaxed against the tree. He responded by flicking one of his ears in your direction.

“Might... I ask why you led me in circles for so long, when you clearly have the capacity to let me out?” 

...

“...well.” He purred, peeking one sparkling eye open, tail sweeping across your dress.“if you really want to know...”

...

“... it’s because you are simply the cutest thing when you’re frustrated.”

...

... Your scowl apparently wasn’t enough to stop your cheeks from reddening, and you removed your hand from him. “Seriously?”

“heheh. see?” He grinned, cocking his head. “your face goes pink, all your hair frizzes up, and your cheeks puff out like a yabberjook. your voice gets higher, too.”

“I can’t believe I was starting to think you were a somewhat decent creature.”

“what?” He said, with the tone of someone who was pretending they didn’t know what they’d done, rolling onto his back to expose his incredibly fluffy tubby belly. (You had to force down the desire to pet him again.) “tell me, have you never held a pretty little insect in your hands, and when it tries to run across your palm and escape... you simply lay one hand after the other, trapping it in a cyclical hell to admire it a moment longer?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

There was a loud ‘poof’ sound, and a rush of blue smoke-

...

-and Sans was a skeleton again. Blocking out all the light, straddling your lap, face mere inches from yours... leaning over you with a wicked grin on his face.

Immediately, you sucked in a tiny gasp.

“well...” His clawed phalange drifted up and traced along your jaw, as delicately as if he were tracing the rim of a flower petal. “maybe you’re the insect, pet.”

... “... I-I...I...” You squeaked, brain only just stopping short of exploding. 

H-he was so close... so close you could feel his body heat, you could smell him... his brother had smelt of tea and warm golden afternoons, but Cheshire, he... he smelt of the deep, cool and ancient forests, of dusty bluebells and dewy wildflowers...

“heh. i, i?” His eyelights glowed serenely against his silhouetted face, pupils slowly widening, as a housecat’s does when it zeros in on a mouse. “i’m upset that a cat other than myself seems to have your tongue.”

“... W-wait.” You gasped, trying to push yourself back against the tree. Your face was so hot it was almost physically painful. Why is my heart pounding?! “I-”

Before you could sputter out the last of your sentence, he leant forward and easily closed the distance between you- and he ran his tongue up your face- from the bottom of your jaw to the corner of your cheek in one smooth motion. Upon feeling the warm and wet appendage drag across your skin a shiver ran up your back that made every hair on your body stand on end.

You squealed, shoving him with both hands; they passed through him, his form vanishing in a wisp of smoke and a silky echoing chuckle. 

Immediately you stumbled to your feet and grabbed one of your shoes that’d been resting in the sun, turning and throwing it as hard as you could at where his chuckle had teleported to- the branches of the tree behind you. He ducked his head to the side and the shoe whipped past his ear, casually reclining a ways above you.

“Y-you licked me!” You shrieked, completely outraged and all but steaming at the ears, bringing your sleeve up to wipe at your face. How DARE he!? “You licked me, you... you devil!”

“heheh. like i said.” He leant forward a tad, propping his chin up on his elbows, eyelights knife-sharp slits again. “the cutest frustrated little thing. and ever so delicious, too...”

You made a disgusted noise in the back of your throat despite your crippling embarrassment and pounding heart.

“... heh... tell you what.” He winked at you. “repayment for letting me get a taste. if you answer a riddle, i’ll send you on your way out of the forest.”

...

You paused, lowering the other shoe you were about to launch at him.

“... Wait. Really?” You blinked. “You will?”

“mhm. you’re dry now, aren’t you? might as well be getting on your way.”

...

You narrowed your eyes, cheeks beginning to cool off. “... You’ll... send me the correct way? The way out of this forest that isn’t the way I came in.”

“of course, of course...” He purred, casually sharpening a phalange on the tree’s bark.

“You promise?”

“why, don’t you trust me?”

The withering look you gave him was answer enough, and he let out a rolling chuckle as his tail curled in the air. “heheh, fair enough.”

“You must swear.”

“fuck.”

...

...

You... you just couldn’t help it. You let out a little ungainly snort and broke into giggles that you attempted to stifle by putting your hand over your mouth.

You completely missed the warm, adoring smile he gave you.

“alright, alright.” He shut his sockets. “i swear to guide you out of the woods if you answer my riddle, lest i get eaten by a ringlebuck, cross my heart and hope to fly, pinkie promise on a goose feather, all that.” 

“... Sure. Alright.” Your hands settled on your hips. “Hit me.”

“... what has 10 legs on one side and 12 on the other, goes up when it goes down, is colder than the coldest snow yet hotter than the brightest flame, darker than the sky at night, will kill me if i eat it, and spins like a top when you give it a twirl?”

...

...

“Cabbages.”

...

... He opened his eyes and blinked, twice in quick succession, his usual calm and haughty expression slipping for just a moment as he looked down at you.

...

“... well, that’s...” He cocked his head, inquisitively. “... that’s not right at all.”

“You didn’t say I had to answer it correctly, though.” You pointed out, unable to stop the triumphant, beaming smile breaking out across your face at the knowledge you knocked this vexatious cat down a peg for once. “You merely stated I had to answer. I did; my answer is cabbages. And now, as per our promise, you must guide me on a route out of this forest that isn’t the way I came in.”

...

For a split second, just a tick on the clock, Sans stared at you with a face and grin as blank as an unused parchment.

...

And then a new, bigger smile wove onto his face, even larger and wider than before.

“dearie, dearie me...” He hummed, so deeply it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. “it seems i’ve been beaten at my own game, hasn’t it? perhaps you’re more minx than mouse after all.”

He vanished from the tree branch and reappeared in his cat form, several paces ahead of you, smiling in a way you could only describe as the smile one might give the person they’d just realised they’d fallen in love with.

But that would be silly. Wouldn’t it?

“come then... better get your stockings on. i suppose i have a deal to uphold.”

Chapter Text

It was always much easier to fish at night.

You didn’t do it only for the better catches, and the fact that there were fish that would only come to the surface when the sun was deep below the horizon. You also did it because it was always quieter. No other vessels, no swimmers, no screaming idiots terrorising the local wildlife as they went roaring past on their jetskis. Just you, and your little rowboat... out on the empty glassy waters with nothing interrupting the endless sky but the gently twinkling dim lights of the town across the bay. The creaking of the hull and, once every while, the whizz and minute splash of your fishing line.

... But you weren’t here to fish this time.

Your mother and father would’ve disapproved of you going out into open waters in the night, when there was nobody around to witness a possible attack... if they knew that was what you were doing. But you’d been at it for almost four months now, completely without incident; your boat had no engine after all, no way to attract unwanted attentions. The only way you could come across a siren and get in trouble would be completely by chance, or if you stood up in your boat and screamed so loud your voice carried over the water for miles.

...

You’d come back to the same spot today, arms aching from rowing yourself such a distance without break. The same spot you’d been visiting for almost a week now, your curiosity more and more insatiable as time went on.

Every time you came to this spot... an area next to an insignificant little rock that was barely covered at low tide and invisible at high tide... something strange would happen.

It was like... the world around you would skip.

Your position on the water would shift, and your brain would suddenly feel fuzzy and soft, like a mist had settled over you... as if you’d only just woken up from an incredibly long nap that left you wondering what day it was. You always quickly regained your senses but it was such a strange occurrence; every single time you were near that rock at night, it would happen. In the day you had no such experience and even the evening left you eventless- it only happened when the blanket of night covered the waters.

The strange skip would bring with it another feeling... one you weren’t familiar with. Like someone had just whispered something loving into your ear, or someone special had held you close enough to feel their pulse. Your cheeks would flush, your heart would start to pound.. It was strange, new.... But oddly exhilarating.

Should you have kept returning? Probably not. But you weren’t dead and your curiosity was a terribly powerful thing. You felt lured to the area, pulled back by some invisible force... some strange desperation to figure out what the hell was happening to you.

So here you were, in your little rowboat, drifting in the mirror-flat water under a starry sky, waiting for something to happen. You couldn’t deny that your heart was beating a lot faster in your chest than normal- your attention was caught by every tiny splash, every glint of moonlight on the water... 

... Would something happen?

The seconds felt like minutes, and the minutes felt like hours, tiny waves lapping against your boat. You had to steady it every now and then, not too keen on accidentally bumping the hull against the rock you were hanging around near. You tapped your finger against the wooden oar handle.

...

... Eventually, boredom starting to infect you, you sighed and leant up against the side of the boat, just electing to stare into the almost eerily calm water. You could just about see your gently rippling reflection in the surface... you oftentimes found yourself glad that you had some kind of boat to keep you away from that darkness.

...

You saw something. 

It was like... a little flicker of colour, a distance below the surface, as if a tiny silvery creature had darted away. You immediately sat up, squinting, trying to focus on what was below instead of on the surface... 

... Again! A flash of cyan blue that curled back downwards. You couldn’t tell how far down it was, but that didn’t stop you leaning further over the edge of the boat to try and see- was it moonlight glancing off a fish’s body? But it seemed to glow, not reflect... perhaps some strange bioluminescent algae? Maybe someone had dropped a light into the water and it was only just now floating to the surface...

Another one! You couldn’t help your tiny gasp, eyes wide. This time, a stunning neon purple, absolutely glowing; it must’ve been some tiny glowing fish because it almost looked like it did a loop before it disappeared. And it was quickly followed by several more in a bright, spring green... then more in blue... you’d never seen anything like this before! Was there a shoal of them? This was incredible!

There were so many more- flashes, darts... all seeming to come from one direction, spiralling outwards. Instead of being random colours and shapes they became... uniform? You tilted your head. A pulse of blue, a pulse of cyan, a pulse of purple... you kept staring, amazement starting to fall into confusion... what were they...? It was starting to look less like lots of small creatures, and more like... one big...

... Blue, purple, pink... pulsating, getting closer... you couldn’t look away, it was so... mesmerising...

Green... blue...

...

... Purple...

---

He’d never tire of the expression you made when you saw his colours for the ‘first’ time. He smiled in relief as he broke the surface, one hand holding onto the side of the boat and the other drifting up to lovingly trace your cheek with a clawed and scarred phalange. 

Sans lost his voice a long time ago- back when he was cocky. Back when he was young, when he still thought being a siren and an apex predator meant you never had to care, or watch out... when he underestimated just how dangerous prey could really be.

He assumed that slow-moving meant an easy meal. By the time he came to his senses and realised just what he’d attacked, just what he’d thrown himself into, he was wrapped in the jellyfish mermonster’s thread-like tentacles. The almost invisible, delicate, seemingly harmless strands tangled and curled around him like a ghost net... every millimeter of contact was like a red hot knife brutally carving into the bones. Searing lightning bolts of pain melting away at the ossified matter, burning into them, pain so intense and electric he could do nothing but thrash every limb and scream. 

He was lucky the monster swam away, panicked, taking their tentacles with him- if they’d chosen to stay he absolutely would’ve died. He fled to the first deep cave he could find and spent the next several days curled in a shaking, tortured, convulsing ball as his body slowly processed the pain and toxins. 

... He still bore the marks of that day. Long, warped and discoloured scars across his ribcage and arms where the poisons had disfigured and melted into his bones... one over his skull that malformed his eyelights into a single red orb... and one that cut from the corner of his jaw to the opposite cheek, slicing directly over his mouth.

That was the one that stole his voice.

A siren without a voice was normally a death sentence. And he knew that; terrified weeks of desperately trying to speak again over and over and over had resulted in him regaining his ability to whisper; but he could no longer sing. If he couldn’t sing, he couldn’t hunt... if he were any other siren he’d be dead.

Except... he wasn’t any other siren. 

He was a cecaelia... half octopus. 

It took a little getting used to; he went hungry for almost a month. But he knew about cuttlefish that did it. And once he figured out how to rapidly cycle the colours on his tentacles to visually lure his meals instead of auditorily, to hypnotise his prey... his young body began to develop alongside this discovery. 

His tentacles turned from blue to black, and increased significantly in size. His colours became brighter and his control over pigments widened. Down the sides of each tentacle, he grew lines of perfectly round and perfectly spaced spots... that he could light up, blinking them on and off in interesting patterns to attract fish directly to him instead of having to seek out something to capture.

... And once he understood how to create light in small amounts in those little spots, he began to do it in larger amounts. He figured out how to make light in the main skin of his tentacles... just patches at first, but soon it spread to great swathes of his body. His control over his powers became greater and greater... soon, he could light up any part of his lower body he wanted in any colour he chose. It cost more energy but it was so worth it... he could attract so many clueless fish with alluring light shows, he had more than enough food and energy to experiment. He moved his regular hunting grounds to much deeper waters, avoiding the interfering sun and other sirens as much as possible...

... Until one day...

... Well... there was no need to go too in-depth. One thing led to another, and he discovered humans weren’t immune to his hypnosis.

The disappearance of the fishing vessel’s crew was attributed to normal sirens, and written off as just yet more fishermen ignoring the warning to bring noise-cancelling apparatus on their journeys with them.

He would spend the day relaxing deep, deep in the mesopelagic ‘twilight’ zone, where sunlight was less than a glimmer and it was cool and dark and perfectly quiet and potential meals flocked to his lights in droves. He was the only siren who dared leave the surface, only returning in the cover of dark, following the nightly ascension of his other prey and occasionally catching lone humans off-guard.

It was a perfect life.

...

... At least, he thought it was. Before he met you.

Sans had seen many things in the depths. Creatures beyond the imagination, of all sizes and shapes and colours and consistencies, thriving and bizarre alien-like life forms that seemed to casually disobey every surface rule he’d taken for granted.

But somehow, in a way he couldn’t describe... none of it came close to you. 

He first saw you on a starless, clouded night- the perfect night for a hunt. He’d followed your little rowboat from the shores to (at least in his opinion) an impressively large distance from the coast considering how dark it was and how there was nobody around for miles. Were you brave, or stupid? Pity he’d never know.

... He did his usual. Cause a small commotion in the water that makes prey look right where he wants. Then send out beautiful, glowing pulses of neon coloured light across his tentacles to attract the attention further... and before they can figure out what they’re looking at, settle into a waving rhythm of colour and blinking brightness that renders them as helpless as a newborn turtle. Even his eyelight beat in a mesmerising rhythm- simple. And the first parts went off without a hitch... you were embarrassingly easy to entice to glimpse closer, almost falling off the edge of your boat you leant so far to attempt to get a look at whatever was glowing below.

He emerged after he was certain you were totally stupefied, grinning, reaching up to get a hold of whichever limb or item of clothing was closest and pull you in... and...

... He saw your face.

... His hands stilled, halfway out of the water, sockets widening and grin falling. He almost broke the rhythm of his hypnosis waves, only regaining control of himself by a plankton’s breadth. 

Your expression was almost blank, as most of his victims were. Except... 

... You had this soft, delicate flush of awe in your heavy eyelids and parted lips that was slowly draining as your brain and body lost connection with one another. A fading glimpse of the amazement you’d felt seeing his display under the surface. Just at that moment, as if on cue, the moon emerged from behind the clouds... it framed your hair and face in a halo of gentle blueish light.

... 

... You were so pretty.

Whatever breath he had in his chest was stolen away in an instant as his usually quiet and unheeded Soul began to beat wildly in his ribcage, the sound filling his mind. You looked so soft, and you were staring right at him... He felt like he was suddenly drowning in your eyes, falling, sinking... is this how it feels to be hypnotised? His gaze travelled down to your lips, warm and plump, dried from the salty air but nonetheless looking just... 

... just delicious...

... He wanted to touch. He wanted to touch. Some of his tentacles had already latched onto the side of your boat without him noticing, suckering on and sliding closer to you, still pulsing with colours like a beating heart... He reached his previously stilled hand up, a single clawed phalange outstretched.... why am i shaking...? You were still looking at him, his face was flush with magic and his Soul was pounding, he wanted your eyes on him forever-

- a large boat engine.

It snapped him out of the trance in an instant, the lights on his tentacles shimmering and going out as his intense concentration broke. It was so distant your human ears probably couldn’t even pick it up but he caught it like someone he knew had screamed; he’d recognise that engine type anywhere.

Siren patrol boat.

It felt like his Soul was tearing when he had to turn away from you and dive back under the surface, retreating back to the ocean floor to avoid the heavily armed and dangerous vessel looking for creatures exactly like him. And if it tore when he left, it shattered when he re-emerged after the engine finally faded... only to find himself bobbing alone in the ocean, your little boat nowhere to be seen.

You’d gone.

...

Cecaelia couldn’t love. They weren’t supposed to love. He told himself that, over and over again, swimming in circles in the lightless twilight zone even as his tentacles twitched every time he pictured your face. Cecaelia weren’t like other sirens, who bonded or remained in family pods for their entire lives- his kind were bad tempered and completely solitary. They would meet only to fight or to mate. And even then, the fights were short, and the male and female barely spent more than an hour together before going their separate ways again. He didn’t know (nor care) if his parents were alive, or any of his hundreds of siblings; he was alone from the moment his life began. That’s how he liked it.

...

That’s how he thought he liked it.

... And yet here he was. Soul aching, returning to the surface again for the fifth time this week, like a lovesick madman... luring you into a hypnosis so he could spend just a few precious moments close enough to touch you without you running away. Here he was again, emerging from the water... once again, one hand on the edge of the boat and the other reaching up to cup your soft, warm cheek and thread his fingers through your hair, lovingly admiring the entranced expression on your face.

... He didn’t know why you kept coming back; from your reactions to his lights over and over it seemed like his hypnosis wiped your memory. But it wasn’t like he was complaining; he was a siren, you were a human. He knew how you’d react if you knew he was here... he knew this was his only chance to be close to you without pulling you in and drowning you.

He was listening out very carefully every night he was with you. Listening for engines, for the telltale rumble of something manmade, monitoring how close they were to the two of you.

... But tonight? On this starry, silent, perfectly calm night? The waters were quiet as far as he could tell. Nobody was going to interrupt.

And for some reason, looking up into your eyes as his longing only grew... that silence made something in him snap.

He couldn’t hold back. His grip on the edge of the boat tightened so much the wood began to creak and groan, his tongue felt thick in his mouth as water lapped against his shoulders... He was tired of holding back. You were so close, and yet so far away from him- he could hear your slow breaths and count every pore and pockmark on your cheeks but he couldn’t press you close to him. He could hold your face, but...

... It wasn’t enough.

i want more.

Self control wasn’t exactly something sirens like him had in spades. He spent one last second, listening out for patrol boats... listening out for a reason to hesitate...

...

Nothing.

His smile felt like it was splitting his face.

Magic started to jump in his system, fizzing in excitement- he suckered on tightly to both sides of the vessel and, in one smooth motion, pulled himself out of the ocean and into the boat. It rocked back and forth for a little while but soon steadied; he could feel it sink lower into the water with the addition of his weight. Such a simple action he'd been thinking of for so long... the cool air felt foreign and prickly against his wet tentacles.

... And there you were.

Immediately, he sucked in a breath between his teeth, feeling his eyelight expand, completely overcome by how small you were. You were barely half his size... such a delicate little thing, still wearing such an entranced and placid expression...

Suddenly, the tiny distance between the two of you was too much to bare. That fierce desperation to have you close was setting his bones aflame from the inside out; he all but lurched forwards on pure instinct, wrapping his arms around you, pulling you in, finally pressing your tiny body to his ribcage. 

You were so warm.

He gasped again, already hopelessly lost in the feeling of having you in his arms. So warm on his cold body, so soft, so full of life... You fit against him like the puzzle piece he’d been missing since the moment he emerged into the world, his Soul was pounding at his ribs as if even the few inches of bone between it and you were too much to bear, he didn't care that he was soaking your clothes. 

The tentacles that weren’t steadying his body in the boat (every inch of it smelt of you) immediately began to wrap possessively around you. They were restless, they couldn’t stop moving, every part of him elated to finally hold you... curling around your arms, your legs, your waist, slipping under your shirt and touching your bare lower back- the appendages were flashing with uncontrollable bursts of light and colour as his emotions overtook him and his concentration continued to waver. Each tentacle was thicker at the base than your leg... he shuddered and grinned, thinking about how securely you were coiled... how tightly you were trapped, how easy it would be to just squeeze...

“... oh, my little star...” he cooed, a deep, gravelly whisper. His voice was so very quiet, and it’d been so long since he used it... a secret part of him, reserved just for you. He slipped his claws into the hair at the back of your head, other arm secured around you middle... keeping your head tilted up to him. “you don’t know what you’ve done to me...”

He could see the own glow of his eyelights twinkling in your eyes. He was falling into them again... a magnetic attraction was pulling him in closer. He was absorbed in your warmth and softness, his face was so close to yours he could feel your warm breath fanning over his teeth and cheeks, you made him feel complete, he wanted to be closer, i want to be closer, i want more...

Before he could stop and think about what he was doing, his Soul let out a pulse... and he closed the distance, kissing you.

... Just for a moment, everything was right. Your lips were just as sweet as he thought they’d be... chapped and dry but soft and so very warm. The hand in your hair drifted down to your neck, tentacles curling around your waist and legs and one suckering onto your wrist like it was trying to hold your hand. He felt whole, satisfied, complete, he just knew in that moment you were all he wanted, all he could ever need...

...

You inhaled.

And it wasn’t a normal, slow inhale. It was sharp, shocked, like someone waking up from a nightmare. 

He opened his sockets...

... To see two very alert and conscious-looking eyes staring up at him.

you were awake.

... He realised immediately what had happened, grin and Soul dropping like stones. It was like someone had doused his whole body, the consuming fire in his bones put out in an instant and replaced with an aching ice.

He pulled away, tentacles recoiling back from your body. 

kissing you had taken up your whole vision, hadn’t it? if you couldn’t see the lights, the hypnosis wouldn’t...

... You jolted when you seemed to realise you weren’t dreaming, flinching back out of his arms and bringing up your arms as if to defend yourself with a tiny cry of shock breaking out of your throat.

It was like being back in the grip of the jellyfish stings. Shocks of freezing pain tore across his body with his Soul at the epicentre as he watched you pull away, squeezing all the breath out of his body, his tentacles pulsing a distressed navy blue and his eyelights extinguishing like candle flames, no, please-

He panicked. He couldn’t think of anything but getting away from the pain. Without a second’s hesitation, he turned and threw himself over the side of the tiny vessel, back into the ocean, back into the dark.

---

The boat rocked so violently from the creature jumping into the water that you stumbled back and fell on your ass, crying out and grabbing both sides of the vessel tightly to avoid being thrown out of it. It threw itself from side to side like a bull trying to dismount its rider; as soon as you could force yourself to open your eyes and push yourself up you were on your knees, swaying, terrified and confused even as the boat calmed.

That was, without doubt, a siren. And a cecaelia...

Your heart was hammering in a completely different way to usual, you could feel it in your throat and temples, your head was swimming. Your clothes and the inside of the boat were completely soaked, there were light sucker-shaped rings on your wrist, your lips tasted like salt...

... Your lips...

... You brought a hand up to your mouth, glancing to the water just off the side of the boat- it was still rippling and bubbling from the cecaelia diving into it only moments ago.

He’d kissed you.

One moment you were looking into the ocean and admiring a strange pretty light, the next... a giant skeletal face was taking up your entire vision with firm lips on yours, a cold and writhing pressure all over your body; your gut reaction had been that he was eating you.  

... You were so confused. You couldn’t think straight and adrenaline was rushing through your system, your fingers were shaking so hard you couldn’t grab the oars- he was definitely kissing you, the intimacy in the way he held you and pressed his lips to yours needed no translation. But why? Was it some kind of method of seduction that hypnotised you so he could kill you? And... and why did he run? He had you trapped in his tentacles, he was almost twice your size, he could’ve just snapped your spine like a toothpick... you shuddered. Why did you being conscious make any difference, why did that make him... was he really trying to eat you?

... And that face he made, when you pulled back... it was like you’d struck him...

... You swallowed, finally getting a solid grip on the oars and immediately starting to row away, arms numb to everything; pain included.

You could think about the implications of this close encounter more when you were back on dry land.

Chapter Text

Nervous was an understatement.

“Keep track of him at all times. Always make sure you can get to the door, never let him cut you off. Don’t underestimate him just because he’s blindfolded.”

You could feel your heart hammering in your chest so loudly it was getting hard to pay full attention to Maggie, the senior zoo staff member in front of you, hard to keep a grip on the large and heavy bucket of meat clenched tightly in one hand and the hooked feeding pole in the other. You weren’t even supposed to be doing this, you were too low down on the zoo staff ladder… you should’ve been feeding the little snakes or the herbivores, you should be years away from this level of care! The naga were already leagues above your pay grade, and now they wanted you to feed the biggest one of them all!?

I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be doing this. You cringed- but I can’t refuse, I need this job!

“Talk to him, move loudly, make sure he knows where you are because the last thing you want is to spook him. I know you’ve had good experiences with the other two naga but that doesn’t mean you should ever let your guard down, understand?”

