Work Text:
For the past week, there's been the distinct feeling of being followed. You would bring it up with Sans, but you're not sure it's even worth mentioning, partly because you feel like you're going crazy. Honestly, who in Snowdin would be after your blood, much less interested in you? There's a significant lack of contestants, and all except one or two are harmless. Nonetheless, it's still nerve-racking. Just the other day, you swear you saw a warbling thin, humanoid shadow, but as you tried to stare at it, a small greenish-cyan light brightened on one side of where the face would be before the entire thing became part of the shadows. You tell yourself you were probably imagining it, but it was still extremely unsettling. This other time, as you were taking a walk through the woods, between some trees in the distance you think you saw two tiny blinking lights that kept changing shape and color every few seconds. You had quickly headed back to the skelebro's house that day.
Yesterday, you started having severe cramps in your abdomen for a particular reason that every girl understands. Today, you've held off on doing anything strenuous and cemented your butt to the couch with a warm blanket on your lower abdomen. Papyrus, bless his soul, had insisted heating the blanket up in the dryer because they don't have a heating pad, or a “pad for heating,” as Papyrus had reiterated. You appreciate the effort and accepted the blankets on the idea that something is better than nothing. Despite all this, your abdomen has excruciating waves of pain at most every minute or less, and there's no pain meds to take for it. The best you have for pain relief is monster food, and that only lasts for around ten seconds to a few minutes. Sea Tea seems to last at most ten minutes, but there's only so much of the stuff.
The point is, you're cooped up on the couch covered in blankets and sweating to death while also in pain, and there's next to nothing that could get you to move. You close your eyes and let your mind drift along with random thoughts. You remember a few funny memes you saw about that time of the month, like a picture of a girl being bit by a shark; morbid, but somewhat accurate. It usually gets a laugh out of you when you're experiencing it. You keep thinking of funny memes for the situation, even thinking of a gif of Flowey switching between smiling and being a demon with the words “that time of the month”; again, it's horrible, but mildly accurate to a point. Plus it makes you laugh.
After some time, you find yourself awakening from a doze to the sound of knocking on the door. You frown and slowly rub your eyes to help you wake up before opening them to the dim living room. In a scratchy voice, you call out, “..'ello.” The sound of your voice barely reaches your ears, so you call out again just as there's more knocking on the door, “Hello?” The sound stops mid-knock, and then silence stretches through the room. Irritation sparks in you and your eyes shift around as you wonder who and why this person is here. You also wonder why they would knock without announcing themselves, considering Snowdin is a pretty small town and that's a rather common courtesy. After a long stretch of time in silence, you call out more irritably, “Hello?!” Nothing replies, so you groan loudly and cover your head up with the blankets.
You're under your blankets for a mere few seconds when you hear a few more knocks at the door. “Ugh, go away!” you yell. Something slams against the door and you jump out of your skin with a squeak before peeking out of your blankets with wide eyes at the door. Your abdomen cramps with the movement, reminding you of your situation.
When nothing more happens to the door and silence stretches yet again, you call out a meek, “...Hello?” Two soft quick