“… Yes.” You said, voice barely above a whisper, grip sweaty on the feeding pole. You couldn’t help it, your eyes flicked down to her left hand- the one she didn’t have anymore, the one that had just a wrist stump remaining.

“… You’ll be fine. We’ll all be watching, if something does happen for some reason we can get in and help you.” She took on a slightly more comforting tone, noticing your line of sight. Her injury was the reason she wasn’t the one bringing the naga his food, given her senior position and superior experience. “I got this when I was young and cocky, and because I followed the safety protocol I lost a hand and not a neck. So long as you stick to the rules and don’t do anything stupid, you won’t have a problem with him. Ok?”

“A-are you sure I’m…”

“Yes, you’re ready. You’ve dealt with the other two.” She cut over you, turning you by the shoulder. “Now go, before Skull gets hungrier.”

And just like that, you were pushed through the door of the enclosure, that shut firmly behind you. The secondary door opened… and despite the fact that every part of you was cold and shaking, you had no choice but to go forward. As scared as you were, someone needed to get the naga fed… someone needed to go straight into the beast’s den.

… You stepped into the enclosure.

It was built to resemble a near-surface cave; the walls and floor were made of slightly uneven smoothed stone, with a few windowed ‘cracks’ in the fake stalactite ceiling providing enough daylight to see by. There were some interesting objects to provide a little enrichment, like ‘boulders’, patches of fake grass, a little filtered waterfall dribbling into a relatively shallow pool… and a small tunnel, leading to a den with no windows he could juuust about curl up in so he could have some privacy.

… Inside that den, you could see a hint of a steely blue-grey… scales.

… You sucked in a tiny breath through your nose, and stepped further forward, following the zoo protocol of tapping the metal end of the pole lightly against the bucket of food to let him know it was feeding time. It took a moment for there to be a reaction, but… slowly, surely, the mass of muscle resting inside the den began to shift.

Giant claws hooked over the stone edges of the den entrance, bone hands as big as your head… the thing about Red and Sans is they were very vocal naga, Sans regularly hissing and snarling and Red making curious rattling and purring sounds. But with Skull… there was nothing but the low sliding sound of scales against rock, that sounded long and oh-so heavy.

… He emerged, head moving into the light, vicious cranium crack and tight fitted black blindfold plain to see… with just his skeletal torso out he was already almost as big as you. A shot of panic doused your system and you had to clench your teeth together to stop yourself from crying, or dropping everything and bolting back through the door. The rest of him followed after; the long snake tail that made up over three quarters of his body length coiling behind him as he raised himself up, gathering like a loosened rope, thicker than you were wide… faded blue and littered with scars that just didn’t seem to catch the light in the same way the other two nagas did.

He was… huge. You knew this already, but there was something different about seeing him with nothing in the way.

… You had to swallow the terror again, no longer able to tap on the food bucket as your hands were shaking too much. I’m fine. I’m fine. The door is right behind me.

… He was keeping his distance from you, head turned downward slightly, facing in the direction of the bucket. A flash of blue around his mouth- his forked tongue flickering rapidly, which could either signal curiosity, hunger or both. The pounding in your chest became more intense.

“… H-hey, big guy.” You stammered, keeping your voice as gentle as possible, as low and soft as you could in order to not spook him. He reacted immediately, his head cocking a little, raising to face directly at you instead of the bucket as if making eye contact despite the blindfold- just get this over with, (y/n), just get this over with. “…  I-I’m… supposed to talk to you, to let you know where I am… talking worked with the other two, I… h-hope it works with you, too.”

You put the bucket on the ground, sliding a decently heavy chunk of the special treated naga-friendly meat onto it. Skull had a unique feeding hook; it was much longer than usual, slightly difficult to handle, but reinforced along the inside to facilitate easier feeding from a distance. You raised the pole with the hung meat and slid it slowly closer to him, keeping careful watch of the way his tongue would flicker toward the food… you were so ready to bolt. You just needed to get this done.

“I’m, uhm…” You felt like an idiot. You could feel all the other staff members watching. “The food’s on the hook. You probably know that already, but…”

… He moved forward and caught the chunk straight off the hook, swallowing it without any chewing or pausing, then going immediately back to sitting there, patiently, watching. Waiting for more. You brought the hook back, putting on another piece, moving it toward him again… careful to keep hold on the pole despite your sweaty palms.

… He was eating as quickly as your unpractised snail-pace would allow, but most notably.. without issue. You finally felt a droplet of relief in the sea of fear; he was eating normally, he wasn’t being aggressive or trying to approach… this was going pretty well, for your first time feeding the moodiest naga in the zoo.

“… There we go. Good, this is going good. Please don’t eat me.” You half-joked, repeating the process. Retract pole, hook meat, offer it out. Starting to get into a rhythm. “… I hope you’re always this relaxed with me. That would be really helpful.”

He took the meat again, obediently. You let out a tiny sigh; the more he just did what he was supposed to, the calmer and more comfortable you felt. He’d probably learned by now that it was just best to get the food offered, instead of biting the hand that was feeding him.

… Or biting it off.

“… Everyone’s watching. I think they’re waiting for me to mess up. Do something dumb and get kicked out.” You mumbled. You felt… surprisingly not-awkward? Sometimes, when you spoke to the animals, you felt weird because they clearly didn’t care… but in this case, you got a strange feeling from the way his head would twitch and follow you despite the meat, how his tongue would flicker only when you’d stopped talking. It felt like he was… actually listening?

Besides. Nobody could fault you for talking to the naga to keep it calm and not-murderous as you passed him food from as large a distance as possible, right? If it worked, it worked, and you kept your limbs.

“… There we go.” You said, as you passed him the last piece- you then tapped the side of the empty bucket with the hook like you’d been told to, so he’d hear the hollow sound and understand there was no more food, before you picked it up again. You felt… a lot less terrified? Still nervous, but not like you were about to throw up. 

“… Uhm… thank you.” Your voice was still pretty small. “For… being calm. I appreciate it.”

… He stayed where he was. You felt, again, like he was watching you, despite him having no vision.

…

You took a step back, ready to go back through the door and throw up… but as soon as your foot sounded against the stone floor…

Everything about him changed. 

His lips and teeth parted… and the most powerful hiss you’d ever heard filtered out, filling the room, tearing through the air and right through your body. Like someone had set off a huge firework but it just kept hissing and hissing and hissing, deep and loud and intertwined with an open-mouthed growl, it echoed off the walls and shook everything inside. It was as if someone had flipped a switch in his head, something inside him had snapped; his shoulders rose, tail beginning to move across the floor and rearrange itself. It sounded like… a warning.

You froze, heart dropping into your stomach, all the warmth and colour draining from your face.

…Oh no.

… The hissing stopped, but he kept his new position. He’d stopped in a more aggressive, coiled posture like a tightened spring, tongue now flickering constantly.

…

“… Maggie.” You said, voice cracking, essentially calling for help. Your eyes were locked onto him, you couldn’t remember any of the safety protocols for aggressive naga, every part of you was petrified, you couldn’t feel your hands or toes you could only feel the pounding in your own head. You were afraid to blink- it was going TOO well, I’ve used up my luck, it’s all gonna go wrong now!

“… Okay, just relax.” You heard her voice over the exhibit speaker system but you daren’t turn your head away to look at where she was. “He probably just doesn’t trust you yet, and is getting possessive over food he thinks might still be in the bucket. Okay? Use the pole to push the bucket toward him.”

You swallowed, following her advice; you set the bucket down without taking your gaze off him as if your feet were glued to the earth, and then used the end of the pole to push the bucket across the floor. It made an ugly scraping/rattling sound as it moved.

… He wasn’t even turning toward it. He wasn’t paying attention to it. His attention seemed steadfastly on you, if his head direction was any way to tell. You were sweating, your neck hairs were prickling.

“Alright. Now back away slowly.”

… One step back.

He immediately started hissing again, even louder this time, with deafening aggravation… he lowered his head.

A strike position.

You didn’t hear Maggie’s shout over the speaker system, you could hear nothing but your heart and his hissing. The rabbit-like urge to RUN overtook your whole body, something in you shattered, and you staggered backward with the intent to turn and dive for the door.

… The speed at which he crossed the entire enclosure would’ve been incredible in any other circumstance. 

He lurched with all the power readied in the wound muscles in his tail, striking forward so quickly it was like he vanished from his spot, and suddenly you were screaming as the pole was knocked out of your hands. Suddenly something huge and hard was gripping you and your clothes and your legs went out from under you, the world was dark and turning and you brought your hands up over your head in an instinctive defensive posture, you faintly heard the sound of dozens of voices shouting out in synchrony but everything was ringing, the heels of your boots were dragging so quickly across the floor it felt like the friction was going to burn through them and kicking your legs into nothingness as a pathetic attempt at attack/escape did genuinely nothing, you cried out…

… And then just like that, your body came to a halt; you’d stopped moving.

You opened your eyes, forcing in deep terrified breaths, finding yourself in almost total darkness and taking only a few milliseconds to realise you were inside his den. It was so cramped and the floor and walls were moving, why were they moving, you put out a hand to try and steady yourself or get to your feet…

…

That wasn’t the floor or walls. Your hand landed on smooth, hard scales.

You were on him. You were on his coiled tail.

You made a sound you could only describe as a broken whimper-cry of fear and tried to sit up and get some control, but it was almost impossible as he was still moving, his body shifting and writhing underneath you and forcing you to only sink deeper into his scales, deeper into his hold. Something wound around you, starting from your chest and moving down to your knees, binding your legs together- and the scariest part was that you could feel the power as he shifted, you could feel the strength behind the scales when they pressed against you. He was a living muscle, and with little more than a flex he could squeeze, and you’d go squish.

That’s what’s going to happen. He’s going to constrict me to death! Your breathing was getting so fast your chest was heaving, you tried to push the coils on your middle but it was like pushing the unmoving floor, you were getting dizzy with panic, you started to beat them with your fists, S-someone help me-!

His face came into view. Hovering over you, only just silhouetted by the light creeping into the entrance of the den.

… Once again, everything in your body just… stopped. 

All thought, all movement, everything froze, as you stared up at him with wide eyes.

… He’d removed his own blindfold. A bright, blood red ring was gazing down at you… fuzzy around the edges, the hole in the centre nothing but a dot.

… His own movements were slowing, as he apparently settled on the position he was in. You were almost horizontal, your head lifted up ever-so-slightly, everything lower than your chest totally bound and covered and crushed under more of his body. He was so close.

…

He was warm. Like summer’s day. And he was… just staring.

…

You could hear absolute havoc breaking outside of his den. But even so, your breathing was slowing… you were calming, despite it all. Something about his eye… the way he was hanging his head… how his tongue just ever-so-slightly peeked out of his mouth, as if only curious…

… How he hadn’t killed you yet. He wasn’t squeezing. You felt so, so very tiny, trapped in the coils of a giant naga…

Why hasn’t he…?

…

A single, sharp phalange moved over to your face. You naturally flinched leaned away at the sight of such huge claws coming close, sucking in a breath… and as soon as you did, he… paused? He took a moment, with his your-head-sized hand just hanging there… 

… Like he was giving you a second? He held your eye.

… When he started moving again, he moved so slowly. So gently… and he turned the hand over, brushing the back of his thick knuckle across your cheek with a feather-light touch. His hands were warm, too.

…

It was a like a cat, the way his eyelight widened, blowing to fill his whole socket.

He seemed to lose whatever self control was making him move slowly, and instead his massive head leant in, before you could so much as muster the energy or presence of mind to squeak he pressed his face flush against the side of yours with his teeth just under your ear. Instead you just let in another tiny breath of shock and felt a shiver travel across the whole length of your body- he was nuzzling, with an unmistakable joy, parts of his tail moving ever-so-slightly like he just couldn’t contain himself. In amongst the gleeful nuzzling he took a few inquisitive breaths in your hair, his tongue flickering out and surprising you with how ticklish it was- you brought your shoulder up in defence but he seemed to like that tiny reaction and did it again, chasing your sensitive spots.

“G- ah, stop!” You said, but less out of fear and more out of ticklishness- you couldn’t get away from him, it was like being fussed by a giant overly affectionate puppy. He was breathing right down your ear, and his breath and tongue made everything prickle, you tried to put your hands over your neck but he wasn’t having it. “… G-guys? Guys, are you out there?!”

You distinctly heard someone mutter ‘oh my God, she’s alive’, before a sharp “Play dead! We’re coming to get you!” sounded pretty close to the den. 

… You saw Skull’s reaction- and by saw, you meant heard and felt. As soon as he seemed to realise they were approaching the entrance to his hide, he stopped nuzzling, face still against your neck… and a slow, upset snarl began to filter out of his chest, and seeing as you were surrounded by him it was deep and so close it was vibrating your insides. At the same time, his snake body shifted and started to tighten, slowly moving to cover you more, bring you in further into his coils… trap you underneath.

“N-no, no!” You said, panic at possibly being constricted to death rearing its head again. “Don’t come any closer without sedatives, please!”

“… What the hell’s going on in there?!”

“H-he’s just… he’s just got me wrapped up.” You stammered, swallowing, wishing you could see them instead of the den ceiling right now; your voice had a strange, echoing quality inside the small space. “I-I can’t move. When you come closer it agitates him and he squeezes. Don’t come closer. Please just go get sedatives.”

“… Are you sure you’re okay in there?” You could hear them backing up, thank fuck. And he could definitely hear them too, noticeably relaxing. “It’s gonna take us a while to get anything strong enough for him.”

… Skull let out a strange, deathly soft hiss, apparently really liking your hair… so quiet, only the two of you could hear it. His scales were warm, and although you were trapped, it almost felt like he’d deliberately trapped you in this reclined position in order to make sure you were comfortable in his grip.

…

“Y-yeah, I… I think I’m fine for now. Just please don’t take too long.”

Chapter Text

It seemed only fitting that there should be a full moon on halloween night. It bugged you, ever-so-slightly, that the moon wasn’t actually full... there was a sliver of it missing, just a lick of shadow on what otherwise could’ve been a perfectly round orb of light in the sky. But hey- either way, it didn’t make much difference to your journey. Although it would’ve been nicer to walk in a full moon, the fact that it was pretty much almost full meant you still had a lot of light to go by, and it allowed you to take the route without blinding yourself with a flashlight.

... Besides. It was just... better to travel this path while drawing as little attention to yourself as possible. Especially considering what lurked out there, within the woods.

You tucked your coat a little bit tighter around yourself, body only just accustomed to the autumn chill that pervaded the clear night, trying to keep your pace unhurried despite your dislike of this stretch of road between work and home. There were many benefits to living somewhere quieter- this was not one of them. The path you had to take cut directly through the forest; as such, it was bordered on both sides by tall looming trees that were overflowing with darkness and life and sounds. A veritable wall of moving shadows that you didn’t dare spare more than a glance into for fear of seeing something you couldn’t unsee... if you just kept your eyes forward and your breath steady you’d be home before you knew it, like every other night.

You usually didn’t take this path alone. Your neck was cold, you’d forgotten your scarf in your rush. You usually had people to share the walk with- company, in the dark, to stop your fear from getting too out of hand. Tonight, you had picked up the strange feeling of being watched... a feeling you ignored, deciding you were just being unnecessarily paranoid.

... You came to a familiar section of the walk. An area where it tightened into a ‘bottleneck’ of sorts, where the forest bled over the path... it really couldn’t have been that much ground, but the tightness of the path and the unevenness of the earth slowed your walking pace down significantly to where traversing that little section could take you several minutes. It didn’t help that when it was dark, the leaves knitting over the sky made it almost impossible to tell which way you were going if you didn’t keep your eyes on the exit.

You stepped over a particularly large root that jutted over the path, moving under the cover of the trees. You’d never had a problem with it before and you weren’t planning on starting to now... your footsteps sounded all-too-loud on the dry and lightly frosted forest floor, each crunch akin to a gunshot, but there was nothing else you could do.

Just stay focused. Eyes forward.

You felt a horrible chill of dread but you pushed on, moving branches out of your face, using sections of trees as support when you had to step over things. It was so dark, harder and harder to see...

...

You paused.

...

Why was it so quiet?

For the first time in the journey you looked somewhere that wasn’t straight on. You paused and turned, glancing around between the trees, then up into the canopy, then back into the trees again... your brow furrowed.

... It was dead silent.

Everything had stopped. All the rustling, all the tiny squeaks and distant hoots, all the noise of an active forest at night. It had all gone quiet. There was nothing in the air, nothing around you... just empty, cold silence punctuated only by your confused breaths that left dissipating trails of steam.

...

It felt wrong. So, so wrong. You clenched your jaw as another small chill ran up your spine. That’s... odd.

... You swallowed, continuing onward. Perhaps... either you or some other woodland creature had frightened the forest into going quiet for a little. Just ignore it, you’ll be fine. One step at a time, placing each foot, despite your positive urging in your head you were walking with a new kind of slow cautiousness... like you were trying to avoid being heard. You were going as silently as you possibly could, but your pulse was starting to jump, something inside you was beginning to nag to pick up the pace, pick up the pace... 

It felt as if the forest was pressing in on you. You could hardly see anything anymore, you didn’t know if the moon had gone behind a cloud or if the trees had just thickened, it was so dark... you could hardly make out the tree branches before they swiped at your face.

... The hairs on the back of your neck started to prickle. 

...

Crunch.

A single, heavy sound behind you broke the silence.

You stopped dead, spinning and staring behind you with eyes like a startled rabbit. Numb fear washed over you- what the hell was that?

It wasn’t just your neck hairs that were prickling now; everything was prickling, your arms and legs and cheeks, eyes straining to try and make something out. Whatever made that noise, it sounded large, too large to just be some kind of animal making a mad scramble once you’d passed it by. Something had come down hard on the earth- something strong.

...

You couldn’t feel your fingers or toes. After what felt like an eternity staring into the dark trying to see something, you forced yourself to tear your eyes away and turn around, moving forward with even more urgency than before, your breath starting to shake when it escaped. At this point it wasn’t up to you anymore to decide the speed you walked at, your body had taken control and was moving you with a level of haste it didn’t have earlier. It was only once you’d gone a significant distance that you took a moment to look around...

... Only to realise you’d moved off the path. You didn’t recognise any of this... you couldn’t see the exit, you couldn’t see the entrance. 

You’d turned, like an idiot, and gone straight into the woods.

“N-no, no, fuck...” You breathed. That creeping, sickening sense of dread was blanketing over you, alongside a wave of goosebumps- smothering your mind and making the cold shaking in your hands even worse. It was still so eerily, so creepily silent...

I’m lost. I’m lost and it’s dark and freezing...

...

Another crunch behind you that immediately turned your head. Softer, this time, but too similar to the previous to not cause you immediate alarm- and the distance between you and the noise hadn’t changed. Meaning it’d followed you.

... Part of you wanted to call out. Part of you wanted to ask who was there, sound out and demand an answer. But you couldn’t, you just couldn’t... your throat was glued shut, tongue pressed firmly against the roof of your mouth as you slowly walked backward... your gaze stuck on the area where the noise had come from.

...

And then you stepped in something.

It felt like... stepping onto cling film. Taught but thin, flexing as your foot pressing down through it, your panic-sharpened ears catching a strange stretching noise, and something that sounded akin to wool being pulled apart.

...

You went to lift the leg again.

It didn’t move.

Before you could stop yourself, your other foot stumbled onto the material- you tried to tug both feet but they were stuck fast. Like you were standing on glue; you let out a tiny terrified cry and tried to pull again and again, you flailed blindly with your hands trying to find something to hold on to to hopefully anchor yourself, but there was nothing-

... Behind you. 

Your whole body acted as if it’d been dunked in ice water, your heart stopping in your chest.

... There was something behind you. You didn’t know how you knew... but you knew.

You knew you weren’t alone.

...

... You could hear it moving toward you. Oh no, oh no no no... feet on the ground, it had more than two legs... 

... And then breath. Deep breathing too, coming closer. You couldn’t even blink, you couldn’t feel anything, you were just a deer in headlights, dazed and paralysed as the distance between it and you became smaller and smaller and smaller.

...

It stopped just behind you, whatever it was. Only a few steps away...

... And then the moon came out. 

It leaked between the foliage, creating blotches of blue light on the ground and revealing the world around you to your desperate eyes; the trees emerged, the ground emerged, and light splayed on what you were standing on. The ground you’d stumbled into was completely covered in something, a static fog... it resembled thousands of long, thin, intercrossing silvery strands that all gently shimmered in the ethereal midnight glow, reflecting a soft rainbow.

... Spiderwebs. Your stomach dropped, leaving a void behind. It was spiderwebs. 

And on top of it, curving around from behind you... was a single spider monster leg, longer than you were tall. Moonlight glancing off a scarred and thick carapace.

... A wash of hot breath flowed over the side of your face and neck, it shut down every single thought in your mind except the echoing cry of I’m going to die. Your heartbeat was so loud in your ears it was getting hard to concentrate on anything else.

...

It spoke. Up against your ear, voice inhumanly low and deep.

“there you are...”

You distinctly heard and felt a long, slow inhale, so close to you that wisps of hair caught and flowing in his direction.

He’s going to eat me.

...

Something pressed against the side of your neck, and for just a second, you broke free of your terrified paralysis- but you were too late to even move away. You felt a horrible pierce in two spots on your neck and a shock of pain radiated out from the area, half a tiny strangled scream escaping your mouth... the other half cutting out into a wheezed breath when the pain immediately dissipated, replaced with...

... Warmth. 

It flooded through your body, like you’d been laid in a pleasant hot bath. From the very centre of your chest to the tips of your frozen fingers and toes, heat and a faint tingling sensation wrapped you up... it took ahold of the fear in your mind and melted it like sun on a frozen waterfall until it all just...

... Washed away.

... Your eyes closed ... This feels nice... 

The fuzzy, warm tingling spread through your head... the world started to blur a little...

.... blur a lot...

...

You fell asleep very quickly. So quickly that you fell backwards into waiting skeletal arms... so quickly you missed the soft, emotional whisper of your captor.

“finally...”

---

...

... You could... hear slow scuttling. Something large and many-legged moving cautiously across a floor. The sound woke you up, gradually, pulling you out of pleasant unconsciousness... what a strange sound...

...

You were so comfy. So comfy, so warm... you didn’t want to move an inch from whatever you were wrapped in. Snuggled in, safe... you wiggled your toes and fingers to locate them, turning your head slightly in order to blearily open your eyes and look upward.

...

The ceiling looked... odd. You weren’t sure if it was just your eyes adjusting but it looked... soft? Reflective? That wasn’t your ceiling at all... you squinted, making a little halfhearted ‘huh’ sound, still trying to figure out if you had reason to be confused or not.

... When you turned your head to the side, the first thing you noticed was that your neck hurt. But not in a stinging way- it hurt in a more ‘feel asleep weird and got a crick in it’ way. Or a ‘exercised for the first time in a while yesterday, and now you’re feeling the aftermath’ way. An ache, akin to a bruise. 

The second thing you noticed was that your nose wasn’t met with open space. It was met with a smooth, somewhat squishy flat surface. 

You blinked in confusion- it felt like... well, felt. The textile material; soft to the touch. You didn’t understand where you were at all and you shuffled, moving as best you could, grabbing onto the edges of the material to pull yourself upward enough to sit without sliding back down again and as you did it felt like there was nothing under whatever you were in.

... Your bed also... swung...? It definitely threw you for a loop until you sat up properly and your foggy head connected the dots of what it was feeling and seeing.

... It was a hammock.

You’d been laying in a big, white hammock that was affixed to the ceiling at two points. Your legs were completely covered in blankets, there were so many that some were spilling over the edge and threatening to fall out onto the floor... you’d really been buried in there, almost... tucked in.

...

You turned to look around at the rest of the room. It was... a cave? A pretty decently sized one, with rounded walls and a slightly sloping floor. Whoever owned the cave seemed to be very fond of blankets because the entire floor was covered in them- of seemingly every shape and size, quality and thickness and colour, turning the ground into one giant soft carpet of patterns.

...

Oh. And every inch of visible floor, wall and ceiling was covered in webbing.

That was the mystery material the hammock was made of- highly compressed webs. That’s why the walls and ceiling were white and had a strange soft rainbow-ish quality to them; the silvery strands reflected the light and created a misted mirror-like sheen across them. There was only one creature that made a den like this; a skider. You were in the middle of it.

... He was there, in the centre of the room. You hadn’t noticed at first... but you did now, frozen like a rabbit. The skider himself, his back to you.

... A skeleton from head to pelvis, with the legs and abdomen of a giant spider, he spared no expense in the terror department. He was likely the largest skider you’d ever seen, a towering creature, a beast. His spider body was ever-so-slightly furry and a dulled red and black... two of the most worrying colours to see on a predator.

... But your eyes were drawn to two things. Firstly, the giant crack in his skull... a gaping hole, a void, it looked wrong and painful. But mostly...

... The things embedded in him.

All across the expanse of his huge spider abdomen, almost half a dozen weapons were firmly lodged into the exoskeleton. Two daggers were in so deeply you could only see their severely rusted handles, a sword with less than half the blade visible, and the fletching of a crossbow bolt... and that was only what you could see from where you were sat, a distance from him. He was truly monstrous, a thing of nightmares...

...

So why didn’t you feel scared?

... He turned, looking at you, giving you a clearer view of the chasm in his skull. You saw the curved venom fangs on his heavy jaw, you saw his single red orb eyelight and the way it constricted when it landed on you... You saw the way he moved toward you, those giant legs crossing the distance between you in a matter of moments, the jittery arachnid-like manner he moved that should’ve caused a horrifying amount of panic in you...

...

But you felt... no fear? Even when he was so close his massive hands could reach out and touch you, one of them curling around the edge of the hammock, palms bigger than your face. Even when you had to crane your neck up to look him in the eye.

...

“h-hello.” He said, breath and voice soft, with a gentle quiver to it. Your lips parted a little, his deep whispery voice... triggering a memory of the night before.

... You were looking up at him incredulously. You had no idea what to say. ... Should you ask who he was? Ask why he was keeping you alive? Ask why he bit you last night? Why he’s taken you into his den and piled you under blankets in a hammock when you’d clearly be a perfectly sized snack for him? Why he was talking to you gently, why he was hunching a little to be closer to your eye level and appear less threatening?

 “... You... bit me.” You spoke like a child reciting a math question they didn’t understand.

... His huge iris shifted to the side a little. Was he... ashamed, or something?  

“... yeah. s... sorry...”

... That wasn’t a word you ever expected to hear from a monster like him. Especially when said with such... gentleness? Such genuinity? You were so confused.

“... Does skider venom stop you from feeling afraid?” You asked, searching for an explanation.

“yes.”

“... Oh. When does it wear off?”

... One of his massive hands reached out... you felt a twinge of hesitancy, but you didn’t flinch, nor move away from him. It felt like someone you’d known for a long time was just leaning in to touch your face. He ran two giant sharp phalanges from your crown to just behind your ear, brushing away hair and leaving a trail of prickling goosebumps... The other hand moved down to the blankets over your legs and pulled them up a little, tucking them better.

... Your cheeks... prickled. 

“... wore off... hours ago.” He said, softly. 

What. “... Huh?”

“... you’re not scared, because... soulmates." His eyelight was shaking at the edges. "we’re... we’re soulmates.”

...

Soulmates with a Skider?

... Despite having just tucked you in, your slack-jawed expression that apparently perfectly conveyed the swirling confusion and utter empty-headed shock you felt seemed to awaken something in him because he leant in, so close you let out a tiny gasp because your cheek was inches from his collarbone and he was surrounding you... giant arms tucked under you and lifted you clear out of the hammock, blankets and all. You instinctively gripped onto his ribcage, making another little noise that was probably an attempt at verbalisation... he was carrying you like a princess and he smelt so nice, like deep forests and sturdy old cottages that withstood stormy winds no matter what...

“i know... it’s a lot...” His cheekbones were tinged with blue when you looked up at him, the proximity of his fanged smile to your face eliciting an entirely different, much more fluttery response in your chest to what you expected. “a lot for me too. o... overwhelming. just... relax. let it sink in. i’ll... get us... some food.”

... All you could say was a soft, floored ‘ok’ as he carried you away.

Chapter Text

... You gazed up, into the dappled light of the gently bowed tree, your feet hanging lazily in a small clear pool. Technically, right now, you had somewhere you were supposed to be- something very important.

... You sighed, just enjoying the cooling sensation of the crystalline water on your bare toes and the knowledge that you were escaping work. The soft shade of the leaves, the riverstone under your palms and thighs warm from a long day of soaking the sun, the occasional tickle of a wandering insect stumbling onto your skin before fumbling back into the growth... all just right.

Your little pool. Your little nowhere. A spring in the forest, unclaimed and unblessed, and the perfect place to take a nap.

... There was a celebration going on, far from there. A feast to commemorate the coming-of-age of one of the sons of a minor deity; somebody with a vague prophecy hanging over them. You had no doubt that the late warm afternoon in a favoured king’s sprawling garden would be filled with rustling white tablecloths, clattering goblets and plates, great overflowing trays of expensive food and wine. It would be loud, with conversations ricocheting from one end of the giant table to the other, a discussion occasionally building and bursting with laughter and spilled drinks. Treats from all corners of heaven and Earth decorating every square inch.

... Perhaps you would’ve gone, if things were different. But if you did go you wouldn’t be attending as a guest- hah. A demigoddess of your standing could barely be considered a minor deity, let alone be offered a seat at the table... so instead you’d have been providing service to the Gods and royals present. Tortured into your prettiest dress, glared at by your fussing mother- a beautiful nymph obsessed only with increasing her position among the other Gods. 

It wasn’t like you were her only child; she’d had three children alone with the nameless mortal man who had been your father. Nymphs had children like water springing from a fountain; you’d never been more than a bargaining chip to her, and she no doubt had five or six of her other pawns at the party right now skittering around her like headless snakes. Maybe you would’ve been bestowed with the grace of refilling the wine... rushing to the half-empty goblets of any pompous nobody who raised it high enough for you to see.

... That was the great irony of your situation. Something you’d understood very quickly that your mother just couldn’t seem to grasp. If you weren’t another God or a heavily favoured hero, the great deities at the table would sooner notice the ground they stepped on before they noticed you.

Nobody would waste time turning their eye to a demigoddess, one of thousands upon thousands nymph offspring. So instead... you spent your valuable time doing something nice. Relaxing, far from the kerfuffle, under the gentle sun. Safe in your own company. And if your mother asked, you’d tell her you were serving the whole time, and she wouldn’t ask you again because she wouldn’t know either way.

...

You loved the sound of the woods. You closed your eyes, just basking...

...

A strange feeling crept over you. 

It was like... a shadow had cast across your body? Your skin prickled with goosebumps, the water at your feet felt a touch colder and stiller, the stone under your hands seemed to slowly bleed out its warmth. You opened your eyes again, initially just thinking the sun had gone behind a cloud... but you found yourself looking at a sun that was still high in the brilliant blue sky and still beaming down on you with all its power.

There was no wind. You glanced around at the trees... why had all the birds stopped singing?

...

Tingles up your spine. You... looked over your shoulder. 

...

You were staring up into a skeletal face. Inches from your own, a wide sharpened grin and deep, void eyesockets.

...

You shrieked, a very un-elegant and shockingly mortal sound, jumping forward off the rock and falling straight into the icy waters of the pool. Although it was a relatively shallow spring that only came up to your chest it still felt deep and the sensation of being submerged in cold water just added another layer of shock and confusion- you barely held on to your own footing, avoiding slipping by a hair’s breadth. You spun around, ready to face your intruder despite the fact that you were now wet and bedraggled, ready to see if you were going to need to fight or flee.

...

... The moment your eyes met the two piercing white lights staring at you from the shade of the tree, you felt every hair on your body stand on end. The coldness you’d felt earlier was intensifying... the sun, despite its proud position in the clear blue sky, seemed unwilling to touch something he was claiming with his eyes. Night had fallen over you just like that.

... 

... He was sitting just behind where you’d been moments ago, fully in the shade of the bowed tree. Ebony robes speckled with light that was filtering from between the leaves. He was lounging, as if he was the one whose relaxation had been interrupted... a skeleton, huge, at least a head and a half taller than you, looking at him brought a horrible sensation like a giant void had opened under your feet and you were staring dead downward into it.

Eyelights that had seen empires crumble. Eyelights that had made empires crumble. Connecting directly with your eyes, cutting through your flesh to your very Soul. Inky darkness seemed to seep out of him, blotting across your vision, casting strange warped shadows over the tree and grass and stones. In an instant, you weren’t a demigoddess anymore- you were a mouse, under the shade cast by a diving eagle.

...

He just sat there.

Smiling.

...

He didn’t shimmer, like the rest of the great First Gods. Draped with midnight black, he stood out from their pastels and golds like a moth among butterflies. He didn’t talk like them, he didn’t move like them, he didn’t jest like them... his demeanour was the slowest and calmest of all and yet even the testiest of the deities seemed to just know to keep their distance from him.  

...

Sans. The God of Death. Sat on the grass of your little grove, a thick clawed phalange playing with a small purple flower.

His smile was low, unreadable. There wasn’t an inch of emotion betrayed by any part of his expression- he just gazed right at you. The attention of a higher God was a powerful thing... but oh, it was a terrible thing too. Even your vying mother was only clamouring for the interest of someone a few rungs above her on the proverbial ladder, you were certain that if she caught the eye of a First God for even a second she’d be so terrified of potential consequences she’d transform herself into a tree forever.

...

You understood her, in that moment. Even just the act of making eye contact with him... if you’d had enough divine blood to transform, you would’ve vanished under the surface of the water, wrapping in on yourself until you were just a sprig of freshwater seaweed.

...

“come now. i can’t be that bad, can i?”

... 

His voice wasn’t what you expected it to be.

You’d definitely anticipated something as terrible as his very presence. Perhaps a booming volcano, a merciless chasm tearing open, or... maybe even just thin and sharp, like a cold blade on a whetstone. Something that would strike an unparalleled, unshakeable terror into you that you’d be hard-pressed to forget.

... Instead, it was... low. Satin soft. Deep, like the midnight sky, just as dark. And... unmistakably gentle. Kindly? Like he was talking to a dear friend, trying to beckon you closer.

... Even so, you felt like a statue. The world’s smallest statue. Arms around yourself in fear, soaked through, your wet clothes sticking unpleasantly. Plagued with the idea that anything you do might aggravate him somehow and bring down centuries worth of curses on anyone in your bloodline. All the things you could say, all the disrespectful ways you could move, they tormented you. Dance, ant, or the monster might crush you underfoot.

“... i’m not offended by your fear, little bird.” His eyelights didn’t leave you. “i’m well aware of the effect i have.” 

...

He wasn’t... offended? That’s good. It wasn’t enough to calm you though. You allowed yourself to swallow, to take a single breath... you hadn’t started quivering yet, but you were certain you would soon.

“you know the celebration is happening today, don’t you?” His smile remained friendly. His voice was almost musical- someone who knew their power completely, and had no need for posturing.

...

You nodded.

He seemed to lean closer to you, as if interested. A little glint on his collarbone... a thin silver chain around his neck, catching the sun. His home in the underworld was the land of riches, after all- he not only held dominion over the souls of the dead, but the precious gems and metals that men would give or take lives for.

“... and you’re all the way out here... why?”

...

... A direct question. Staying silent wasn’t an option. 

“... N-nobody...” Your voice sounded so high compared to his. So sharp, so uneven, a child blowing a flute for the first time- it felt almost embarrassing. “... no one would notice if I was there or not anyway.”

... He chuckled. The sound thrummed through you, masterful strums on a harp, it sent an entirely new type of shiver over your skin. You weren’t sure why it made him laugh... he had an expression like you’d just made a joke only he understood, void eyesockets lifting at the corners a little.

“heh... is that so...?”

...

You really didn’t know if the playful softness to his voice was because he was toying with you like a friend does with a friend, or a cat does with a mouse. He just... had such an overwhelming aura...

“come here.” He said, with that beckoning musicality. “sit with me.”

...

You didn’t want to sit with him. That should’ve been obvious.

If he’d asked you in the first second you saw him, your gut would’ve screamed an instinctive no loud enough to make you stagger back at that demand. But... after hearing his voice, after seeing that smile edge up at the corners, after listening to his chuckle... he was still frightening, yes, but now it was in the way calm water was frightening. Deep, dark, calm on the surface with untold currents and monsters hidden underneath...

... And yet strangely and terrifyingly tempting.

...

Besides. It wasn’t like you could say no. He was being gentle with you in the moment, of course, but you had no idea how long the gentleness would last if you didn’t do as he wanted- his kind were fickle, to say the least.

You... slowly moved through the water, over to the edge of the pool. You had to take your eyes off him for a moment to pull yourself up onto the rock- somehow he was even more scary when you couldn’t see him. Even for a split second. You thought your arms would fail you and you’d fall right back in, but... surprisingly, they held, and you moved cleanly onto the cold rocks. Already, you could feel your skin prickling...

...

Except that wasn’t good enough for him. He tilted his head a little- an impossibly smooth motion.

“closer.” 

... You swallowed, starting to shake in fear... but obeyed, moving from stone to soft grass until you came to sit beside him. You were certain you were going to pass out at some point, dizzy panic was heaving at its restraints in your mind. You were so close to him now that if he reached out his arm he could graze your face with his skeletal fingers. I’m sitting next to him. He was so big... a vast expanse of a chest, the hand still casually playing with a flower large enough to swallow your hand and wrist whole. Those strange shadows he cast... you could see the way the light refused to behave around him, you could see how smooth his bones were, his flawless midnight robes, how you hadn’t imagined the sharp teeth at your shoulder because although they gave the illusion from far away that they were flat and straight he had pointed incisors barely just hidden at the corners of his mouth.

When he spoke, you could feel it in your Soul, his otherworldly aura making it hard to think. 

“oh, don’t look at me like that. i won’t bite.”

Your line of sight moved from his mouth to his sockets. “Only something that bites would say that.”

...

As soon as you realised what’d come out of your mouth, you slapped your hand over it, positive you’d just doomed any children you may choose to have in the future- but all that happened was his pinprick eyelights widened a tiny bit... and he laughed. The first amusement-like noise he made had been a chuckle, but this one was a genuine laugh... a sound you never would’ve associated with a being like him. You hadn’t even thought he was capable of laughter.

“i-i’m sorry, flower,” His voice was brimming with mirth. “but i refuse to believe they wouldn’t want you at the celebration.” 

... Why were you going pink. Why were you going pink. Your eyes moved from his face to his chest, trying to ignore the prickling in your cheeks and ears... and the undeniable swell of pride inside you that was blossoming under the fear.

You made Sans laugh. The God of darkness and death- you made him laugh.

“I wouldn’t dare say anything at a feast.” You mumbled. “I’m not important enough for a slip up like that to go unpunished...” 

“slip up?”

...

He could probably see the hesitation written all over your face. Someone like him, who’d seen a thousand generations of faces, would most likely be able to read them like tapestries. The thread-creases of your brow, the fraction of a downward seam on your lips, to him it wove a story clear as day.

“... nobody is listening in on us.” He’d taken a strangely comforting tone. You didn’t see his hand creep closer to yours on the grass... “you’re with me.”

...

Of course. You pursed your lips, but let your shoulders unwind a little; the Gods were nosy and listened in on conversations, yes, but no one would dare attempt to eavesdrop on him.

“... Well... one wrong comment, and I’m doomed. I don’t want to get turned into various pieces of flora or fauna because I made a joke they took the wrong way.”

Another chuckle. It seemed like, the more you made comments that got a good reaction from him, the more you relaxed. The more you forgot that the man sat beside you wasn’t a man at all- and that at any point, he could reach into your chest and tear your still-beating Soul out. 

“... Uhm...” you wound a piece of grass around your finger. You were terrified and it was making you jittery... any chance you got at feeling like this was a normal interaction, you would take. “...You’re... you’re very important. Nobody would miss me at the feast, but everyone would miss you. Why aren’t you there either?”

“... ah...” His eyelights finally broke from you, glancing away as if looking directly at the feast. Perhaps he was? You had no idea what he could see. “they’re glad to be without me. nobody wants the harbinger of death making himself comfortable at their party.”

... Oh. That’s true- you glanced away too, focusing on the still surface of the spring. You could almost hear the terrified whispers of mortals and immortals alike... Why is he here? Is it an omen? A threat? Did we do something wrong?  

A moth among butterflies...

“... well. in the end, i’m glad we’re both not there... i get you all to myself.”

...

... What? Did you hear that right?

You turned to look at him again, and found yourself having to look up to him even more than before. He had moved nearer, shifting his weight a little onto his hand so he could lean closer to you...

“H-huh?” Was all you could so eloquently get out. 

He was looming over you, grin only sharpening at your reaction. Those piercing eyelights more and more resembled stars in the night sky as he drew nearer... the shred of confidence you’d found for yourself fluttered away in the wind.

“... i didn’t find you alone by accident.” His voice had gotten even softer, even darker, murmuring like he was telling a lover a secret. “unless... you think i’d spend my time with just anyone...”

When his gaze flickered downward an inch, focusing on your lips, an unmistakable intent lit behind his eyelights. The warmth seemed to spread throughout his expression, both softening and intensifying his face... 

The little cue of desire was like the cipher you needed to immediately decode the mysterious language of his body. Suddenly, you became acutely aware of the shortening space between you, the way he was pushing himself closer to you, how his huge skeletal hand had crept so close to your own on the grass that he could reach out a finger and intertwine it with yours. How even the way he cast a shadow on you felt as if it were a declaration of ownership. How his insistence on you sitting with him had all but pinned you between himself and the tree... how he’d patiently coaxed you into a more relaxed mindset with innocent questions and positive reactions to everything you said.

“... there we are.” A gaze as intense as white-hot coals. An inhumanly smooth and flawless voice. “i think you understand now, little bird.”

You couldn’t think.

... Were you afraid? Yes, absolutely... but not in the way you expected. Not like how you were when you initially saw him under the tree, cloaked in darkness. You used your hands’ position on the grass to pull yourself back a few precious inches because you needed room to breathe but he just grinned wider and advanced even more, until you could feel his power literally moving across your skin... shadows drifting over you like wisp-thin veils. He smelled like silver, like forests in cold moonlight. 

... His eyelights moved to your neck, for a moment. They visibly sharpened... and in that moment all you could think about was how his teeth seemed to part a fraction, as if he wanted to bite you, and whether or not he intended to kill you right there. 

... But he seemingly forced himself to draw his gaze back to your eyes again. 

...

He lifted a huge hand, and gently traced your cheek. A smooth, warm knuckle, gliding over the skin, taking its sweet time before breaking contact... you couldn’t tear your eyes from his eyelights. He’d trapped your body and Soul with just his gaze and closeness. He’d trapped every single one of your senses, disorienting you... in fact, the only thing you could think about that wasn’t him was the sound of your own heartbeat in your ears.

...

Something tickled your collarbone.

It was enough to break the spell- you took a tiny breath in through your nose, and tore your eyes from his eyelights, looking down... just in time to catch his giant hand retreating. 

...

A necklace. One you weren’t wearing before- a silver one, like his. Thin, unimaginably smooth and flawless, winking in the sunlight... every single tiny link in the delicate chain was completely perfect, immaculate as a mirror. It may have been a simple chain but it was absolutely beautiful and no doubt crafted by the most experienced hands in existence from the finest metals possible.

You reached up and touched it. It was warm. 

“... What...” 

“consider it a gift.” He purred, breath warm too as it danced over your face and neck. His voice was wrapping around your mind like black silk. “so everyone knows you’re mine.”

The possessiveness with which he spoke that word was so palpable, you felt your chest squeeze.

‘Mine? ’

... There must’ve been a lot of shock in the way you looked at him, because he pulled back a bit to chuckle to himself. It gave you enough space to finally feel like you could breathe again, head pounding in its effort to connect thoughts.

“as much as i wish i could stay here longer with you, my love... i’ve got some matters to attend to.” He reached up again and brushed some hair from your shoulder, lingering just next to your collarbone. “until we see each other again, this will make sure nobody gets any... ideas.”

... Initially, you had no words. No thoughts, either. You’d gone completely blank in your shock and fear and confusion. But something welled up inside you... something broke free from whatever spell he’d somehow put on you, blurting out like you were spitting rancid food out of your mouth.

“Wh-what happens to me if I don’t want to be yours?”

...

An unmistakable widening, in his eyelights.

...

... His phalanges retreated from your collarbone. They moved down, to the soft damp grass, and picked up one of your hands. Seeing your small, fleshy palm held so easily and completely in his giant, skeletal, clawed hand was a vivid reminder of how tiny you were to him. He held it so gently, like it was only glass...

... He brought it up. And without breaking eye contact... he pressed his teeth to it, kissing it softly, holding the kiss a heartbeat and a half too long for it to be anything other than a gesture of complete devotion.

“... i’m not going to hurt you.” He said, so tenderly it genuinely caught you off guard. “if that’s what you think.” 

...

“however...” His eyelights sharpened again, as did his smile. "... just because i’m patient doesn't mean i’m ever going to let you go. you'll be mine, eventually. even if i have to wait a thousand years.”

He... winked at you. He let your hand go, placing it back on the grass, as the darkness around him started to shift, ripple...

“this was so much fun.” His eyelights completely disappeared. “i’ll see you soon, love.”

... As if someone had shone a torch directly over a shadow, he vanished. 

...

It made you jump- one moment he was taking up so much of your personal space that you could barely process anything else, and the next it was if he’d never been there. All that was left was the imprint in the grass, the image of his smile in your mind, and the faint smell of silver and night.

...

You finally inhaled, deeply and completely, breaking out of your petrification. The warmth started to return to the world around you; the sun’s rays, the twittering birds, the endless blue sky.

... You suddenly began shaking like a leaf. You clasped your own arms, drawing your legs in close to you, what just happened to me?

...

The necklace. You brought your quivering fingers up and touched the silver on your collarbone- it was still there, that whole thing hadn’t been some bewitching nightmare. You reached up, to the back of your neck, trying to find some kind of clasp so you could take it off and inspect it more closely... 

... Except your fingers just found more chain. All the way around, it was the same smooth, faultless necklace.

...

You couldn’t take it off.

Chapter Text

You could feel him. Right behind you. The cold was creeping over you again, like before, prickling your skin, you didn’t even need to see him to feel the pressing dark aura. Sans’ mere presence close by was like being dropped in the middle of the open ocean, sinking into its infinite crushing depths as the light slipped further and further away.

... A huge skeletal hand on your shoulder. Holding gently, curling around the limb, totally encircling it with ease- you had to try very hard not to flinch, pursing your lips together and resisting the urge to attempt to shake him off. Thick, smooth phalanges... the carefulness and warmth of the touch couldn’t disguise the possessiveness. Nothing could.

...

... There was a sea God before you. A young (by deity standards) one, not powerful enough for you to need to know his name to avoid offence... his body betrayed a prideful immortal; his jawline was far too sharp, his shoulders too full, his hands too strong without any signs of ever actually having worked. Definitely the son of some kind of ocean patron- dark eyes, thick and tangled hair flecked with ice, skin that shimmered in the torchlight with the very faint pattern of a fish’s scales. He smelled of salt-soaked nets and rough waters, his power felt...

... Well. Compared to Sans’ entire ocean, this was water trickling down the rim of a tipped cup. 

Before Sans had arrived, he’d been carrying himself like he was a hero of ages. Chest and chin jutting out ridiculously, body lean and aggressive like a warship. Now, he was dropped on one knee, fixing his gaze on the floor in terror and shrinking in on himself so much that you were certain the only reason he hadn’t transformed into an animal and fled was because he feared digging his grave even deeper. All eyes in the room were on him, glued to the fool who’d offended the God of Death... you weren’t sure if they were staring at him because they were morbidly curious as to his fate, or if they were just too frightened to look at Sans looming behind you.

... You just wanted to go somewhere your mother wouldn’t find you, or see your necklace. This little party-gathering of minor forest and water Gods in a well-maintained temple had seemed like the perfect place to find a nice torchlit corner to hide in. You were trying so, so hard not to cry; the moment the ocean God had approached you, you knew he didn’t understand what the necklace meant.

The moment his hand had grabbed your arm, his smile overflowing with bravado, you knew there was little you could do.

As soon as he’d gripped you, opening his mouth to let out something that was most likely arrogant, every single torch in the room exploded into a burst of ice-white flame, sending various yelps and squeals and shocked noises through the previously warm crowd. The white lights were only there for a moment, and quickly reduced down... but instead of returning to bright inviting orange, they became barely-there blue auras that gave the whole chamber an eerie, cobalt glow.

“I-I’m... I am so sorry...” The ocean God’s shoulders were trembling like a newborn horse. “Please, m’lord, I beg your pardon, I didn’t know that...”

“leave.”

...

Somehow, the cold emotionlessness in his voice made it far more terrifying than any rage ever could’ve been.

The God didn’t need to be told twice- he brought himself to his feet, and ran out of the room as fast as his quivering legs would carry him, past guests who gave him as wide a berth as possible. You thought they’d turn to look at you, faces wide and pale like moons, but the crowd was a lot smarter than you gave them credit for; they immediately turned their backs, leaning into one another for safety, sheep clustering away from the wolf.

...

The torches returned to normal, the light returning to the chamber. 

...

In an instant, you were no longer in the party. The air cleared and widened, chilling noticeably- darkening, too, so much so that your eyes momentarily strained. It was like you’d blinked without blinking, and in that moment the entire scenery around you had changed... from a bright, bustling party full of Gods and Goddesses, to what looked like...

... The centre of a forest. At the dead of night.

The sky was sprawling and full of stars, moonless and endless. Silent dark trees on all sides, surrounding you, cool damp grass underfoot; were you alone you would’ve feared what was out there, but you knew that the thing you should fear the most was standing behind you- still holding your arm.

...

You pulled away from him, momentarily surprised to find that he actually let go... your shoulder easily slipped out of his grip as you moved a pace forward to give yourself some breathing room before you turned to face him. 

...

... Once you looked at him, the trees didn’t seem so dark. The blackness that radiated out from him was a hundred times deeper than the moonlit forest... a void, the purest a shadow can be, even darker than the night sky. The only part of him that cut through it all was those piercing eyelights.

... You forgot how big he was. How much he loomed over you; you took a second step back, trying to get enough personal space to look at his face without craning your neck. There must be something about being a First God that just... made you tower over the people around you in a way that was impossible to describe. He came into existence when the world was giants, chaos, nothingness and everything- that sort of power leaves a mark... and leaves people like you feeling like you’re about to be swallowed whole.

...

He was staring at you. That same untranslatable, unfathomable stare and smile. You felt another shiver ripple over you; you held on to your upper arms.

... No animals. No crickets in the night, no murmuring of animal hides drawing against leaves and undergrowth, no singing owls. Despite your straining ears, there was nothing.

... This silence... did it follow him everywhere? Had he ever seen a world that wasn’t hiding from him? 

...

“still frightened of me?” He asked, voice just as satin-soft as you remembered. At least you were a little more prepared for it this time.

... He did still scare you. Of course he did, you weren’t a fool. So you answered, honestly, with a wobbly, “S-somewhat.” 

The necklace felt colder against your collarbone.

... It was strange to think of, but... if you were being completely transparent with yourself, you preferred being here than trapped in that party with the aggressive advances of that oceanic idiot. You feared both Gods, and what they could do to you, but you feared Sans in a way that was... very different. 

You recalled the first time you’d met him, when you compared him to a body of calm water. Cold, impossibly deep, the surface is mirror-flat but you have no idea what lurks below... how far down it goes, what currents boil with the desire to tear you apart, what monsters were resting just out of sight. Alternatively, the sea God had been like a shallow river of frothing white rapids that would push and shove and dash you on rocks until you were limp and bleeding.

... You preferred the calm water. You preferred Sans’ gentle claws to the tight fingers of your attacker.

...

What an odd thought. You’d rather stand alone in a dark forest with the personification of Death than in a crowded room with an aggressive minor deity.

...

Sans didn’t speak. He was still smiling at you, like he knew what you were thinking. 

... You searched around with your gaze, fidgeting under his intense eyelights, a new question cropping up in your head. Why... why had he taken you out into the middle of the woods? Alone together, again? You almost didn’t want to ask. You didn’t want to know. He’d promised last time that he’d never hurt you... but could you trust him?

...

"It's night.” Well observed. Starting conversations was hard enough as it is, it didn’t help that you were doing so with him of all people. “Are... are you more powerful at night?" 

His smile widened a fraction at the corners. He spoke with a hint of amusement, like you’d asked a question that was so obviously wrong, but with a gentleness that stopped it from sounding patronising. "... no, little bird. that'd suggest i get less powerful in the day."

...

“Y-yeah...” People didn’t die less because the sun was rising. “I suppose so.”

...

How did those bright eyelights feel so... dark? You were getting more and more uncomfortable. Why did he bring me here?

...

He sighed.

“well. we might as well get going.”

“... U-uh... Get going?” Was he going to bring you back home? You didn’t want to see your mother. Not yet. And you certainly didn’t want her to see Sans with you...

“i’m taking you back to the underworld with me.”

...

...

Your heart stopped.

You turned to him, completely, your eyes widening. Nothing on his face suggested he wasn’t serious. Nothing in his low, calm smile could be translated as a friendly jest, a misplaced joke.

...

What.

...

“W-wh...”

“the idea of anyone touching you enrages me.” He said it so calmly, so normally, as if he were stating a fact as indisputable as the rising and setting of the sun. “and it seems like my mark isn’t enough to deter all the fools. i’m taking you somewhere no one will interfere.”

...

You were retracting your previous statement of fearing him less than the ocean God. You were beginning to reel; you didn’t want to go to the Underworld. You didn’t want to go to the Underworld. You’d heard stories of the worst kind since the moment you came into the world- legends of lakes of fire, endless snowy wastes, damp gloomy caverns that the sun had never seen, halls that echoed with the wails of the eternally bound.

“B-but...” A metaphorical void of numb fear had opened up beneath you. Excuse- you needed an excuse. “My mother-”

“has already agreed.” You couldn’t tell if his gaze was kind or mocking, you were a fish out of depth, staring into the jaws of a pike. “she ‘gifted’ you to me.” 

...

... A sudden flare of betrayal, a hot spark amongst the icy fear. Even when you tried to hide it from her she knew, she always knew- you could practically see your mother’s face in your mind’s eye. Her smile, her bright cheeks, delicate hands tracing over her waist-length braid as she gives you the barest of side glances. Her voice was already ringing in your head, as sweet as fresh water from a mountain spring- It’s for the good of the family dear. Think of the power and status that’ll come with being the desire of the Lord of Dust. Besides... if we’re being honest, nobody else is ever going to want you, are they...?

You staggered back. The distance didn’t make you feel any more safe. Sans’ sockets narrowed, a fraction, and all it did was convince you that you needed to get even further away before the shadows attacked. He sighed, and...

... Lifted his hand... holding it out to you.

“come on, now.” Your gaze flashed between his outstretched claws and his face. A pleading expression? It couldn’t be, First Gods didn’t plead. “you’re smart. i like that about you. we both know how this is going to end... it doesn’t have to happen this way.”

‘this way.’ You didn’t like what he was implying. You didn’t take his hand. You were confused, scared, overwhelmed... rooted to the ground as the stars stared down at you. They were probably on his side.

“... you’re really going to try to run from me?”

Try.

...

At first, you were convinced that his face was only darkening in the proverbial sense... that your terror was exaggerating or overplaying the changes in his expression. But you soon realised the shadows around the top of his skull cast by his hood were genuinely deepening- the darkness around him was thickening into a smog. His smile was widening, creeping further across his face millimeter by millimeter... but it was a smile totally devoid of the previous warmth he’d afforded you.

“alright then.” He chuckled. One eyelight extinguished, the other was beginning to gain a bluish hue. “this should be quick.”

...

He advanced.

You spun around, as fast as you could, your only conscious thought that you had to keep as much distance between him and yourself as possible, and that there was the slimmest of chances that you’d be able to escape him by getting into the trees. But the moment you turned around, he was behind you, inches away, close enough to make you cry out in shock- last time you were this close to him his power moving over you had felt like wisp-thin veils but now it was suffocating, a void energy that made it hard to even breathe. 

Sans grabbed your wrist.

...

You didn’t know what it was. Perhaps it was the fear, more intense than you’d never felt before, like falling from a great mountain and missing the ledge. Looking up into the dark face of a possessive Death God, looking into that single blue eyelight... and realising that not only did you have nowhere to go but by trying to run you’d most likely only aggravated him. His tight claws on your tiny wrist, his unforgiving expression...

It felt like lightning passed through the centre of your body. A buzzing feeling spread outwards and you could sense every corner of you that it touched, the tips of your toes and your fingers, your nose, your ears, your lips. All you could think was that you wanted to flee, you wanted to get away from him...

... For a split second, you saw his expression shift into something that looked like actual surprise. It seemed foreign on his face; an emotion that hadn’t existed there in a long, long time.

You couldn’t even describe it in a way that made sense. The transformation was as natural as breathing, as stepping forward, like you’d been doing it every day of your life... the ball just rolled without you even needing to push it. Your arm slipped out of his grip, your feet came up off the ground, and in less than the blink of an eye you were a tiny bird, shooting up into the sky.

Wind rushed over you, your miniscule body flung up and lifted with unimaginable ease, the air passing under you all but throwing you toward the stars; you tried to voice your shock but when you opened your mouth to yelp or make some kind of noise all that emerged were several sharp and somewhat panicked cheep!- like sounds. You wanted to scream aloud, but could only think , staring out at the world through bead-like black eyes as the tops of midnight-coloured trees raced by underneath you.

You thought you couldn’t transform. You thought you were incapable of it. But... but here you were, a bird. The transformation may have been easy, but flying certainly was not- your streamlined little body was held back by the fact that you were moving like a maniac, beating your wings unevenly, rocking from side to side, tiny thin talons kicking out frantically as you tried to process what you’d just done while still on the move. You weren’t flying like a bird, you were flying like a person stuck in a bird, you needed time to figure out how the parts of your new body even worked, oh stars you were moving so fast...

... But you didn’t get any time to get the hang of it. 

All you heard was a beating of wings, all you saw was a dark blur, but those were all you needed. You could tell in that split second that he was coming for you- despite being unfamiliar to your brain when your passerine instincts screamed you knew what to do, and in a split second you pulled up and curled off to the side, darting and narrowly avoiding the tip of a giant black wing. 

The move you’d done had caused you to fly in a wide arch. And, while in that arch, you had a chance to see Sans fully. 

... A raven. He’d become a huge, ebony raven, a shadow-cloaked monster that was faster and larger than you’d ever be, one wing bigger than your whole wingspan. As he glided the wind rippled over his body... moonlight glanced off his feathers, his powerful beak and his dark dark eyes that were staring right at you.

There was no doubt in your mind as you briefly circled one another that he could outspeed you- you didn’t know what type of bird you’d become, but you didn’t need to know about birds to be sure that he’d be faster. He flew with a terrifying grace and you were certain that even if you magically figured out how to fly like a swallow, he’d catch you in the open air.

...

In the open air.

No sooner had the realisation hit you than your prey-based new mind tucked in your wings and dove your toward the trees, a tiny feathery bullet falling into the forest. Once you pierced the canopy you knew you’d entered a world he couldn’t follow- a jungle, a safe haven, the leaves were almost the size of you and the branches formed a thorny protective net; a cage his massive body couldn’t follow you into.

... After some confused wing flapping, you managed to actually land on a thick bow. But it felt too exposed- adrenaline was still pumping through you and you hopped into the foliage, more comfortable on your little feet than with your wings. You pushed through foliage until you came to a small twig in a heavily leaved area close to the trunk... you latched on, gripping on to it as hard as you could with your small claws and peering out from between the greenery. You were stood in a rather ungainly manner, your wings still half-open like a surprised chicken (you couldn’t figure out how to close them) and your neck feathers ruffled in all different directions. 

The feeling of your heart in your chest was new- it wasn’t just pounding, it was going so fast it felt akin to vibration. You were letting out little soft whistles every time you breathed, clumsy and small, and you just couldn’t stop glancing everywhere with your shiny bead eyes. Every little movement frightened you.

...

Quiet.

... It was hard to think. Everything was strange in this new world in the trees- what little moonlight that seeped through the crowns of the oaks glowed and rippled as if beaming through water. Meandering insects smaller than a grain of sand flashed like beacons, old seed husks rattled, the trees breathed.

...

It wasn’t just quiet- it was dead silent.

You strained to listen out for him; the flapping of great dark wings, wind whistling as he made his way overhead... but you picked up nothing at all. No rustling, not even a breath of wind. So eerily still.

...

You shivered. 

You didn’t know what it was, but something inside you gently whispered “look behind you.”

...

You looked over your shoulder, just in time to see the talons open inches from you.

By the time you’d processed what had happened, you were on the forest floor, pinned by giant claws that hooked perfectly around your tiny body. An owl stood over your struggling, squeaking body, magnificent silent wings slowly pulling in and closing... a soft sooty colour, bespeckled with star-like white spots. His deep black eyes were terrifying enough, but as he stared down at you they reflected the moonlight, a perfect disc of eerie and vacant lazuli blue glowing against his silhouetted body.

... 

He returned to his skeletal form, and you lifted from the ground with him- instead of being pinned to the musty earth by talons you were being held, gently, in his huge hand.

... Still a bird.

...

Oh no.

You tried to will yourself back into your normal body, but his phalanges remained around you, the sensation of trying to kick your way out of a sealed box began to instil a new, rawer panic into your body. You couldn’t turn back while he was holding you, could you? You tried to squirm, but all you could do was flail your tiny twig feet and let out shrill tweeting sounds that didn’t even carry a fraction of the terror you felt. No, no, no...

“... heheh.” His eyelights were fuzzy. His voice had a strange, faraway quality to it, with an amused lilt. Like he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing. “little bird...”

Let go of me, you tried to cry, but the only sound that filled the woods was continuous distressed tweeting.

“easy... easy.” He said, holding you like you were made of glass. Tight enough to stop you from twisting or wriggling free but with a gentleness so precise you knew he was thinking very, very carefully about how he handled you. “this new body will be weaker than you’re used to. it’s very easy to hurt yourself.”

... He brought up his other hand and, with a single phalange (the tip of which alone was larger than your current skull), brushed the top of your tiny head, smoothing down the feathers you’d ruffled in your fear.

... For some reason, it made your tweeting stop. You were still afraid, of course, chest rising and falling over and over, unable to look away from him even for a second... but he wasn’t even angry. There was no trace of the storm you’d glimpsed earlier; you thought that when he caught you he’d be so furious at your attempt at escape that he’d exact some terrible vengeance on you that only the mind of Death could muster... 

... Instead, his smile was low and gentle, his hold was cautious and concerned. The smog of darkness around him had lifted. 

“... i know you don’t want to come to the underworld. no one ever does.” Why was he looking at you like that? “but you’ll be okay, i promise. you’re not a bound soul, you could go if that’s what you truly want... just... give me a chance to show you that it isn’t all bad. i-it could even...”

...

“ah.” His eyelights widened a little, as if he only just realised he was talking to a bird. “this... isn’t quite fair. is it?”

... He opened his hand. 

Instantly, like an evening primrose bursting open at the first sign of starlight, a rush passed through you and you were back in your true body, almost horizontal and a few feet off the ground. He had prepared for your transformation, and as soon as you were skin and bone instead of feathers... you fell only an inch or two into his waiting arms.

... He had one tucked under your knees, and another around your back.

... 

When you blinked, eyes adjusting to the world you were used to again, your face was inches away from his. You didn’t even realise your arms had reflexively moved around his neck when you felt your body change and start to fall. You could feel his soft, silken ebony robes bunched in your surprised hands.

... It was one thing to have him touch you- a graze, a kiss on the knuckle, a possessive hand on your shoulder. But... you were being held by him. His arms were around you, surrounding you, and yours were on him- him, Sans, a First God, your eyes had widened so much as you stared at him that you must’ve had a striking resemblance to the owl he’d taken the form of moments earlier. H-his chest was so broad, his thick arms held you up as easily as if you were still just a bird, but with an unmistakable affection.

The smell of silver and moonlight... 

... A man who had brought down the greatest of kings and queens, a single entity that Gods feared...

...

...

... But... What is he, really?

The thought caught you off guard as you tried to pick just one eyelight to focus on.

... He could’ve taken an unknowable number of beautiful wives and husbands, considering his influence and power. But he hadn’t. For thousands of years, he’d remained on his own, until one day he came across a half-nymph half-mortal. Despite his influence, he’d put a chain around her neck to stop her from leaving. Despite his power, when a minor nameless God that would normally be just a drop in a river touched her, he became enraged enough to directly threaten it. When she ran from him, instead of leaving and occupying himself with something more interesting he chased her through the forest in the dead of night...

...

And when he caught her, he tried to soothe her.

... It was hard to ignore the stories about him. Especially considering the sensation of his power, when you were chest-to-chest. Now, instead of feeling like a veil was gently tracing over you, you felt like you were with him underneath it. Like the two of you were hiding under a beautiful dark shroud together, that nobody else in the world could see through or get into.

But... if just for a moment, you let that all go...

...

“You’re lonely.”

The sentence came out like a realisation. His sockets went lax, for a split second, the words continuing to flow out of you.

“You don’t want me in the Underworld with you because you’re angry. It’s because you’re lonely.”

... Perhaps you’d lost the normal hold you had on your tongue because you were completely overwhelmed by the feeling of being held by him. But, oddly enough... you felt no fear after that outburst.

... Because he smiled at you.

...

Surprisingly, as the shadows wrapped around the two of you, your first thought wasn’t the immediate terror that should’ve come with the knowledge that the God of Death was stealing you away. Instead, with your arms around his neck and your faces inches away from each other... all you could think was...

... This is definitely the sort of story they make legends out of, isn’t it?

Chapter Text

The Underworld...

... Wasn’t as bad as you thought it would be.

... Granted, it may have been a little ridiculous of you to expect someone as... sophisticated as Sans to live in the kind of violent hellscape you’d heard so many frightening stories about. You weren’t naive and you knew that wherever he’d taken you was a small part of the Underworld; a tiny corner of a vast realm that could contain any number of unspeakable horrors. But... 

... You hadn’t heard a single tale of this place. And it was anything if not story-worthy.

The caverns were... gigantic. Genuinely gigantic, large enough to have to crane your neck to see the curved ceilings high above you, the landscape stretching on as far as the eye could see like darkened rolling plains. The walls were beset with precious stones- they bespeckled the smoothed, flowing dark rock faces, more beauty in their raw uncut bodies than any man-made form could replicate. Some chains of crystal rose higher than any man and wide enough to see your passing reflection in, some were single sparkling pin-sized dots that cast equally tiny winking rainbows around them. Precious metals were visible, too, lightning bolts of gold and discoloured sprawling ferns of silver. And everything just seemed to... glow? There was a beautiful blue haze to everything that caught in all those aforementioned glimmering materials, until the whole landscape resembled what you imagined the night sky was up close as a child.

... And, of course... Sans’ home. The palace... the biggest palace you’d ever seen, like no building on the surface, carved completely out of the stone of the caverns as if it were merely part of the rock system. The inside was just as inlaid with gems and metals as outside- by running your fingers over the smoothed walls, you were most likely touching more riches than many mortals would hold in a lifetime.

... It was a beautiful place, to be sure.

...

But you were still trapped. And Sans was... well. 

As far as kidnappers went, if you were being completely honest, you’d absolutely gotten the better end of the deal with him. Gods who believed they were owed somebody so completely that they were willing to take them by force usually didn’t make for respectful companions and you were certain many before you had suffered far worse fates. He’d given you your own room with a locking door, your own space to breathe... he hadn’t laid a finger on you. You were free to wander anywhere you wanted, no curfews or restrictions or chaperones, even when leaving the palace to explore the caves. 

(Although your ‘freedom’ was less likely thanks to his benevolence, and more the fact that no one left the Underworld without his blessing. You escaping wasn’t a chance he considered- and honestly, it wasn’t one you considered either.)

... In lieu of being imprisoned, enslaved or assaulted, you had to deal with the fact that he was absolutely intent on decorating you as much as possible. 

It seemed as if every moment you saw him he had a new glimmering gift for you, and every moment you didn’t see him thanks to his busy schedule as the Overseer of the Underworld there was another carefully wrapped present left at the grand door of your room by a nervous Soul servant. Necklaces, bracelets, anklets, rings; some were simpler, with only a few tear-sized diamonds or one beautiful stone at the centre, and some were so overloaded with colourful gems they resembled crammed bunches of fruit more than something you’d ever wear. Ocean-blue sapphires, rubies as big as apples, sheets of paper-thin iris agate or fistfuls of loose emeralds... 

...

Why did you need any of these? Sure, it was fun to pass time holding some of the prettier gems up to your eye and peering at the distorted colourful world through them. But your room was starting to look like the nest of a crazed dragon/magpie hybrid, every inch sparkling or flashing or iridescent. 

...

You didn’t want to wear any of the jewellery. You didn’t want to be down here, in this place, and the metals and crystals felt like part of the Underworld- part of one big creature. And although they seemed to call to you, singing to that little magpie of your own inside your chest, inviting you to place them on your neck and wrists and fingers until they weighed you down like an ox... you couldn’t.

You were afraid they’d lock around you like the first necklace ‘gift’ Sans had given you.

So you avoided your bedroom. You were sat in a small study room with him, reclined on an old blue wooden couch decorated with furs and staring into the only hearth with a not-blue fire you could find in the whole palace. He was at a desk on the other side of the room (one he’d apparently migrated to because you were here), writing out something with an old quill, filling the room with a gentle comforting scribbling sound... his job was a seemingly endless one.

...

“... you aren’t wearing any of the pieces i got for you.” He hummed, from across the room. He didn’t sound offended. Just curious- and perhaps a little disappointed. 

You didn’t reply.

“... if they’re not to your taste, i understand.” That’s not the issue. “i can have something made. just tell me how you’d like it.”

Still no reply. You sat with your arms folded across your chest.

“you can tell me. i can get anything done, for you. i want you to be happy.”

“No you don’t.”

...

Apparently, that was surprising enough to him to put his quill down. Now, only the sounds of soft crackling of the fire and your own breathing remained.

...

“go on.” He said. He could tell you wanted to say more- it probably wasn’t hard to see. You were all but smoking, dry grass in summer sun.

“You don’t want me to be happy.” It was blurting out, things you'd wanted to say but didn’t have the courage for until now. Something about the way he... ‘ i want you to be happy’... you couldn’t describe how it made you feel, but it had suddenly manifested your tumultuous negative emotions into the exact words you needed. “You want to be happy, and that involves me being around here, smiling. You don’t care what I want.”

...

“that isn’t true.”

You went back to silent treatment, drawing your legs closer to you and gritting your jaw. The sound of his chair moving... but he didn’t walk, apparently he was too impatient for that- he appeared in front of you, blocking out the firelight with his huge shadowy frame. You glanced up to meet his sharp, intense eyelights, his face sporting a look that just a few days ago would’ve rendered you so frightened you’d probably curl up and burst into tears.

“that isn’t true.” He said, again. But his voice had the strangest... offended lilt to it? Like he couldn’t even believe you’d say such a thing.

Isn’t that what you’ve been afraid of since the beginning? Upsetting him, offending him?

...

It feels good.

“You haven’t asked what I want.” You jabbed, without hesitating, ignoring his expression and tone. He didn’t scare you much, now that you’d been stuck with him. There was a fire in your eyes- you weren’t sure if it was the reflection from the hearth, or just your kindling anger. “Not even once. It’s only what you like. You’re just... piling shiny rocks on me and hoping I’ll forget it and cheer up.”

His sockets narrowed. “forget what?”

“That you kidnapped me.” You stood from the couch, tired of having to crane your neck to reach his eyeline, tired of being small. Tired of being a prey animal. You wanted to be something big, like a bear, so you could be the one looking down at him for once. “You can’t bring me here, by force, and then start acting like I’m your willing lover. It doesn’t work like that.”

“i’m not expecting you to act willing-”

“Yes you are.” You hissed, interrupting him. “You make a face when I flinch. And you’re clearly upset I’m not fawning over your presents.”

“so you’d prefer i started rejoicing every time the person i admire most is visibly still frightened of me?” His teeth were gritted, too. He clearly had a cast-iron control of his temper; a control you were testing.

“Wow. Afraid of you. I wonder why that could be.”

“i’ve done nothing but give you space and time since you arrived.”

“Arrived!? I didn’t want to come here!” You threw your arms up, gesturing to the grand room, your voice bouncing off the stones as if you were addressing the caves themselves rather than the frustrated First God before you. “I never wanted to be in the Underworld, but you took me here anyway, even when I was so desperate to run from you I found powers I didn’t even know I had! You’re a complete stranger. I mean...” 

You gestured to him. Him, standing over you in flowing dark robes, shadowed face and blade eyelights, more power in one wave of his hand than your whole family had in a hundred generations. 

“You’re the God of Death. I don’t know you! I don’t know anything about you except the stories, I... I can’t talk to you! Do you have hobbies outside of being terrifying? Do you have a favourite colour? You don’t speak to me, you just throw pretty things at me!”

... His socket twitched. Your hands recrossed defensively over your chest, eyes finally breaking from his.

“I can’t talk to you. And I feel like I can’t say no to you. Last time I tried, you chased me down. I’m sick of being treated like...” 

...

Like...

...

The somewhat magical ability to draw the exact words you needed out of the chaos in your head seemed to be temporary. It was slipping away again, as you stared at a spot on an intricate purple carpet.

A toy? A pawn? A child? Words swirled, but they were all wrong. An object? Useful for nothing except being married off, stupid and out of depth, a weak little doll being played with by possessive powers beyond their comprehension?

“At least my mother is honest about using me.”

...

You didn’t see his reaction to that particular biting remark, your gaze off to the side, the light in your eyes reduced from a wildfire to just hot, angry smoulders.

...

You turned away from him, moving past the couch and through the open doors into one of the beautiful long halls. Unfortunately, thanks to your foul mood, you were unable to appreciate how it resembled a starlit corridor- you just wanted to get outside of the palace. You were expecting the usual noiselessness from him but this time, for some reason, he was in such a rush to follow you that you actually heard his feet against the rock floor behind you, moving in a quick march-like fashion to close the distance. 

He touched your shoulder, voice coming out tight, frustrated, dark. “don’t walk away from me.” 

...

You spun on your heel and, without thinking, reached up... 

... Grabbed him by the collar of his robes, and yanked him down to your level.

“Or what? What’re you going to do if I don’t do what you want, huh?” You snapped, directly in his face. “Scare me? Threaten me? Go on then. I’m sure that’ll solve all your problems.”

... Well. Here it comes. The wrath of ages. 

...

Except it didn’t.

He stood there, bent over, inches away from you with wide stunned sockets and a face totally devoid of any negative emotion. You didn’t even know how you’d pulled him over- the two of you weren't exactly in the same... weight class so to speak. Maybe you’d just taken him by surprise?

Either way, you let go when he didn’t give you a reply, and stormed down the corridor.

...

He didn’t follow.

---

His voice almost made you jump. Your name, spoken very gently, a softness to it that was clearly for the express purpose of not alarming you. But you were far too absorbed in the dappled scenery of the caves anyway... sat on a little raised cropping of smooth rock, overlooking the blue-tinted dark city that you could only assume was the home of Souls who deserved rest and quiet.

... You looked over your shoulder at him.

...

You didn’t know how to describe it. But he seemed... smaller than usual. Stood a few feet away with his hands at his side, smile low and his usually fang-sharp eyelights fuzzy and small.

“... can i show you something?”

“It better not be a necklace,” was your immediate response. Were you still annoyed from earlier? Yes, a little. But you'd significantly calmed down... the whole area of the Underworld you were in had a gentle, calming aura to it, that made the anger bleed from you like paint into a rushing river.

He... chuckled at that, his shoulders easing- for some reason, the sound combined with his surprisingly unthreatening posture was enough to make you relax even more.

“it’s... not jewellery. i promise.”

He held out his hand to you.

And... well. It wasn’t like you had much to lose anyway, right? Considering he already had you trapped in his domain. If he wanted to smite you, he would’ve done so when you disagreed with him, or talked over him, or dragged him down to face you. 

He hadn’t come to you looking like he was ready to bring down an ancient wrath. So... hey. May as well.

...

You slid off your little rock seat and moved over to him... hesitating for a moment, but eventually taking his huge skeletal hand, your own palm barely half the size of his. You felt that familiar sensation of being transported like a weightless shadow the world shifting around you, until... 

... You appeared, in a small clearing. A section of the caves with a much lower ceiling.

...

A cottage.

Just a little one. Nestled against the rock face, big enough for two people who were happy to be close to one another. Wood and stone and thatch, a tiny chimney, a path and an inviting little patio before the door. At first, you thought it was a field of grass surrounding the house... but you realised it was actually a tiny plain made of trimmed green, springy moss, soft and fuzzy underfoot. Ferns and vines and hardy dark foliage surrounded the cottage, some blanketing the ground and some crawling up its well-cared walls... each variety flecked with its own tiny flowers that were pale and fragile, with stigmas that glowed faintly. 

Everything, from the plants and moss, to the tiny trickling stream nearby... it all framed the tiny house like a dream. 

“... this is my garden. it’s where i come to escape.” He said, his voice... soft. He was still holding your hand. “those who know it exists are forbidden from coming here. ... except you, of course.”

...

“... the light is thin, this far down. it’s hard to get things to grow. but... i’ve had a couple thousand years of practise. you mentioned hobbies- i know it’s a little ironic, but i enjoy gardening.”

Gardening? You were finding it hard to process what he was saying, still taking in the beautiful scene in front of you, did he... make this? It was the opposite of the opulent palace you’d been residing in- it aws kind of place that immediately felt like home.

“... you’re right. ... i’m... as bad as her. i’m sorry.”

...

Huh?

You turned away from the cottage to look at him, completely taken off guard, staring at his calm face. Did... did Sans get replaced? An admission of wrongdoing and an apology- you couldn't be talking to a First God.

His brow creased, smile becoming thinner by the moment as he looked down at you. “i hated her so much when she ‘gifted’ you to me like that. but... that’s how i’ve been treating you, right? like a gift.”

... He took your other hand, too, so he was gently holding both your tiny hands... eyelights dropping to look at your soft palms.

“i’ve never... had anyone. i don’t know how to make people happy. i’ve been trying to make you happy with what makes me happy, which i know now is wrong. just... please don’t mistake my errors as a lack of care, or affection. i’d do anything to keep you close. even if...” 

... A little breath.

“even if that means letting go.”

...

“... I’m... I-I’m free to leave?” 

“if that’s what you want to do.” He replied, seemingly unwilling (or perhaps unable) to make eye contact.

...

“I think...” You said, softly, your hands warm in his. “... I’d... like to see the garden first.”

Chapter Text

It took you a while to process the events of that night out on the water.

You’d spent the next entire day bundled in blankets in your room, attempting to muddle through it in your head... tapping away on your laptop for hours trying to figure out what the cecaelia’s true intentions had been, to perhaps gain some closure or some idea of what to do. If you found out how they acted with prey you’d be able to understand whether you were being hunted or not, right? You sat up until ridiculously late hours reading about their behaviours, feeding, gathering notes of what people knew... but no matter where you searched there was nothing there about kissing during feeding. In fact, there didn’t seem to be much info at all about cecaelia... the attention was drawn away from them by the flashier and more stereotypically dangerous sirens. All you could gather was that they used their tentacles to entrap prey, and would often choke or break the spines of particularly troublesome food.

You were smart enough to put two and two together, as well; you understood now that the little ‘timeskip’ you’d experienced was the effect of hypnosis. Which meant that this cecaelia had been encountering and entrancing you for days... but hadn’t struck at any of the opportunities.

...

There was the side of you that told you to just stay put on dry land, where you belonged. To assume that any encounter that close with a monster was a bad thing, that instead of pursuing it further like a lunatic you should count yourself lucky you got away and forget about it.

... Of course... there was the other side of you. The one with the curiosity so insatiable it’d driven you out into the night for almost a whole week, to figure out what had been causing that strange skipping effect. The side that couldn’t stop thinking about him, about the look on his face when you pulled away...

...

And unfortunately for everyone, it was the latter side of you that had a hold of the oars of the boat.

... You honestly didn’t expect him to be there when you finally went out. Maybe you’d spooked him, somehow... maybe he’d left, now that he’d been discovered. But you had to at least try, right? You rowed the boat out into the night... there was a dark, clouded sky, and a slight chilly tinge in the heavy air. The gentlest of swells occasionally rocked the boat to and fro... You pulled the tiny wooden vessel up by the little rock, prepared to hunker down and wait in the gloom.

...

... Except as soon as you turned your gaze out over the water, you saw something on the surface.

It wasn’t too far from the boat- only a few meters. At first, from the silhouette, you thought it was just a buoy, maybe a newly placed lobster pot you’d missed on the way in seeing as you were so deep in thought. But once your eyes adjusted to the oppressive darkness and focused in on the strange half-submerged round object...

... Buoys didn’t have a glowing red eyelight that pierced right through you.

... Immediately, your heart rate picked up. Had he been... waiting for you? I mean, why else would a predator of his caliber hang around this barren little rock?

... 

He was just floating there, in the water, watching you with that star-like crimson iris just above the surface. You couldn’t read him... was he upset? Angry? ... Hesitant?

...

“H-hello.” You said, voice a lot wobblier than you intended, but nonetheless carrying out over the water like a megaphone, suddenly making you feel much more vulnerable. 

He didn’t move.

... 

“... Uhm... you can come here, if you like. It’s-”

He dipped under, the light going out. You blinked, not expecting him to move.

...

When he quietly emerged again he was much closer to the boat. So close you could see the moonlight catching the water droplets falling down his skull, he could reach out and touch the hull of the rowboat if he wanted to. He was a little bit further out of the water now, enough so that the top half of his mouth was visible... His eyelight was fixed on you again, casting little rose-red ripples into the water. You shuddered.

... His skull was scarred.

You hadn’t noticed the first time he’d been close to you (when he kissed you) because you’d been too panicked to do anything other than fall back on your ass. But here, so close, you could clearly see it; the bone had been warped, badly disfigured and discoloured in certain areas. Lines that dragged over his face, whip-like scars, as if whatever he’d been attacked with had been corrosive enough to melt the solid bone- one over his skull and eye, one on his shoulder, and one that cut directly over his mouth. What could’ve caused damage as severe as that on a predator as peerless as a cecaelia? You had no idea of anything siren hunters used that’d cause this effect but then again, humanity did have an unrivalled penchant for cruelty and it wasn’t like the siren-hunting trade was exactly... well-regulated.

...

If he was bothered by you looking at his scars, he didn’t seem to show it. In fact, you startled out of your staring reverie to see his tentacles on the rim of your boat- they’d crept in while you were unaware.

...

Wow. You thought, glancing at his unreadable expression, mouth dry. I’m completely fucking clueless. He really ISN’T going to hurt me, is he? He could’ve killed me a thousand times already. I’m hardly difficult prey.

“... Can you...” Your voice still sounded far too loud. “... Can you talk?”

...

He shook his skull. It sent out tiny ripples. 

... You knew he could understand you. Everyone knew that sirens were as intelligent as humans. But... 

It was still so strange to speak to a predacious mer-creature and get such an unmistakable, tangible response. You asked him something and he replied with a clear gesture- has anyone spoken to a siren like this? Has anyone actually held a conversation with one of these monsters, without immediately being eaten?

...

You narrowed your eyes, confused for a moment; wait, what did he mean he couldn’t talk? If he couldn’t talk, he couldn’t sing. That was how sirens hunted, how they got enough food to survive. A siren who couldn’t sing was borderline oxymoronic. What did he mean he couldn’t...?

...

Oh. Oh...!

“So... you can’t sing. And you hunt with... light hypnosis instead?”

...

A small nod. He reached up, putting a hand on the edge of the boat alongside his tentacles- the palm alone was bigger than your whole hand, with a scar stretching over three of his knuckles.

“... That’s... so smart.” You said, genuinely. You’d never heard of anything like that. “It’s amazing.”

...

He went pink.

He didn’t blush. His eyelight dilated and he literally went pink- the most beautiful, vibrant and warm hot pink you’d ever seen began at the base of his spine and flooded across his lower body before starting to vibrantly glow. You gasped- for a moment, his face reminded you of the one a surprised cat made- wide eyes, slack mouth... his lips moved as if he was mumbling but no sound came out.

As if embarrassed, he ducked under the surface of the water. But that didn’t stop the glow- in fact, it seemed to brighten, lighting up water under your boat like magic... the sea around you glimmering that sweet colour from below as he tried to tuck himself under the hull and out of view.

...

... Cecaelia... blushing?

You couldn’t help it- a little shocked laugh slipped out of you. 

“Pink’s a good colour on you.” You said, mostly to yourself, considering he was entirely underwater at that point. 

... He only surfaced once the glow had subsided and the water returned to its normal inky black, this time appearing on the opposite side of the boat. His iris was back at its normal size, but... the colour had changed a little? It was now a softer, ruby-er red. His smile was lopsided.

... 

Now you really wanted to ask why he kissed you. You really wanted to ask. The question had consumed you while you were away but now that you were actually in front of the monster himself... it started welling up your chest like a cough during a moment when you really needed to not cough. How... how were you supposed to ask him? What if your oh-so-concrete assumption had been wrong, and he hadn’t meant it to be romantic... did cecaelia do this? Had you mistranslated everything?

... Pressure. On your wrist.

You nearly flinched, glancing at the hand you had steadying your oar. The end of a tentacle, still glistening from its time in the water and with a few tiny shrinking dots of leftover pink, was curling over your hand. 

... You could feel the wet suckers, pressing against your skin, lifting and moving as the appendage slowly looped around your wrist until it came to a stop. You were suddenly struck by how... thin your limb looked. The bones that usually felt so sturdy looked like twigs while held by what was essentially one giant muscle- one of eight.

You moved your gaze to his face. He was... holding direct eye contact, with that orb of his.

...

He started to move.

The tentacles that had (somewhat sheepishly) attached themselves to the side of your vessel now clambered on in earnest. As easily as if he were dragging himself onto a rock, he pulled himself up, raising out of the water... and thanks to his ample size, he rocked the boat toward him- he rocked you toward him.

He pulled himself out of the ocean just enough to be perfectly at your eye level, the wood creaking under his hands. Staring at you... just staring. Very close. So huge, big enough to crush you... So close you heard it when he slowly exhaled. For some reason you couldn’t make yourself move away. You just... couldn’t...

...

All the little lines on his face, the marks and scratches from years as a top predator. His blade teeth, the nicks on his collarbone, water dripping from his bones... and...

... You forced in a little breath to calm yourself. Why could you feel your cheeks warming up?

... 

He smiled, apparently enjoying your reaction. It just made the heat in your face worse.

“... pink is a good colour on you.” He murmured.

... 

His voice was a ‘whisper’, in the technical term. But not the kind of whisper you were used to hearing- not thin, wispy, a mere echo of a real voice. It was low, it was dark, it was sonorous; there was definitely some siren magic to how his tone played with your ears because just those few words had done something to you.

... You weren’t sure what. But it was something. He moved back down to water level, allowing the boat to creak back into place, 

...

Then, in a snap, his atmosphere changed.

The glowing pupil in his socket shrank to about the size of a penny, and he ripped his gaze away from you, glaring somewhere out to sea- the sudden change startled you. It felt like, somehow, without even telling you to be quiet... he had told you to be quiet. The message was clear. 

...

You followed his line of sight, into the darkness. Your ears strained to hear, your eyes strained to see. You were... very reliant on him right now.

...

...

A boat engine.

It was so faint... if you hadn’t been listening so hard, you wouldn’t have picked up on it. Thrumming a significant distance away from the two of you; but clearly, he’d picked up on it like a gunshot in the night.

“... What is it?” You asked. 

... He didn’t answer. His eyelight returned, but he looked... upset? Even angry. It must be a siren patrol boat.

...

You never thought you’d be upset to hear the engine of a siren patrol boat.

“... Hey. You know the rocky cove, just over that way?” You pointed. 

He glanced up at you. It still felt so strange to see him looking up at you- the height advantage felt so useless. Like the height advantage you might have on a lion. A monster as giant as him, lurking just below the hull, most of his massive powerful body obscured by the murky waters... you were just very lucky he hadn’t yet changed his mind about all of this and attacked you.

“Boats any bigger than mine can’t get there, the rocks are too big. And people don’t go there... there’s no beach, just stone.”

...

He cocked his head.

“... There’s... a lot of patrol boats and traffic in this area. It’s not safe for you. Tomorrow night, we could... try that cove instead.”

... You were inviting a giant siren monster to meet you in a small, secluded location, far away from the potential aid of patrol boats, completely out of earshot. What could go wrong?

...

His grin almost split his face.

“... i’ll... be there.”

Chapter Text

... The temple didn’t exactly look... inviting. Granted, the rain filtering through the leaf canopy and the otherworldly sound of trees creaking and swaying in the wind probably didn’t help. But you doubted even clear skies and midday sunshine could’ve made it look less eerie.

The entrance was so overrun with vines and plant life that had you not been specifically searching for a cave-like place to shelter from the oncoming storm, you would’ve walked right past it without a second look, ignoring what appeared to be just another one of hundreds of shallow gullies in this ancient forest. Instead, you scurried down the lip of the ditch, nearly slipping on the rain-slick leaves... it was definitely a temple, but it must’ve been abandoned for a long time- giant trees had grown over and on top of it and roots (several decades old at least) curled across the entrance, almost entirely obscuring it from view.

It was old, probably structurally unsound... and strange shadows gave you an odd ominous sensation. But, in the end, it was shelter- and it’d have to do for now.

You tucked your cloak around you and headed into the cave.

It wasn’t like you were there by choice. Your gut twisted as you thought about your warm, safe bed at home... would you ever be able to return? It didn’t seem that way. You walked deeper into the temple, further away from the rain and wind, using your fingertips against the smooth stone wall as a guide as it got progressively darker and darker...

... You could still hear the venom in the voices of the villagers. Ringing in your head.

“Witch! WITCH!”

“... I’m not a witch.” You mumbled, to yourself, voice drifting away into the empty cavern. Did you have magic? Yes. You didn’t know where it’d come from, and it wasn’t particularly powerful... you knew it was enough to heal superficial wounds, colds and occasionally headaches.

Did more than those smoke-and-mirrors idiots who call themselves doctors. Your brow furrowed, eyes narrowing as your frustration at the unfairness of it all started to boil over. You knew it was the ‘doctors’ that’d encouraged the village to rise up and force you out; you had no control over the little trickles of healing magic that’d been gradually emerging from you, but even just your trickles were clearly helping so much that it was risking putting the charlatans out of business.  

Whatever my magic did for those poor sick people was clearly more than whatever they got from having some snake oil rubbed on their eyelids.

... You pulled yourself out of your anger for a moment, when your fingers (which had been gliding over perfectly smooth wall) started to feel divots in the material. You glanced up... you’d wandered further in than you realised, it was almost pitch black, the path below you that had previously been moving at a gentle uphill incline had started to slope down again. You couldn’t actually see what you were feeling.

...

You crouched down, drawing a tinderbox and a small torch out of your handmade shoulder-bag. With a little fumbling, a warm orange glow soon lit up the abandoned interior of the temple... enough light to finally see by.

... As you raised the torch, the carvings on the stone came into view. A great mural, towering over you, depicting a giant four-armed skeleton with a snake’s tail instead of legs. He was surrounded by small human figures, who appeared to be bowing down... his upper hands held heart shapes, and the lower held spirals- maybe an old depiction of magic? The flickering light made the shallow shadows sway and jitter. Whoever had carved it had done something pretty visually impressive; the skeleton’s eye sockets were concave, but a little ring inside the left socket (an eye, maybe?) hadn’t been carved... giving the illusion that the thing was looking down at you.

... This must be a temple dedicated to an old God. You thought. You walked a little further, following the carvings, the ancient unintelligible writing, the depictions of humans wielding those same spirals the monster was holding before. Although whether or not the monsters back then were ACTUALLY Gods has yet to be figured out...

...

You paused.

Over the incredibly distant sound of the rising wind and rain far behind you, more like a whisper now than anything else, you could hear... something. Something soft and deep, almost like breathing? You stopped walking and raised your torch, trying to light up more of the ancient path ahead of you... why was your hair suddenly raising... ?

You stared forward, into the flickering darkness. ...The corridor suddenly looked so much longer than before. So much deeper. Like it was...

... Alive...?

...

For a moment, you thought you saw something. You squinted, trying to make it out... 

...

A thin ring. Blue, cyan blue, glowing very faintly. You couldn’t tell how far away it was from you, perhaps this was the end of the tunnel? You’d heard tales of ancient monster tunnels lined with endlessly glowing stones, perhaps there was more to those tales than-

- the ring went out for a split second. And when it came back, it was bigger, it got noticeably brighter- the dot in the centre narrowed down to little more than a prick. The realisation hit you, and the rest of your body, like a tree falling on your head. 

That’s an eye.

You had no time to react, outside of a single step back; your torch extinguished in an instant, smothered, plunging you into complete darkness. You immediately yelped and brought your arms up to defend yourself, a deafening sound all around you like sand pouring against rocks, you could feel air whipping past your face and dragging your clothes along with it, and then...

“... my... what a nice surprise.”  

...

You couldn’t help it. You moved your arms away from your face, and opened your eyes.

...

Everything was cyan blue. That same colour you saw before. You raised your gaze to what should’ve been the tunnel ahead of you, and saw only darkness... but not the empty darkness. A new, thicker shadow- and you could tell it was closer to you. 

You were... looking at a chest. A giant, giant ribcage, big enough for you to comfortably fit inside if you ever chose to do so. And when you raised your gaze even further, to the source of the light, it was a face.

... A skeleton’s face. As wide as your chest. Midnight black, looming over you, so big he was leaning over to prevent his massive skull from hitting the ceiling which must’ve been at least eight feet up. That glowing ring for an eye, in one socket, as big as your fist and bright enough to illuminate the whole cavern around the two of you in the unearthly blue... his dark body was coated in a tar-like material, viscous and glinting smoothly in the light...

... Four giant arms. The monster from the carvings. Immediately, you looked to the bottom of his torso- the tail of a snake. Thicker than your whole body and as tall as your thighs, with a strange bluish iridescent sheen, it coiled slightly on the floor into the darkness behind him and then looped around...

...

Behind you. It goes behind you- he’s blocking your exit.  

... You couldn’t look. A choking lump had formed in your throat, every hair standing on end as your heart pounded so hard it almost hurt- you were already shaking, barely holding on to the little sliver of bravery you had left that was just enough to keep your feet rooted to the spot as you craned your neck to stare up at him. 

Oh no. Oh no, oh no...

... His mouth opened. Fangs that could sever your hand from your wrist with little more than a gentle click parted to reveal a glow, not dissimilar from his eye... emanating from his tongue, inside his mouth.

He tilted his head, as if curious. “... no one’s been down here in a long, long time.”

... He had a low, impossibly deep voice, dark thrumming with power. It vibrated every inch of your body, particularly your chest- it was the kind of voice that made you dread whatever destruction he could bring with a shout. But despite all that it was strangely soft, and with a... thin. whispery edge... like he was...

... Tired? 

“... I-I’m sorry.” Your voice cracked- not a good look. You were trying to keep yourself calm; God or not you had to afford him respect. “I... I-I didn’t mean to wake you. I’ll just...”

Maybe, if he really was tired, you could convince him to let you leave so he could go back to sleep. 

... You tried to walk away, without turning your back on him and potentially aggravating him, shuffling just two steps... but in just those two steps, the top of your thigh bumped into his massive tail. Through the fabric of your clothes, you could feel that although there was an unnerving slight give to his body (like pressing your fingers into an unpleasantly thick slime) he was completely solid. As if someone had merely coated a stone in tar.

You were still gripping the extinguished torch, knuckles white as you stared up at him. 

“... no.” He hummed. 

His tail began to shift, dragging heavily across the floor... you had no idea how much of his body was still obscured in the darkness, how long his snake half must be- but a section of it came forward and coiled just underneath him. He lowered himself down from the ceiling; you watched in a confused awe as his arms began to shift, all four working perfectly in tandem. He rested the lower two against the tail on their forearms and knitted their fingers together like someone leaning casually on a table, an upper arm laid loosely across the tail and dangled with his claws almost touching the floor... and the last propped itself up on its elbow, knuckles coming up to support his chin as he moved to be closer to your eye level.

“... i could use the company...” He murmured. Now that he’d lowered, you had a better grasp on how huge he was. Just one hand could almost entirely encircle your head, crush it like an egg- his giant eye was wide, calm, and still getting gradually brighter. Now that he was closer you could see that it wasn’t that he only had one eye; he only had one socket. The other was so covered by the thick ooze that comprised his body that it was functionless.

... Despite his clear power he carries himself slowly, almost groggily... you must’ve woken him from a VERY deep sleep.

“I’m... I’m just...” Your voice sounded so weak compared to his. 

He leant in, close enough for you to see the drips on his skull, and inhaled. You couldn’t move- instead a shudder like being pricked with a thousand needles skittered all the way up your spine as prey fear encased you. He breathed deeply, through his nasal cavity... with the way his massive chest expanded you felt like it should’ve been creaking, straining and awakening like the ribs of a great vessel leaving port for the first time in months.

“mmh... there it is.” He said, socket lidding just a little. It was impossible to not hold eye contact. “that’s what woke me. i haven’t sensed another’s magic in a long, long time.”

... He could... smell your magic? You swallowed, balling up your clammy hands to stop them shaking too obviously... was he smelling it in the way you smell a delicious breakfast when you wake up?

“so.” He lowered himself even more, and started to move, causing the shadows across the walls and floor to swing and warp... he slid across the ground until he was to the side of you, the tail surrounding you starting to gradually come in closer as he looped, squeezing down what little space he’d already afforded you. “what brought you here to me, little mage?”

... Being addressed by him directly terrified you. When he’d moved you’d tensed up like an elastic ready to snap but for some reason, some stupid reason, you still couldn’t shift yourself- you couldn’t turn around or even look over your shoulder at him. You were too scared to convince your feet to uproot themselves, so you just stared ahead into the dark of the corridor, unable to see where the pitch black ended and his body began. 

“Th-there’s... there’s a storm coming. I needed shelter for the night. I-I’m sorry, I-”

“i meant what really bought you here...” He said, continuing to circle, midnight voice now behind you. “you clearly aren’t a traveller. too small, too sweet. why would someone so small and ill-packed need to take shelter in a place like this...”

... You were sweating. He could probably smell that too.

“ah... exile?” 

How did he know?! He made the observation simply, yet cuttingly. You didn’t have time to mull over his barbed ‘question’ because you felt his warm breath washing over the back of your neck- you squeezed your eyes shut, a frightened whimper almost breaking out. “it’s been so long since i had company...” 

Slight pressure, on your shoulder. He was tracing it with a single claw.

His voice lowered until it felt like it was caressing your insides. 

“such pretty company, too...”

This time, the whimper did get out of you. But it didn’t sound much like a whimper- more like the tiny frightened whistle from your throat, the sound of someone whose windpipe had closed, someone trying to suck a river through a reed.

...

“... you must forgive my rudeness.” The gentle pressure was removed. “seems i’ve forgotten my manners after all that sleep.”

You couldn’t feel his breath on your neck anymore. He’d backed up enough for you to stop feeling quite so dizzy with panic.

“... i just can’t help but wonder. i’m curious... you reek of kindness, there’s not a drop of violence in your soul. what kind of crime could you commit when your intent is so low?”

You could tell exactly how quickly he was moving behind you, encircling, your own shadow was rotating out from your feet in the light of his eye as he moved... like the arm of a sundial. 

“unless...” Purred almost directly into your opposite ear. “you were exiled for using magic...?”

He’s gonna eat me... It was getting hard to breathe. He’s gonna eat me alive, I never should’ve come here.

“it’s alright, little mage. so was i.”

...

“... Huh?”

You broke out of your fear just enough to turn your head, looking over your shoulder toward him. 

He grinned at your blank expression. And... shrank. Both his skeletal upper half and snake lower half reduced before your eyes, shoulders and head lowering, chest compressing, tail sliding against the floor as it drew in on itself- after a few moments he was still much bigger than you, still clearly able to kill you in a multitude of ways, but... no longer looming over you like you were a tiny child. Now he just seemed like an usually large man, six or seven feet tall. 

(... You appreciated the lessened size difference, but you didn’t feel like he’d become less powerful or dangerous now that he was smaller. In fact... it was almost as if you could feel the energy radiating off him- that all his magic was now squashed into a more condensed, volatile body.)

His eye shifted, casting its light over to the wall, and although the small part of your brain that chanted don’t look away from him was still incredibly powerful you couldn’t help but glance toward where he was looking for just a moment. You followed his gaze to another mural, like the first one you’d seen- an old depiction of him offering spirals in exchange for hearts.

“... You were exiled?” You asked.

“yes.” He hummed, folding two of his arms, studying the image on the wall like it’d insulted him. You noticed, now, the differences between the tar-covered naga before you and the lord in the murals; on stone he had both eyesockets, decorative bracelets on his arms, a clear textured underbelly to his tail. “they enjoyed my powers... or rather, they enjoyed using them. using me. i was a lord to them, a god, until the day they decided i was dangerous and that they were done with me.”

... He sighed, deeply.

“how ironic. i had to turn a place of worship into a place of hiding.”

...

... He wasn’t not terrifying anymore, his face pulled into an expression of contempt. But suddenly, he seemed... easier to understand. 

You had more in common with him than you realised.

“... I’m sorry.” You said, softly.

...

He looked at you, for a moment, tail shifting on the ground. You weren’t sure why but you felt like he actually looked at you- smile low, eyelight nowhere near as sharp as just a few seconds prior. Looking at you not like you were a cute little toy, not like you were prey, not like you were a delicious meal and he hadn’t eaten for years... for a second, you were genuinely being considered.

... 

It didn’t last long. His smile returned, curling upward, cutting across his inky cheekbones... his eyelight only grew wider in his socket. 

“... you know...” He had the tone of someone who’d just remembered a dirty secret of yours- who’d just realised they had even more power over you than they first realised. He approached you further, leaning in much closer, looming with his back arched and an aura of eagerness radiating off him. His tail, although smaller than before, was still sliding in tighter around you; you only had a few paces of space left. He was closing in. “i could teach you.”

“... W... what?”

“you don’t understand how to use your magic, do you?” A correct observation- you had no idea how to activate any of the powers that’d been emerging from your fingertips over the past few weeks. Your most effective method so far had been ‘hope really hard it works’. You couldn’t stop staring at his teeth... the light emanating from his tongue, how it illuminated his mouth. “i could show you how.”

... Show you magic?  

You blinked, completely taken aback. “I-I don’t know if-”

He didn’t let you continue. His stare was getting intense. “even if you leave here and find somewhere good to settle with nobody who knows you, if you can’t control yourself, outbursts of power will get you exiled again. won’t they? on the run, forever... that isn’t a life for a beautiful little thing like you.”

“H-huh-?”

He reached out. The upper two of his giant hands came forward... and closed around yours, bringing them forward.

...

The texture was very strange. You’d expected him to be cold and slimy, slick and squishing between your fingers unpleasantly, or an inescapable and irremovable tar that glued you to him. But that wasn’t close at all- it was so similar to the sensation of touching skin that you found yourself not even considering pulling away. The layer over top, the ‘goop’, was tensile to the point of squishiness but wasn’t sticky... underneath, you could feel solid bones. It felt... 

...

... Warm. Pleasantly so. His hold was gentle...

“... i could teach you how to control it, instead of hiding it.” Even though you were looking at the hands holding yours, you could feel the softness in his expression just from his voice. It had become lower, sweeter... like he was telling you a beautiful secret. “magic is a precious and rare thing. it’s only a select few, like us, who can listen to it. don’t throw it away by trying to hide it.”

“... What’re you getting from this?” You asked, unable to stop yourself, looking up at his face. 

The question visibly caught him off guard; his smile faltered and he blinked, the light in the room cutting for a split second.

... But he soon regained himself, grin spreading wide again.

“... sharp little thing, aren’t you?”

You swallowed- but not out of fear, this time. Although there was definitely still a healthy nervousness... you felt something new in your chest.

... He cocked his head. He still hadn’t let go of your hands. “nothing insidious. i have so much knowledge, so much i’ve learned... i just want you to stay here, with me, where i can show you. i don’t want it to go to waste."

... 

You weren’t sure how much you believed that he had no ulterior motive. With the way he smiled at you, there was absolutely something else going on. But... he made a very good point earlier; if you didn’t know how to control your power, you’d be living in constant fear of discovery. And if you did know how... you could do so much good in the world. You could help so many people.

... You didn’t notice the way his gaze slipped down to your chest as the happy thought filled your mind- you didn’t notice how his smile grew a fraction wider, hands tightening an inch around yours.

“... A-are you sure...” You pursed your lips. “... It’s... no trouble? You’ll teach me?”

He let out a chuckle- dark, sweet, and with no trace of his previous tiredness, breath lifting a few of your stray hairs.

“... oh, my dear...” He purred. “no trouble at all.”

Chapter Text

“… The collapse of the roof in 1755 crushed 4 residents of the asylum.” You were deliberately using your spookiest voice, drained of all but the bare essentials of emotion to get the point across, flashlight in hand. “Since the accident they’ve cleared the damage and fixed the ceiling… but some say the spirits of those killed still wander the halls today, trapped not by rubble… but by the pain that binds their energy to this location.” 

You were still amazed at how steadily Skull could hold a camera. Whenever you looked through footage, even the stuff taken when he was walking, it was as if you had it on a professional electronic rig… you honestly had no idea what you’d do without him. It was pretty damn cold in the building, as it was completely derelict and abandoned, with no windows to furnishings to retain heat- only the concrete foundations remained.

“Visitors to the site have reported tapping on the walls, footsteps, shadows in the corridors, and the smell of brick dus-”

At the sound of tapping very nearby on the old plaster asylum wall, you spun around in shock, shining your flashlight…

… On Red, who was grinning like a bastard, rapping his phalanges on the wall.

“… s’pretty sturdy for an old ass wall.” He purred, pulling an ‘innocent’ face and putting his hand back in his pocket.

“hearing creaks and smelling dust in an old building.” Sans said, with his usual unbothered smile, like all this was just a bad haunted house attraction. “shocking. must be ghosts.”

“Oh, sure, act smug now, you’ll be apologising later when I get paranormal activity on camera.” You mumbled, deliberately shining the light into his face for a moment. You removed your spirit box from your pocket, ignoring the little joking vampire-like hissing sound he made.

The spirit box was your prized possession, your favourite method of communicating with spirits. It was a small black device that somewhat resembled an old walkie talkie; its purpose was to rapidly cycle between radio stations, producing static noise that ghosts could communicate directly with you through. It sounded sharp and horrible and always made the ugliest jittering sound, but even just holding it in your hands made you feel more and more excited.

“… I’ve got a device in my hand.” You said, addressing the room, the building… this was the part you never got over. The part where you spoke directly into the darkness that somehow seemed both smoggy and veil-thin, the part where you could almost feel the unseen eyes in the area turn to you. A shiver ran up your spine… you were certain that if you weren’t flanked by the comforting presences of Sans, Red and Skull, you’d chicken out before you could capture any video. “It’s going to play static that’ll allow you to communicate with us. If you want to, please speak, tell us what happened here.”

“geez. i hate this thing…

… You turned it on. Sans pulled a face, but didn’t make any of his usual complaints, which you appreciated. You stood there, waiting, all four of you staring at the device in your hand… it usually took a little while for something to come through so you weren’t expecting-

“ - - D E M O - N S -”

It blurted out of the box, clear as day, the clearest voice you’d ever heard coming from the box with only a slight jitter from the skipping. It sounded like a man. You jumped, your chest and your eyes widening- “Oh my God… I- what did it say? Did you say demons?”

“- E M O N S - - - I - N - -”

Your hands were shaking- he repeated it. Your full attention was on the box now, your heart was starting to pound. “There are demons here? In the building?”

“- YES-”

It was the same voice, giving you clear replies! This was huge! You couldn’t believe it! You were holding the box like it was a winning lottery ticket, just about losing your mind. “What’s your name? Tell me your name.”

“- -  PLE A S E -” 

You didn’t see the expressions on the guys’ faces. You didn’t notice Red and Sans slip away into the dark, too exhilarated to be expecting their usual cutthroat humour and cynicism.

“Where are the demons? Are they in the building? Can you tell me where they are?”

Something came through the box, but it was too mangled by the static, too impossible to make out. “What did you say? Say that again!”

“- W - - TH -” It was like something was interfering with the transmission. “W I T H - Y O U.”

… What?

“… With me?”

“ T H E - S K E L E T - ”

… It turned off.

…

Everything turned off. Your fully charged torch went dead, Skull’s torch went dead, the camera’s lights blinked out. Suddenly, all the noise in the world had vanished… it was so, so deafeningly quiet…

… and the only light was Skull’s blood red iris, staring at you.

…

“… All the stuff just…” 

… You looked around the room, trying to see something in the murky darkness, as if searching the shadows for a reason for the sudden powercut to all your individual devices at once.

“… something wrong?” Skull asked. 

His voice was incredibly gentle.

… It was as if a cloud descended over your mind. Suddenly, just like that, you felt like you’d been plunged into a dream. Nothing seemed… real. You couldn’t think, you couldn’t process… a horrible wave of dizziness accompanied the cloud, creeping over you, prickling at your temples and muddying everything that was going in and out of your brain.

“I-I…” You stopped being able to feel your hands or your death grip on the useless flashlight. The pitch black room was beginning to spin, slowly… “I don’t…”

“hm?” 

“Where’s…” Your eyes were darting about. Pounding head, like it’d been stuffed full of cotton… your lips weighed too much, it was hard to speak. “Where… Sans… Red…?”

“… shh… it’s okay.” 

A big hand softly closed over yours. You knew Skull had big hands, that was something you loved about him… but the one that held you was huge. Your tiny appendage was swallowed whole by thick bones with long, cruel claws… it felt like him, but it didn’t... feel like him…

… What’s going on? Where am I?

… The hand gently led you closer, easily moving you like you were little more than a confused child. His eyelight was in view… his huge, red eyelight… your own eyes were stinging, strained, wide and afraid. The other hand moved close to you but you didn’t even have the presence of mind to flinch as it gently brushed hair out of your face… you just stared up into the eyelight.

He had horns. Skull’s silhouette had huge, curved horns.

“it’s alright.” He murmured, cupping you like a precious baby bird. His voice had become distorted, warped… and even in your state of delirium, you were certain it wasn’t from the headache. “you’re with me. you can let go.” 

The dizziness was becoming too much to bear. You couldn’t even focus on his iris anymore, you couldn’t see, you were either going to pass out or be sick. The distant sound of your flashlight hitting the floor… You pressed your eyes shut to relieve the aching, and tried to say something, but it was just a bleary mumble…

“that’s it.” He purred, the hand holding yours instead moving to your back to support your swaying body. You couldn’t open your eyes again… you didn’t want to. It felt so much nicer closed, the discomfort was muffled. “don’t need fight. none of this… ever happened.”

… You were vaguely aware of him catching your tipping body and scooping you up into his arms before everything went completely dark.

Chapter Text

“stop.”

The voice was so distinct that if you’d heard it before, you would’ve recognised it immediately. You didn’t. The soft, dark, sonorous tone didn’t belong to anyone on the research team- it didn’t belong to anyone you’d spoken to before.

But you knew who it was.

Your eyes hurt. They hurt so much, the aching worming back into your head and spreading through in a headache that felt like it was going to split your skull in half. You had snow blindness- your goggles had broken hours ago, and your attempts at keeping your eyes shielded had done nothing to aid your worsening condition. You couldn’t see anymore, eyes squeezed shut in your last attempt at defending them from the glare… a gritty sensation under your eyelids was making irritated tears drip down your cheeks no matter how many times you tried to wipe them away. The sun was setting, you didn’t know where you were, you couldn’t see… at this point, the fear of freezing to death in the arctic was nagging at the back of your head.

You didn’t know where you were. 

… 

You’d obeyed the voice instinctively, stopping dead. Yes… despite not recognising it, you knew exactly who it was. 

That was what frightened you.

“Wh-what do you want?” You blurted, heart beginning to pound even faster than before.

How was he there? How far had you moved? You weren’t wearing your ear protection… stumbling home blind and deaf just wasn’t an option. Part of you wanted to force your eyes open to see him, to see the giant orca siren who had been stalking you in both the waking world and your nightmares. But at this point it wasn’t possible anymore- your eyes were so painful, trying to open them felt like trying to drag your hands over broken glass.

So you had to just stand there, blinded. Even more vulnerable than before.

“just listen to me.” Despite the musicality and silkiness to his deep voice there was an underlying urgency that couldn’t be faked. It was coming from just a distance ahead of you… only a few paces, if your hearing was correct. “you’ve walked onto thin sea ice.”

“… H-huh?” 

“there’s cracks everywhere. all around you. if you go forward anymore you’ll fall through and drown.”

… Your heart very nearly stopped. You thought the swaying you’d felt through your feet had just been from the confusion and splitting headache- not from walking so far out you’d managed to make your way onto the treacherous thin ice that’d give way under you any second.

“i’m going to lead you back to safety, okay? just follow the sound of my clicks.”

…

… You didn’t really have the grounds to question him. I mean… what were your options? You’d blindly wandered onto deadly and fragile ice, an inky and icy death waiting just a few inches of frozen water below you. You desperately needed help, there was no way you were getting away safely on your own… if you take his help there’s a chance he’s lying, so you die, but if you reject him…

… You die either way. Might as well take the route with a sliver of hope. Maybe he’s… had a sudden change of heart? Randomly decided not to eat you?

Besides… You thought, shuddering. There’s gotta be a little truth to it. Why would he try to trick me if I’m that close to gaps in the ice? Why bother leading me if I’m within range?

… You just… tried not to think about the fact that orca siren were well known for toying with prey for hours.

You heard his clicking, easily penetrating through the ice just ahead of you. That familiar echolocative sound… tapping like water droplets hitting a stone floor interspersed between louder clicks that you felt in your feet.

… You took a shaking deep breath, wiped away more tears… and started stumbling after the monster’s beckon.

He was right about there being cracks everywhere. The ground continually rocked beneath you; as he led you across the ice, you occasionally heard him surface, breath and rippling water… then the clicks would begin again somewhere else- further ahead or a little to the left or right. All around you there were places for him to come up for air… holes that you could’ve staggered straight into.

He led you across the shaking and unstable ice, weaving your stumbling blind form out of a maze of cracks and imminent danger. He could probably sense, with his echolocation, what sections of ice were thick enough for you to safely walk across.

Eventually, the ground evened out, and stopped rocking back and forth when you trod on it. His breaks for air became fewer, and further between… it must’ve been safer territory now…

…

… You turned your face.

… You didn’t have to see the setting sun to be able to see it. Everything under your eyelids got brighter when you turned toward it, you felt a modicum of warmth on your cheeks and still-burning eyelids.

So…

…

“W-we’re… going the wrong way.”

… You heard him pause, his clicking stopping short as he surfaced a short distance away. You couldn’t tell if he’d turned to face you or not, you desperately wanted to see.

“The… the st-station is… east, from the m-melting ice. We’re… g-going south right now…?”

…

His voice changed. You could hear the smile- in your minds eye you could see the dark grin spread across his face.

“i said i’d take you to safety. didn’t i?”

… 

You clapped your gloved hands over your ears and, just like you’d been trained to do, began shouting out the lyrics to the first song that came to mind as loud as you possibly could. Just underneath the words you were yelling you could hear something beginning to resonate… something sweet and beautiful, soothing and otherworldly and terrifying, but you couldn’t linger on it, not even for a second, you couldn’t think about it at all because as soon as you concentrated on the sirensong instead of your song you wouldn’t be able to pull yourself back again. As soon as you thought about him instead of the stupid lyrics, instead of the burning in your eyes and head, instead of the hoarseness in your throat, it’d all be over.

…

A gunshot.

The bullet landed in the water only a few feet away from where Sans was floating, sending up spray that dotted the ice around it. It caught you and the siren off guard- both of you stopped, your panicked yelling broke and the beautiful melody cut short jarringly like an entire orchestra freezing mid performance.

You took your hands away from your ears just in time to hear Sans mutter “stupid researchers…” before the unmistakable splash of him diving back under the surface again; under the ice, back into the depths.

For a second, you literally couldn’t help it- you forced your eyes open the barest fraction, the glare immediately shooting pain through your skull. And… it was Hit, in his signature black and red coat, the sunset-coloured world behind him completely fuzzy. Boots crunching on the ice as he moved toward you, rifle raised and pointed at the water; goggles pulled up to his forehead… 

Even as you shut your eyes again, just a second already too long, his expression was burned into your mind. Glaring at where Sans had been with a look you could only describe as… furious.

And possessive.

You heard him swear softly, anger dropping away- you heard him hastily put his rifle over his shoulder, rushing over to you and dropping heavily to his knees, saying your name like he was nervous you weren’t going to answer. You felt coarse gloves against your icy face, turning it up to him, warm breath on your painful face… you never thought you’d feel so much relief at the touch of somebody you’d never trusted before, but you let out a tiny shuddering exhausted sob and leant into him until your forehead touched his chest.

“hey. hey, it’s okay.” His voice was gentle, but still clearly panting- how far had he gone to look for you? “it’s okay, i gotcha.”

When he hoisted you into his solid arms, you just leant against him completely… tucking into the hold as much as you could. You were emotionally and physically spent and all you wanted to do was sink into his jacket and sleep.

“… c’mon, doll. let’s get you home.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

“Get out of my saloon.”

… There were a lot of things you hated about Sans ‘Goldenfang’ Serif. 

At first, you were far too terrified to directly hate him. Hatred was a fiery emotion, spitting like oil in a damp pan, and your well-placed fear of this renowned naga dampened any such flame. His reputation far, far preceded him… he was a ‘bounty hunter’, a wildly successful one at that; tales of him taking down legendary thieves and killers without so much as a sweat were becoming worryingly widespread. But he wasn’t a hero- he was a mercenary. And everyone knew that in order to kill that many powerful outlaws he had to be worse. Much worse.

… The only difference between Serif and the other legendary, frightening, murderous gunmen was that he was smart enough to see where things were going, and sell his skills with bullets (and his teeth) to the law. They allowed him to live in peace, perhaps even luxury, they purposefully turned a blind eye and allowed his more unsavoury traits and behaviours to slip under their radar… because they needed him.

He had a power no other outlaw had.

Impunity.

…

So no. When Goldenfang appeared in your little town, just another hamlet in the boundary line between society and wasteland, you didn’t hate him.

“oh?” He drawled, narrowing his weathered sockets, devil’s gate of a grin beginning to lift at the edges. Standing this close, you could already smell him- campfires, cigar smoke, long nights full of stars. “i’m bein’ kicked out…?”

“Yes!” You slammed a hand down onto the table he was lounging at, the force of the impact knocking one of his glasses over- you fixed the other hand on your hip. Even when sitting, he still had a few inches of height on you. “You think you can just come in here after last time an’ throw your weight around? Scare off all my patrons? Leave your goddamn guns at the bar and stop startin’ fights, or find somewhere else to drink!”

Your cheeks were flushed with adrenaline and indignation, heart hammering against your ribs. You didn’t falter, even as he slowly got up out of his chair and moved around the table… leaning closer and closer to you by the second, looming, smouldering eyelight winking at you from under his wide brimmed and sun-beaten hat.

There was so much you hated about him. You hated how huge he was, broad and oozing with confidence and power, built like a shire horse but with the temperament of a teenage thoroughbred. Picking fights because he knew there wasn’t a fight out there that he couldn’t win. You hated those giant clawed hands, his whip-thin forked tongue that would flicker uncomfortably close to your face, how he unfailingly made your saloon stink of chewing tobacco and gunsmoke. 

… You hated his smouldering, wandering gaze, how it always singled you out in a room. How it lingered on you no matter where you went, unfailingly burning a hole in the back of your head… and when you came close, it always seemed to find itself settling somewhere on your body that was lower than your eyes. 

You hated how whenever he looked at you, his grin spread, and the fang that gave him his namesake would glint in the low light.

…

But that wasn’t what you hated the most.

“now, darlin…” You felt the familiar sensation of his tail pushing against the back of your legs- drawing you in closer to him. His voice was thickly accented and even more thickly laced with intent. Don’t be afraid. You can’t let him see you afraid. “why would i go anywhere else in the world, when my favourite lil’ human is right here?”

A dark, somewhat pleased expression flashed across his face… and he began to rattle the end of his tail.

…

… Most of all… you hated how he acted with you.

It was like he had a second personality, stored away, reserved solely for when he was engaged with you. At least if he was universally a violent, temperamental, stinking bull-headed ASSHOLE you’d be able to judge him on those sins alone. He wasn’t the first person you’d met who would beat a man into the dirt for chewing too loud.

But then… he’d turn around to you, and start acting so different. So confusingly different. His voice would go from loud and dark and unabashedly crude, to soft, velvety, like fine desert sand in the dead of night. Instead of knocking over chairs and busting open doors so violently they fall off their hinges, he was gentle and careful, brushing a claw against the back of your hand when taking drinks from you or ghosting the end of his tail against your leg as you walked by; something about him relaxed, while at the same time, something else intensified tenfold.

… His whole demeanour turned upside down. And only with you.

“I’m sick an’ tireda you actin’ like a big bully.” You jabbed a finger up at him, not allowing yourself to be intimidated by the feeling of his coils winding higher and higher up your body. Nor the sound of his rattle shaking faster… you didn’t know what that meant, and you weren’t going to try and find out. You kept your glare fixed on the devil smiling above you. “So as long as you can’t keep your hands to yourself, you ain’t welcome here no more.”

His forked tongue flickered out from between his fangs, as his eyelight constricted; you didn’t know why, but the action seemed almost excited. Eager. Like everything you said to him was just more enticing food for his Soul.

… Since he was so close, since he’d drawn you in like a struggling mouse, you didn’t notice his hand until it was too late- despite your attempts to jerk back he managed to catch the bottom of your chin with a claw. He curled his finger, tucking his whole phalange under your jaw… middle phalange flush against your throat, he used the position to effortlessly tilt your face up to him. 

You made a tiny, furious noise, grabbing his giant skeletal hand with both of yours to try and shove it off. But he wasn’t paying attention; you doubted he even knew what you’d just said.

“… pretty lil’ thing…” He said, his voice a dream-like hiss, sleek and deep and distracted. His breath smelled like warm, smoky meat. 

You let out a tiny disgusted squeak, managing to wrench your face away from him. Why was he so touchy with you all the time? Another thing you hated. There were plenty of people in the area who’d be more than happy to warm the bed of such a scary and famous monster. 

“Listen to me, you jackass.” You spat, even more enraged.

…

That made him laugh. For a moment, he had paused, and you thought he was going to just flex his tail ever-so-slightly and snap your spine like a toothpick, but… instead, he chuckled to himself.

“easy, wildcat. don’t lose your head… i’m listenin’ to you.” He crooned, flexing the knuckles on the hand that’d touched you. You could hear the bones pressing against one another. “i’ll do anythin’ you want me to. an’ i mean anythin…”

You narrowed your eyes, choosing to ignore the obvious lascivious drawl he’d added to his words. “I doubt that.”

“don’tcha trust me?”

“Hell no. You’re so crooked you’d spit out a corkscrew if you ate a nail. Now either sit down, put your guns away an’ shut up, or get the fuck out of my saloon.”

…

He chuckled, again, cheekbones dusted carmine, grin wide and pleased. And for a moment you thought you saw his eyelight flicker, shift into a different shape… but it was soon gone again. The pressure on your legs slowly loosened as he released you from his coils, rattling getting softer and softer… until he’d fully let you go, and it was silent again.

But his eyelight didn’t leave you. Even as he sat back down.

“… whatever you say. dollface.”

Chapter Text

... You woke up to the familiar sound of Sans’ tail sliding against stone.

When your eyes opened, he was peering down at you, with that bright ring of cyan you’d grown to know so well- he definitely seemed to relax upon realising you were awake, smile widening a few inches, transforming from a tight stressed line into something resembling genuine. 

“... morning, sunshine.” He murmured. It was only once he started lowering you down from your position reclined in two of his arms (like a princess) that you even realised he’d been holding you; your feet made light contact with the floor, his giant midnight-black hands removing themselves from your body.

... It took you a moment to adjust to being awake. You were... back in the temple you’d first met him in, the same one you’d lived in for several months while he trained you to properly handle your magic. It was the main hall; wide and tall, polished marble decorated with ancient writings and iconography, lit up by bright blue torches that glanced their dancing light off the smooth walls and floor... it was in considerably better shape than the first time you’d been there, years of roots and dust had been gradually cleared away as you and Sans regularly used it. 

You hadn’t been in the hall in a while. You’d made sure to visit Sans, but you hadn’t gone this deep into his underground home since you left a few weeks ago to find somewhere to settle.

... 

... You reached up and rubbed your eyes, head aching. “... What... what happened?”

“they tried to burn you at the stake.” 

...

... What?

You blinked in shock, looking up and across the room at him, half expecting him to declare it a joke. He was nearby, righting a torch that’d slipped slightly to the side, his hand almost entirely within the blue flame... he’d taken a pretty large form, almost as large as he was the day you met him. Chest big enough for you to sit inside and hands easily able to (in theory) to grasp your whole head. Perhaps to carry you easier?

“...B... Burn me?” You repeated.

He hummed, casually, voice and mannerisms far too gentle. “seems that it doesn’t matter where you go. those that can’t use magic will always fear and hate it.”

...

... No... no way. You looked down at yourself. You were wearing your normal getup, for seeing and treating villagers with ills, your long skirt and lightly embroidered work apron...

... Clear singe marks at the ends both. 

...

Suddenly, it all came flooding back. Being dragged out into the street, watching in terror as they built up a makeshift pyre. Wishing your magic did SOMETHING other than healing, wishing for a way to defend yourself... not understanding why it had gotten this far, why helping people had sentenced you to death...

And then...

...

You remembered Sans arriving. 

You remembered the fear that spread through the crowd, that wretched smog. You felt it, too, crawling out from somewhere in your chest- deep and POWERFUL dark magic that bled terror into every corner of your mind. You felt like what you were sensing was barely scratching the surface of whatever the caster could do; standing on the very edge, staring into the ancient abyss.

...

Your gaze once again lifted to the massive monster just a few feet away, the slick tar substance over his bones glinting smoothly in the flickering blue torchlight. 

... 

... He’d told you he could barely use magic. It was one of his claimed reasons for even teaching you in the first place- he apparently wanted to pass on the skills that he’d lost, in the hopes that it wasn’t all for nought. He told you that all the power he had left was used to merely keep him alive and his form together, nothing more... that thanks to the concerted efforts of the humans who’d persecuted him, he was weak, exhausted, effectively ‘harmless’.

...

“such venomous eyes.” He chuckled, without even yet turning around... his voice was low, but still remained warm.

“... You... lied to me.”

Magic that could sway the emotions was already very strong. But being able to send an entire village’s worth of human Souls into deep enough panic that they stop everything? That was...

“You told me you had no power left.” Why was your heart beating so fast? Your throat was getting dry, too. You’d trusted this monster with your life, for months on end... “I know what I felt- that was ancient dark magic. More than anything a normal magician could use in a lifetime. What did you do?”

...

He... sighed. It was a long-suffering, but mildly sarcastic sound, tail beginning to shift against the marble again like he couldn’t bear to sit still.

...

“... i didn’t lie.” His gaze finally turned, and he met your eyes, mannerisms and smile airy- eyelight round and bright. He was still speaking as if this was just another one of hundreds of friendly conversations the two of you had. “when we met, i had no power left.”

‘when we met’... So he was being pedantic- playing with his words. Playing with you.  

“... So?” You prompted. 

“i’ve been recovering it.”

...

“... How?”  

(You’d lost a lot of your fear of him, over the time he’d trained you. Even a month ago you never would’ve snapped at him with that tone.) 

He wasn’t blinking. A chuckle hissed out from between his grinning teeth, as he lightly cocked his head... gracing you with a look that you could only describe as appreciative. The personality he’d assumed was unlike anything he’d worn around you before, and it was breeding a creeping nervousness inside your chest. 

“... you, love.”

...

... You paused, brows knitting together. The blue torches around you suddenly didn’t feel quite so warm.

“you helped me regain power.” A tiny bit of something began to leaking into his words- something other than the easygoing, unbothered display he was putting on. His smile was sharpening, he was turning to face you more, since... since when had he been that big? “i suppose i can’t keep it secret anymore. i’d rather you heard it from me, than you finding out yourself and making wild assumptions about what i want.”

... 

... And then he started closing the distance between the two of you. You took a step back, a purely instinctive move- you could’ve sworn his eyelight shrank a little, like... he was enjoying the fear.

“W-what are you talking about?” The frustration you’d jabbed at him earlier had started to subside, unease taking its place.

... He grinned.

“i just... put a piece of my energy into your soul.”

...

Huh?

It... was as if the sentence didn’t even register in your head. Like instead of your mind taking it in, the statement hung there in the air, intangible and untouchable. What did he mean? Why did it make you feel sick?

“it was a little cruel of me.” He continued. Oh fuck, he was serious, he wasn’t joking, the floor suddenly didn’t feel so solid and you suddenly felt so cold. “you have such a pretty soul, i almost didn’t want to dirty it. but in the end you left, used your magic to help all those poor, sad townsfolk. and you passed me on like a disease.” 

You couldn’t see anything except his grin. He was close enough to touch you, now. I trusted him...

“and, well... now i have more than enough places to draw power from.”

...

... You felt... sick.

...

“Y-you... you used me?”

...

No remorse in his eyelight, or anywhere on his face, no matter how hard you searched for it. Just that patronising smile looking down at you. 

...

Your jaw clenched, fists balling, anger was welling up in you, bitter bile. Were you angry at him? Yes, of course, you listened to him and believed him and followed his every move for so long. You’d admired him for his knowledge, for showing you how to bring your magic to life, for helping you perfect your ability to heal and do good. But you were also angry at yourself for being so stupid; for falling into such a trap.

“I-I wanted to help people.” Your voice couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a mumble or a shout, so it came out similar in volume to normal speech, just hair-thin. You held his eye. “a-and you...”

...

... You knew from his condescending face that the moment he opened his mouth, you were going to hate what came out. 

“you’re so cute when you’re angry.”

...

Your gaze dropped to the bottom of his ribs, your eye level. You wanted to scream. Throw up. Punch him, bite him, pull out your hair, lay down on the floor and never get back up. This can’t be real.

...

“... I-I’m done.” You managed to choke out. You were trembling, but whether it was from anger or fear or heartbreak you didn’t know. All you knew for certain was the words you were speaking. “That’s, that’s it- I’m leaving. I’m leaving, and I’m never using magic again. I won’t let you use me to hurt people.”

You couldn’t look at his expression because you knew you’d probably be sick, you turned around with the intent to just get out of there. You had absolutely no idea what you were going to do after that, but for now you were just going to...

... you turned and moved a single step before being stopped in your tracks, immediately forced to stagger back again. His... Sans’ midnight black coils were directly in your path, looping all around you like you were a fenced in animal. 

You just barely stopped yourself from gasping aloud- you suddenly understood why he’d grown as big as he had. He was now just large enough so that you couldn’t jump over him... just large enough that escape was impossible. 

“... silly human.” He purred. 

His voice was... different? It was still playful, but not as easy. Calm, dark, silky... it was no longer playful like he understood a joke you didn’t; it was playful like he was a cat and you were his mouse. 

“i don’t need you to do my dirty work anymore. i have enough power to keep the cycle going myself. your cooperation isn’t necessary.”

...

Oh no.

... You turned around again, slowly, preferring to face him if escape wasn’t an option. His socket had lidded; creeping dread was truly asserting as the dominant emotion, your heart beginning to thud against your ribs.

He folded one pair of arms, relaxing the others by his side. You wondered if he could hear your heartbeat- his smile seemed to indicate so. “... i should thank you, really. i couldn’t have done this without you. if it weren’t for your desire to help, i’d still be sleeping and rotting in the dark. you brought me back.”

You were getting more aware of your lack of escape options, now. No way to outrun him, nowhere to escape... unless Sans decided to let you go of his own accord, you weren’t going anywhere.

“... What did you do to those people?”

He tutted, pouting a little. “why the accusing tone? i didn’t hurt them. not physically, after all.”

...

Not... physically.

Dark magic that felt ancient and malicious, spreading fear like a plague...

...

Your eyes narrowed, ever-so-slightly, as a horrible realisation dawned on you. When you spoke, it came out softly, almost plaintively...

“... Who are you?”

...

... He pulled back, only an inch, but even as he did his grin twisted into something you’d never seen before- pure eagerness. Alive, excited, almost giddy, his eyelight tightened visibly in his socket like a snake squeezing the last breath out of its prey.

Judging by that reaction... your guess was probably right.

“you have no idea how long i’ve waited to hear you ask me that, pet.” His voice was interwoven with a small, breathy laugh. Sans leaned down until there wasn’t any more than an arm’s length of distance between your faces, giant form encroaching into the tiny personal space bubble you’d afforded yourself. “sans is my name, i didn’t lie about that either. but it’s a very old name... no one’s used it for hundreds of years. you humans... you knew me, back then, as nightmare.”

...

Nightmare.

... Everyone knew who Nightmare was. He was the subject and antagonist of tales that had long since faded into embellishment and legend. A cruel monster, with powers so great there were those that claimed he had to be an Old God, who drew unimaginable energy from suffering and negativity. Before his defeat and sealing he had tyrannised the lands around him with dark clouds of magic that induced terror and hate, wreaking havoc on the minds any human or monster in his territory, dangling freedom and gifts of magic over the heads of the most hurt in exchange for only the small price of their soul.

There was a reason he lost everything. In even the most flattering versions of the stories, he was far from a benevolent God.

...

As he leaned over you, with that dark and gleeful grin, the weight of the situation began to heave onto you. Moment by moment, second by second, the pressure on your whole body increased... your eyes darted around his eyelight, teeth and jaw and back to his eyelight again, dots were connecting. The murals, his snake form, bits and pieces of legends you’d heard... this is Nightmare. So much of you was unable (or unwilling) to believe it but even so the pressure just increased . 

... Did...

Did you release Nightmare?

...

His dark voice thrummed in your chest. “... don’t make that face. it’s not your fault; you aren’t the first mortal i’ve gulled into doing my bidding. and you won’t be the last.”

Fear and confusion and terror and guilt were crushing you under their unimaginable weights. Was he trying to comfort you? You started holding onto your forearms, white knuckled. If he was, it was a twisted attempt, and it did nothing.

I set a monster free.

“y’know...” He began to circle behind you, slowly, you would’ve described it as like a predator looking for a weakness in its prey but you were all weakness right now. “... you aren’t a villain. you’re a victim. the real villain here is them... those non-magicians, the ones who drove both of us out. i wouldn’t have needed to trick my way into regaining power if they hadn’t done what they did. you wouldn’t have been forced out of your home, and i into a filthy cave. they’re the enemy.”

He didn’t like the magicless. He really didn’t- no matter his self control and power he really couldn’t help the twisting hatred from showing.

...

“... You’re wrong.” You mumbled. 

...

... A pause. 

You heard him shifting, just behind you, momentarily taken off guard.

...

... Then two of his giant black skeletal hands closed over your shoulders, and before you could jump away, the other two closed around either sides of your waist. They almost completely engulfed your body, the ones your waist overlapping at the tops of the fingers... if he felt the flinch that wracked through you or heard the terrified gasp you forced in, he didn’t care enough to let it show.

“oh?” He hissed, almost directly into your ear, so close his warm breath washed over your cheeks and sent prickling shivers over every inch of you. The sharpness in his tone was clear as day, as was the artificiality of his playfulness. That upset him. “your clothes still smoulder with the flame they wanted to burn you alive with. and yet you protest on their behalf?”

He was so close. His mouth was so close- that smile of dagger teeth... the light from his eye was casting across your cheeks and neck. Your pounding heart was borderline painful.

...

But...

You swallowed. You’d already done enough damage by aiding in freeing him, blindly trusting the first monster who reached out his hand and promised you what you wanted. If you could make up for it, even in the slightest, by challenging him before he undoubtedly killed you... it was worth it.

“Y-you hurt people.” You had to shut your eyes. “And they retaliated against you. I... I think... you resent them for forgetting you. It didn’t matter how much pain you caused, nobody remembered. You turned into a myth.”

... For a moment, he was dead silent behind you. He didn’t even breathe.

You squeezed your already shut eyes, barely daring to breathe either. This is it.

...

And then he laughed. 

Not an evil cackle. Not a maniacal precursor to your death. It was an easy, kind sound, it caught you so off guard that you didn’t even react to the hand on your shoulder reaching up and playfully pinching your cheek.

“you’re so tense.” He purred. “it’s adorable. i’m not going to hurt you.”

“B-but you don’t need m...” 

... You cut off your word vomit, quick, mouth shutting with an audible clicking sound. The last thing you needed to be doing right now was reminding him of reasons why he should be rid of you.

“oh...” he’d done a full 180, returning to the teasing silky tones from before. “but i do need you.”  

...

That wasn’t what you expected to hear.

“you know... as much as i hate to admit it, you’re half right. before, while i was fading away in the darkness, saving up all my strength... all i could think of to keep me going was vengeance. making those insects suffer like i suffered...”

His grip on your waist loosened, so he could move around and face you again. But he was by no means letting go- before you could even register the loss of pressure his phalanges were quickly replaced by the end of his tail confidently winding around you, moving quickly over your thighs and up to your middle, tightening enough to hold you in place... catching you embarrassingly easily before you even had a chance to squeak or push. You immediately grabbed at his tail to try and gain some semblance of control, hands nearly sliding on his slick-tar skin; like this, you could really begin to feel how powerful he was, how every inch of his lower body was pure muscle, how right now he could gently squeeze and you’d go pop.

“but i’m a different monster.” He placed a hand on his chest dramatically. “i’m not here to just... kill all those people. i want to rule.”

... Huh?

“you’ve changed me, sweetheart. for the better.” He leant in, while at the same time drawing you closer with his tail. “i’m not the same monster that crawled into this cave all those years ago. you’re the only one who really knows me, who’ll tell me to shut my mouth. who else would dare to call me out on my deepest hidden resentments, just moments after finding out my true identity?”

It was the most genuine he’d sounded since you woke up in his arms. One lower hand reached out, a single finger playing with some loose hair by your ear. An unnervingly tender gesture.

“... that’s why i need you, darling. i can’t do this all on my own... what good is a king who rules alone?”

...

You couldn’t speak, just staring at him with wide eyes. This isn’t real. Sans was absolutely enjoying your reaction, this was what he’d been working toward, this ‘reveal’- he was savouring your floored expression, you could from his excited and dilated eyelight.

“... besides.” You could see the glow of his tongue behind his teeth. “on a more selfish note, i’ve grown rather attached to you, and i just don’t want to let go. if you left me, i’d be heartbroken...”

He flashed his smile, and squeezed you. Gently, but tight enough to make a point; that terrible eyelight sharpened as one phalange hooked under your chin, tilting your tiny face up to him.

“... and who knows what kind of terrible things a heartbroken god might do?”

... 

It was a threat . You didn’t just have a feeling you weren’t going anywhere, wound up in his coils; you knew there was absolutely no chance of escape.

... It really sounded like storybook material.

A nightmare king, and his captive queen.

Chapter Text

... You could hear an owl. 

You cast your eyes over to the small window. It was very close, next to you on the wall, only arm’s reach away. A sliver of glass was peeking out from behind the drawn curtains, misted with condensation and moonlight... you could see nothing through it, and you didn’t have the willpower to lift yourself from your reclined position to attempt to see more.

...

You didn’t know how long you watched the window for, but eventually the moonlight silently faded away. The room became dark again.

...

... You glanced over at Sans- sockets closed, gentle warmth and slow breathing more comforting than words could describe. As much as you’d insisted he didn’t accompany you on this mission, you couldn’t be more glad he ignored you. Your protests for his safety had been genuine but a small, selfish part of you had been terrified at the prospect of facing this journey (and whatever fate you had in store) entirely alone.

...

You pulled back the sheets and quietly slipped out of the bed.

A kindly old woman had met the two of you on the road, and allowed you to spend the night in her home. It was a small abode that had been much cosier when the sun was up and the fire was high, but you weren’t one to complain- it was still better than camping through the cold winter nights.

... You weren’t sure why you couldn’t sleep. There were a thousand clashing and interlocking potential reasons for you to not be able to settle your mind, the major one being a year’s worth of anxiety finally beginning to culminate as you began your journey to the green church, but...

Somehow, you knew deep in your gut that something else entirely was keeping you awake on this night.

...

Your socked feet were silent as a cat on the wooden floor that, previously, had loudly sounded every step. You made your way to the heavy door of the house and quietly slipped out of the building.

... It was cold, in a way only the night could be. The issue was exacerbated by the fact that you were only wearing your chemise and braies, and although your closeness to the king allowed you to have linen of fine quality a single layer would never keep out the chill. It was quiet, foggy, difficult to make out anything except the tree line a short distance away, the border between the trodden path and the forest... 

... You really couldn’t explain what was pulling you toward it. Curiosity? Fear? You felt like you were dreaming, but the cold was so real, the air running its claws over your exposed cheeks and hands and your breath escaping in wisps. You were barely a stride away from the first tree of the forest, the boundary line, when the moon emerged.

...

A figure in the trees, only a few feet from you.

You snapped out of the trance like someone had dumped icewater over your head- instinctively, you stopped in your tracks, and your hand flew to your side to draw your sword in self defence. But your palm landed only on the bare linen of your hip... your sword was still leant, neatly, against the end of the bed inside the house.

A tiny jolt of panic passed through you... until you focused, and realised just who was standing before you.

... Him.

He was staring down at you. He looked exactly the same as he did the day he appeared in the feast hall- somewhere between bear, giant and man. That same distant star of an eyelight, the same thick-fanged grin, hulking skeletal figure obscured by a full suit of wooden armour that would most likely crush you if you ever chose to wear it. Gnarled roots sprouting out of him in various areas, like an infection... some curling over his arms, his collar, but the worst being the upper side of his face that had become so thick with roots that a socket had been swallowed. And judging by the way one root was curling a single end into his last socket too... if the roots continued to grow, he would no doubt be completely blinded. 

... The court, in all their boundless creativity, had named the stranger ‘the green knight’ after the incident, seemingly ignoring all physical attributes aside from his body’s colouring. But seeing him there in the moonlight reminded you of why that name never sounded right to you. 

When you said it, green knight, the green that came to mind was... for lack of a better word, ‘alive’. Rich velvety moss, newborn trees, emeralds, glimmering beetle shells and soft grasses in the height of summer. A thriving, vibrant green. But this man, this... thing...  

... His green was unpleasant. Sickly. The colour of rot, pale and unnerving, far older and wiser than any jovially emerald-coloured plant that would be dead by next winter. The shade the leaves of a waterlogged fern took before it drowned, the shade of something with a long-hidden disease within its skin, ancient yews that had seen fifty-score winters... the shade the forest around you took, as soon as you realised how far you were from home, and just how unwelcome you were there.

He hadn’t changed a bit.

...

... His mouth and smile never moved, but he broke the silence by shifting ever-so-slightly... bowing his head an inch, wooden body creaking like a tree about to fall.

“little knight.”

...

... You weren’t sure what the movement implied. Respect? Sarcasm? Perhaps somewhere between. Even his utterance, ‘little knight’, straddled that same line; you weren’t yet a knight. The king hadn’t bestowed that title upon you. This creature was affording you more respect than everyone at your court... and yet prefaced it with the undoubtedly patronising ‘little’. 

Nevertheless, you returned the nodding gesture. No matter what he had in store for you, it was best to offer respect- scorning the one with power over you would bring you nothing.

“... You... never gave me your name.” You said. Your voice, beside his low and ancient timbre, sounded like a child blowing into a freshly plucked reed.

“... no. i did not.” He was unblinking. Unreadable. “i was occupied, rather, by your strickening of my head from my shoulders.”

... You almost flinched. Almost. Every night, for an entire year, you’d laid awake in bed replaying that moment in your mind; why did your aim betray you? Why did you take the head? Couldn’t you just have gone for an arm, a hand, perhaps merely placed a superficial wound? You knew the rules of the game. There was no fae trickery... the green knight had been perfectly clear.

You were faltering under the weight of his stare. “I-I’m...”

“never offer apology to someone not of your world.” He spoke, deftly, cutting you off. “offer no thanks, in turn. both imply debt; very dangerous a thing to have with fair folk.”

...

He’d either read your mind, or your obvious expression, and had... given you advice.

... His eyelight shifted downward, to your hand- still on your hip, where your sword would’ve been. It didn’t quite know what to do with itself.

... 

His smile drew upwards, at the corners. As his eye never moved, it gave him a strange, almost crazed expression.

"ah... your sword arm." He let out a sound, a chuckle with no breath. Did he need to breathe? "would you have struck me again?"

... Your hand retreated.

"It's just my reflex," you mumbled.

"a fearful one."

You bristled, at that, the shivers that ran through your whole body a combination of both indignation and the cold... but you said nothing. Because he was right.

No one carries a weapon because they feel safe.

"shame. i enjoyed your first blow."

... Enjoyed? You didn’t know what to say to that.

...

... An owl’s call drifted through the darkness; perhaps the same owl you’d heard before. It sounded strange, distant... the moon went in again, the silvery frosty glow in the world around you gently fading away.

He seemed to be enjoying the moment, eyelight not once leaving you, smile not once faltering. You didn’t know what he was looking at.

...

"... Do you intend to kill me?” You asked, finally interrupting the silence. The question had blurted out of you with all the grace and subtlety of a gate swinging open in a hurricane. You never thought you’d have the chance to speak to him before your destined meeting- so why not ask the question that’d haunted you? “Am I going to die at the chapel?"

... The green knight cocked his head to the side, a fraction.

"do you intend to die?"

You gritted your teeth; that wasn’t the answer you wanted. It wasn’t even an answer.  

"Then what do you gain from toying with me!?"

...

He moved. He leant forward, and down, body creaking and listing, closing the distance between your faces; looming over you and making you immediately wish for the comforting feeling of your blade’s handle in your palms because he was close enough for you to see the veins in the root-parasite in his socket but you couldn’t make yourself move. Your eyes widened, you felt the panic of being a tiny, tiny human under the shadow of a giant felled tree but you couldn't run.

"your words have teeth,” his voice had become a low, eager hiss, dry leaves in a violent wind, you could smell him- he smelled like great boughs of holly weighed heavy with melting snow. Your entire body had seized. “yet your body shakes like a yearling foal. perhaps, human, you seek to disarm through endearment?"

...

Then something very strange happened. The eyelight that beheld you... softened? It became a little wider, it lost some of the sharpness around its edges. For a moment, you allowed yourself to believe that he might have felt some pity- you didn’t know what you looked like at that moment but you were sure it was something akin to a rabbit, frozen in place, with large wild eyes and quivering shoulders.

...

"well..." His voice had softened, too- noticeably. "what do you think i gain?"

...

"... I-I...” Your gaze flitted all across his face. He was so close. It felt like being before a great bear- you were in terrible danger, but only if he decided you were. “I don't know. I really don’t- I know nothing about you."

...

Apparently, he liked that answer. The final thing on his face to soften was his smile.

"... mh. then perhaps you assume too ill of me, little knight."

...

You heard your name behind you.

You spun around, instinctively, realising that the voice belonged to Sans . And there he was- standing in the doorway of the old woman’s house; when did you get that far away from it? You felt like you only took a few steps toward the woods, yet you were far enough to see the chimney. 

Sans stepped out and closed the door, his brows knitted together in a look of gentle concern, eyelights not so much ‘piercing’ through the night as they were simply glowing in spite of the darkness... it felt like they were the only part of the world emitting light.

You turned again, looking over your shoulder at the green knight...

...

... Except there was no one there. The woods, beyond, were far from empty... but he was nowhere to be found. The damp grass, which moments ago had been crushed beneath his oak-trunk legs... was completely untouched, the delicate frost casings around each blade still perfectly undisturbed and intact.

...

You opened your mouth, but no sound came out... only a tiny breath of steam.

“... everything okay?” Sans asked, suddenly a lot closer. His voice was gentle, with the tone you’d take when approaching a small child.

...

You pulled your eyes away from the woods. 

“... Y-yeah.”

Closer again. He must be worried, if he was willing to move that fast. He took one of your hands; wonderfully warm bones closing around your fingers and gently squeezing.

“you don’t sound okay.”

“... I think I was sleepwalking.” You mumbled, staring at his hand, your only grounding to reality. Your head was reeling- did... did any of that even happen? 

“c’mon, you’re stressed and freezing.” Sans’ voice was so comforting, so familiar. You were getting more certain by the hour that if he hadn’t insisted on following you on your journey, you would’ve perished long before you reached the chapel. “let’s get back inside, yeah?”

“... Yeah.” 

Sans lead you, one hand around your back and the other clasped with yours, back to the safety and warmth of the cottage.

...

Neither of you noticed the small cut sprig of holly, bright and glistening, laid in the frost where you had stood.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

You didn’t know how you’d broken free. You didn’t understand where you were, or what happened to you. All you knew was that one moment, you’d been staring at a door, sunlight streaming through an open window... and the next, you were running.

Running for your life.

The forest you were fleeing through was gigantic, trees thick as houses that rose hundreds of feet above you, darker and deeper and more frightening with every step you took. Your chest was heaving to draw in painful breaths, bare feet and hands covered in dirt and moss from moving over the uneven ground. And it wasn’t just uneven as in there were a few lumps and bumps on the floor... you were vaulting over and ducking under monstrous roots, clambering in and out of ditches full of glass-clear water, scrabbling up boulders. It was like this whole forest was made for ancient gargantuan creatures; not tiny, fleshy humans.

The worst part was how silent it was. No birds, no animals, no wind. The only noise in the whole, eons-old woods was your desperate attempts to run, and...

“where are you going, darling?”

The voice was terrifyingly gentle- you choked in a sob, he sounded so close, artificial softness calling out from only a few trees behind you, far too light and ‘human’ to ever match the giant and heavy lumbering noises you could make out following you. You tripped over a small ledge, and blindly staggered...

...

... Right into a dead end. 

Before you realised where you’d gone, you’d run straight into a one-way system. Two ancient, giant fallen trees had laid right against one another, their tops touching, penning you in like a rabbit.

N-no...  

You couldn’t turn around. Stricken with panic you ran to the sheer face and grabbed onto the side of one of the huge trees, but your sweat-slicked palms just slipped right off the smooth petrified face.

“is everything okay? do you want to talk?”

Behind you. You spun around, your back flat against the tree and heart pounding so hard your ribs felt close to bursting, just in time to see him enter the pen.

... You saw his giant horns, first. Arching and majestic, like a centuries-old red deer, branching and curling in slow but complete symmetry. The antlers alone were clue enough that he was something from before your time, when the world and the forests were as huge as he was. He was low to the ground and moving on all fours, like a beast, massive body far more agile over the equally massive ground below him... this was his land, his territory, there was no way to outrun him.

... And then his eyes. Wild eyes.

“let’s go back home.” The friendly voice escaped, disembodied, from the void inside his jaws. “it’ll be dark soon. it gets so cold out here.”

The pin-sharp blue lights in his dark sockets were unnaturally fierce and bright against the constant dim and gloomy backing of the forest, like little wil-o-wisps unblinkingly following you; they constricted like a snake when you made the mistake of eye contact. And as soon as your gaze met his, a horrible, familiar dizziness started to wash over you. You knew exactly what it was- and despite the panic that gripped you a malicious voice in the back of your head chimed that there was nothing you could do about it. Like you were buried up to your chest in sand, and the tide was coming in, you could scream and beat your fists against the ground until your hands broke but it would never stop the water.

“N-no,” you croaked.

He advanced, the image of him in front of you twisting and beginning to blur, eyelights the only thing that remained still through your swirling and collapsing vision. Even though his face was unmoving, you were absolutely certain he was smiling at you.

... In a split second of absolute terror, your back against the wall, something in your head jolted like a tiny zap of electrostatic energy.

“I-I want to play a game!”

...

... 

The dizziness stopped. 

... As did he. He stilled, shoulders lowering, but head pricking up almost imperceptibly like a dog who’d heard a master’s whistle.

...

Fuck. You thought to yourself, completely breathless, somehow getting enough strength to push yourself up; you didn’t realise you’d slid down onto your ass until you felt damp moss under your hands. You couldn’t look away from him. Fuck, fuck, that... that worked. That WORKED. Cold sweat prickled all over your body.

The ‘something’ in your head was a tiny, last-second piece of information your brain had dragged from the depths in its desperation to avoid him pulling you back under again. You couldn’t remember where you heard it from, perhaps an elderly relative, a parent or family friend... but you recalled learning that the fae loved games, especially with humans. They loved them so much that they’d stop anything to play- it was dangerous to willingly engage in a game with a faery, especially when they could control the grounds and rules... but in a life-or-death situation, offering to play a game could save you.

... As it seemingly had, now. His eyelights vanished.

“... a game...?” He purred, in a new voice.

That was a real voice. His words, though low and controlled, had an unmistakably eager trill to them; it seemed like he’d dropped the vocal act now that you had full view of the truth.

“... Y-yes. Yes.” You nodded and sat up even more, hands nearly slipping, catching your breath for a few seconds before finishing the sentence. “A, u-uhm... a... a truth game.”

He cocked his massive head. The bones audibly creaked against one another.

“... truth...”

...

... You were certain that there were better options. Games you could play that would stack the odds in your favour, clever tricks that would allow you to leave these woods alive. But right now, in the heat and fear of the moment, all you could do was reach for the closest and simplest option.

“We... a-ask each other questions.” Your voice was hoarse. “And... if either of us lies, they lose.”

...

He let out a small huff of air. The lack of light in his sockets made you feel like he was unblinkingly staring, all his attention unwaveringly on you- like you had no room to move or breathe. Every blink felt nervewracking, seeing as he couldn’t return the gesture... each flutter of your eyelids was a split second advantage he had on you.

(It made you offhandedly wonder if the smaller, more human-resembling skeleton form he had used before had permanent lights in his eyesockets for the sole purpose of imitating a line of sight and making you feel more comfortable.)

“... if i lose?”

...

... You knew he was smart, all fae were. But the speed at which he picked up on what you were trying to do was unnerving, to say the least... you held no upper ground. He was completely aware of the fact that this was a thinly veiled escape attempt, and he was only playing along thanks to the promise of a bit of fun for him.

You swallowed, thickly, throat unpleasantly dry.

“If... you lose, you have to let me leave.”

...

Oh, he did not like that. 

He did not like that.

Although he literally didn’t move an inch a disgusting, decay-like smell filled the air around you, a terrible miasma that made you want to lurch and immediately empty the contents of your stomach. The colossal trees around you started whispering, groaning, shifting, as if all of them were going to crumble and fall...

F-fuck, no!

“W-wait, wait!” You put your hand out, voice becoming slightly shrill. “I-I changed my mind, I changed my mind! You don’t have to let me go!”

...

... The trees stopped. But he still didn’t move, dark gaze dead on you, and the pungent odour of wet rot lingered. He suddenly seemed bigger.

You got too confident. You crossed a line... you’re on thin ice, now.

You were shaking all over, as you wracked your brains for anything you could use against him. A way to escape, a way to get away from him... that was a stupid condition to ask for. The only thing stopping him from just seizing your mind and dragging you back was his mood- if you pushed too far, made him too unhappy, you were done for. Stupid.

“If you lose...” Deep breaths. You can do this. “If you lose, you have to... 

...

... you have to lift the illusions. All of them. You can’t touch me with that kind of magic anymore.”

...

Apparently, that was a much more acceptable loss condition. The putrid smell finally faded, and he seemed to pull back a centimetre or so, giving you just a fraction more space to breathe.

“... and...” He drawled, mouth cracking open and eyelights returning. It didn’t matter what magic he cast... nothing could disguise the way his voice dripped with glee. “if i win...?”

...

You swallowed the lump in your throat. You didn’t even want to say it out loud... but you had no choice. Both of you knew the only condition he’d accept.

“I’ll... I’ll stay... with you. F-forever.”

The last word, when it left your lips, caused an unmistakable flash of eagerness in his glimmering eyelights. He leant forward, as if he just couldn’t stop himself from trying to close the distance...

... but the action made you rear backward like a spooked horse, flattening yourself against the tree, eyes widening like a rabbit seeing headlights.

...

“... ah.” He mumbled, as if in realisation.

...

And then it was Sans in front of you. Just Sans, in his classic green jacket.

There’d been no changing form, no transformation. No clue that he was going to shift. One minute, the space before and above you was filled with the giant form of a terrifying fae creature that’d trapped you... and now, instead, the human-sized skeleton you’d been living a blissful and stress-free domestic life with for the past several months was sitting a few feet away. Casual, cross-legged. He looked so... small? Harmless compared to the beast whose horns had filled what little sky you could make out moments ago. The moss around where he sat was growing thicker and greener.

...

You nervously wetted your lips, sitting up straighter against the dead tree. It was so eerie to see him again... smiling so casually and softly, like nothing had even happened. But you couldn’t unsee the beast- now, instead of your friend, you knew what he really was.

The horned monster is the anglerfish. This is just the lure.

“i hope this is better.” He said. His voice was at a familiarly low register- but thinner, no longer piercing through your entire body. It also sounded like it took less effort for him to speak. 

It... it was better. Not that you’d ever admit it. The micro-movements in his face and mouth, despite your knowledge that they were fake... they were comforting to your frightened and exhausted subconscious in a way you couldn’t describe. Like finally getting a laugh out of someone who had been totally expressionless with you for hours.

...

“So. Uhm... w-where am I?” You began. Maybe, if you knew where you were, you could make an escape plan instead of just running in any direction.

He hummed, apparently pleased... you didn’t know why. Maybe you’d asked a more forgiving question than he’d anticipated? 

“the heart of the forest.”

For some reason, your own heart skipped a beat at the fact that he was actually playing along. You’d asked a question, and he’d given you an answer; you drew in a tiny, victorious and hopeful breath, allowing yourself a moment of congratulation for having gained some kind of control in a situation as dire as this. 

But... the fact that you were in the forests’ heart... a very specific, ancient place... it rang an alarm bell in your mind that you couldn’t ignore. You dug your thumb nail into the side of your index finger to try and ground yourself.

“What are you?”

...

He lowered his head, as if... thinking? He mumbled to himself, too, a word you didn’t understand, an unintelligible tongue that sounded more like roots and gems being rolled in a palm than any noise a human could make.

“... king...” He said, but he was somewhat unsure, if his tone and the crease between his brows was anything to go by. Was he... was he translating for you? “... woods... king? eldest....”

...

“... A Forest God.”

... He raised his skull again, sighing, as if in realisation. As if to say ‘is that what you call me?’... but either way, he nodded.

...

You felt sick. Much sicker than before. It all was starting to push down on you, threatening to crush you under its unbearable weight. Panic was rattling at the door to your mind.

... This wasn’t just any woodland creature that’d decided it wanted to keep you as its human pet. This was a Forest God. The forest God- probably the only one left on this continent. Ancient creatures, powerful beyond the understanding of most humans and fae alike, individuals who had walked the Earth for many hundreds of years. Fickle and temperamental and incomprehensible, to encounter one was either certain death or the stuff of purest legend.

...

You couldn’t let yourself think about it for too long. Humans weren't meant to think about that amount of power, and the idea of it all being directed at you threatened to break you.

“H-how did I get here?” You asked, instead focusing on the here and now.

“... it was raining. you fell off the path.” 

‘Fell off the path?’ You narrowed your eyes. Yes, yes, now that he said that, you had vague memories of entering the woods... walking along an established pathway that straddled the border between the forest and the farmland. You remembered holding your hood to make sure it stayed up against the rain- and it was definitely a real memory, because you recalled feeling unpleasantly wet and cold. Baring in mind the track record of his powers he’d never allow you to feel that unpleasant in one of his implanted memories.

“But... but why did...”

“ah.” He purred, cutting you off. “i want to ask some questions, too.”

... You bit your lip. Of course- this was a two-way game, right? Suddenly, your heart started pounding again, what was he going to ask you? Was he going to try and trick you into lying, or just ask you something so outrageous that you had to choose between your dignity and your potential freedom? And that was assuming he was even going to play by the rules. What if he asked a question with no possible correct answer, so anything you said was technically a lie, which made him win by default, and...

“do you like my tea?”

...

You blinked.

“Wh...?”

“the tea i make for you.” His eyelights widened. “do you like it?”

...

“Uhm... y-yes.”

A pleased hum.

“did you like breakfast? well... do you like my food, overall?”

Food? Breakfast? Why was he talking about this? Your brows drew together. Nevertheless, you let a little “M-mhm,” out, because he was a good cook despite everything and this absolutely wasn't worth losing the game for. Cinnamon rolls and fresh coffee... the morning felt like months ago, despite only being a few hours, at most.

“do you like the house?”

“... Yes. A-a lot.” You picked at your shirt hem. What was he doing? Was this a trick? Why were all his questions so tame?

...

“so...” He tilted his head again- the gesture reminded you so intensely of the monster he really was that you had to take a breath in to steady yourself. “... you like everything i’ve made for you. right? there’s nothing that makes you upset.”

“... R... right.”

“then why don’t you want to stay?”

...

“Huh?”

“i made everything perfect. for you.” His sockets had widened a fraction. He looked like he was trying very, very hard not to lean forward or approach you. “you like all of it. you’re always comfy and taken care of. so why do you keep trying to leave? i just want you to stay with me. what am i doing wrong?”

...

“You... you’re keeping me captive.” You spoke slowly, mostly because you were trying to unpack what you were hearing. “Whatever that thing is that you do to my head. I hate that, i-t’s like being smothered.”

“okay.” He nodded. “i won’t do that anymore.”

...

You blinked again.

“Y-you won’t?” You parroted, voice coming out in a surprised little squeak.

What? It’s... it’s that easy?!

“i want you to stay with me. but i want you to like staying with me.” His sockets softened, smile lifting a bit at the corners. “i only did that so you'd like it. so you wouldn’t be scared all the time.”

... 

You exhaled, mostly in surprise, looking away from him for a moment to let that process. In... in a strange way, you could see his flawed logic; he snatched you up, out of nowhere, and took you to the ancient heart of the forest that probably no human has seen in a least a thousand years. You could read between the lines and tell that he was lonely and didn’t want to let you go... it made sense that he’d see how frightened you are of him and come to the conclusion that in order to make sure you weren’t always plagued with terror, he should use his magic to smother your negative memories and feelings, so the two of you could live together in a faux harmony.

...

Maybe he wasn’t malicious. He didn't want you to panic, or live in fear... and he just doesn’t know how humans work. 

...

“A-are you... lonely?” You asked, returning your gaze to him.

“yes.” He breathed, with a little much intensity.

“You want someone to like you.”

Apparently, he’d noticed your adverse reaction to his intensity, because he toned his second “yes." down.

“... Wouldn’t...” you couldn’t believe you were asking a Forest God this question. “... Wouldn’t you rather someone liked you willingly? Instead of... being tricked, or forced to because of magic?”

...

He mulled it over, for a moment.

“... yeah." He mumbled. "i would.”

...

Maybe he's been alone so long that he's just not on the right wavelength. Maybe the inability to fully comprehend... goes both ways?

...

He pricked up, eyelights flickering like a candle flame dancing in someone's sigh. “if i promise not to use illusions anymore, will you come back with me?”

...

“... No illusions, o-or messing with my head. Ever.” You sat up. This seemed like the best option, for now. Besides... you couldn't deny you were curious about him now that he wasn't holding your mind captive. “And no... none of that pedantic, word-picking stuff fae do to find loopholes. You know exactly what I mean when I say no messing with my head. If you lie and do it again, I’ll never stop trying to run away from you.”

Sans nodded, but kept his head tilted low, like some kind of... small bow. Why... why did it make you feel better? You knew it was just his way of making you feel as if you had more control here than you really did. So why was it working?

“no more. never again. i swear.”

...

...

He tilted his head up a fraction.

“... do you need me to carry you?”

... You let out a tiny laugh, more out of overwhelmed relief than anything else.

“Y-yes please. I don’t think I could stand up right now.”

Chapter Text

“H-hello?”

A woman stood in the doorway of the castle, only a single step past the threshold of the building, her drenched cloak creating a puddle around her feet. 

...

She bit her lips, nervous, closing the heavy main door behind her to keep out the nasty storm and rain howling just outside. The fact that nobody was there somewhat took her off guard- the heavy main door had opened on its own when she approached. She’d assumed there was someone there behind it. 

“Is... is anyone here?” She called again. No response.

... She was lightly packed, carrying only a handmade cross-shoulder satchel that she’d tried her best to protect under her cloak. Removing the hood of her cloak, a flash of lightning glanced across her golden hair, bound in a soaking plait that must have been neat and elegant a few hours (and one storm) ago. 

“I-I don’t mean to intrude, I just need somewhere to spend the night...”

Again, no sound returned to her but her own cautious voice, echoed and thin. Perhaps... the place was abandoned?

Well. That’s fine. I’m used to being alone, anyway.

She approached the staircase and quietly noted the repeating pattern of moon phases that constituted the stairs’ dark oak bannister. She felt... strangely apprehensive? But she ascended the marble staircase to the second floor anyway, her footsteps gunshots in the emptiness; even if the place was abandoned, the size of it told her it was no doubt filled with bedrooms. And bedrooms would mean a corner to curl up in for the night- plus, hopefully, somewhere to hang up her soaked cloak.

Cautiously, she moved down a dreadfully dark corridor, so long and dark she couldn’t see the end of it. She reached out to the nearest ornate door handle- it was smooth in her palm, but dusty.

...

She... shuddered. And a strange feeling washed over her. She let go of the handle... glancing one last time down the corridor.

...

It wasn’t empty. There was a hulking figure, in the darkness- and he was glaring at her with a single glowing eye the colour of lightning hitting the ocean.

“... trespasser.”

...

There wasn’t even time for a scream to escape her throat. Fear electrocuted her whole body and she staggered back- a flurry of shadows barrelled into her, pinning her to the wall on all sides, surrounding her, the only sound she could make was a rather pathetic little cry like the last squealing breath of a dying rabbit as she brought her arms up to her chest to defend herself.

It was a monster. A skeleton monster... he loomed over her, glaring down with that single vividly glowing eye, utterly merciless in countenance. His whole body was midnight black, coated in a viscous tar-like sludge so dark it strained her vision, with an eerie cobalt-blue sheen to it, ice white fangs bared in a snarl.

And there were TENTACLES sprouting from his back. Four of them, thicker than her waist at the middle and clearly powerful, they looked like they were just itching to wrap around her throat and crush it like a plant stalk.

“you humans...” He snarled, in a voice like burning satin... he sounded completely, utterly furious, his eye twitched like an organ of its own as his tentacles writhed like angry snakes. “you think you can just wander into anyone’s home, don’t you?” 

“I’m sorry!” She blurted, terrified beyond belief, heart pounding out of her chest. “I didn’t know...”

He sneered. He smelled like the stink coming off large amounts of rusted metal. “pleading ignorance. it’s pathetic.”

“P-please,” her voice was weak, small, she couldn’t look at him. “I just... I-I need somewhere to spend the night...”

Suddenly, an inky hand took her chin. She stifled a scream, his hands were huge and his claws were dangerously close to piercing her skin, the whole extremity ice cold to the touch- it wasn’t a painful hold, it didn’t need to be. His commanding aura forced her to tilt upwards despite the surprising gentleness in the way he took her face.

“look at me.” He growled, and although she was close to tears, she made her gaze rise and meet his; the silhouetted expression she saw glaring down at her only made her wish more that she’d remained out in the storm.

...

He made a new sound.

It was... a chuckle. Like a great tide shifting in a split second, he’d changed from unbridled fury to eerie playfulness. It made every hair on her body stand on end. Those terrifying ice white teeth transformed from a snarl into a grin, spreading slowly across and up his face, sharp and dark and unkind.

“... you have fine eyes.” He said, tilting her face to the side like she was a cut of meat. His voice had changed too- settling from his previous barking into a low, far more insidious purr. “and a green soul, too... you know, normally, trespassers like you would receive exactly what they deserved.” 

She felt one of his tentacles seize her wrist, ice cold as his hands. She barely repressed a second scream, chest unbearably tight with panic, another came up and began tracing her hair line... they felt wet, squishy, unpleasant. Is he going to kill me? H-he’s going to kill me! There was nothing she could do. The delicacy of his touch was far more terrifying than any vice grip could be.

“the lucky ones get thrown from the high windows.” He continued, leaning in closer. His breath was cold, too. She didn’t need to know him to know that he was obviously enjoying how much terror she was in- his mouth was cracked open, just a fraction, like he was drawing in the air around them to feel the taste of her fear on his tongue. “but the especially impertinent get to spend a long, long time in the forest. paying for their mistakes. for their arrogance.” 

The eyelight in his socket constricted, a predator zeroing in on prey, but the cold blue shine from it intensified. 

“... usually, the cold kills them before the starvation does.” He hissed. The tentacle grip on your wrist tightened. “either that, or i get bored of all their pathetic, embarrassing screaming.”

She was very close to tears.

...

He let go of her face.

“hm... but i don’t feel like that’s suitable for this.”

...

What? A dizzy wave hit her as she looked up at him, he cocked his head ever-so-slightly. She could still feel the ghost of his hand on her jaw and cheeks.

“i have a much better punishment in mind. i think...”

His grin flashed like the lightning outside.

“... you’ll be staying right here.”

---

...

The food in front of her looked fine. A lot finer than what she was used to, back home. Even the plate was fine- thin and carefully decorated pottery, tiny repeating gold and silver moon phases circling the rim of the dish. She hadn’t eaten much, nothing would stay down. He was sat at the opposite end of the table, plate already empty, arms folded on the table and a wine glass held casually in one of his tentacles... the way he endlessly stared at her fidgeting form made it impossible to stomach anything, no matter how much she circled the plate with the ornate silver fork.

“... not hungry?” His voice was saccharine. The light from the main fireplace glanced off his smile just as much as the slime that coated his body; his eyelight was wide but the black centre was sharp and small. “i made this for you.”

“... Th-thank you, it’s lovely.” She managed to get out. Not a lie- the food wasn’t the problem. And she’d die before she lost her manners.

He had a similar sickly sweet tone to when he’d unlocked her bedroom door, an hour or so earlier. After a day of nothing but being trapped in the same chamber, the few belongings she’d stuffed in her satchel her only company, the sound of knocking on the elegant door had almost jumped her out of her skin.

“come downstairs. we’re going to dine together. 

... unless, of course, you’d like to stay up here and starve.”

...

“... i trust you like your room.” He purred, lifting his arm and propping his elbow on the table, chin in hand, leaning forward in his seat. “you should make use of the clothes in the closet. you’ll be here a long time, after all.”

... The other hand tapped on the table, huge black claws clicking rhythmically against the wood. The way they glinted... it reminded her of the carapace of a beetle.

...

“you’re from the village, yes?”

Her eyes darted, as if searching the room for an explanation for his behaviour. Why was he so keen to get her talking? It was like he couldn’t figure out if he wanted to speak to her or torment her. “Y-yes.”

“you’re quite a ways from home.” The tentacle placed the wine glass on the table. “how did you end up so far into the forest?”

The claws kept tapping. Ra-tap tap. Ra-tap tap.

“... I... got thrown from my horse. A lightning strike spooked her.”

...

He narrowed his socket, slightly, the edge crinkling.

“you’re not injured, are you?”

...

“... No.” She said, cautiously but still softly. “But... thank you for asking.”

He looked away, one of his other tentacles flexing. “good. i wouldn’t want to waste my medicine on you.”

... Oh. Well... that quickly dashed the little bit of hope she’d felt. She turned back to her meal, silent again, gathering enough willpower to eat another forkful- despite her shaking hands she had still neatly partitioned her dish into polite bitesized pieces. She wanted to make a big enough dent in her food that he wouldn’t feel offended... captor or not, he made her something to eat, and she wasn’t going to just leave it.

...

The fireplace crackled. Another forkful or so. 

He ran his claw phlanage around the rim of the wine glass. 

... She was already missing home...

...

“you know.” He broke the silence again, leaning back in his chair. “even though you’re human, you don’t strike me as the stupid type.”

...

... She paused, her brow furrowing, fork midway between her mouth and plate. “U-uhm...” Was she... was she supposed to say thank you to that? Should she disagree? Before she could figure out how to respond, he continued.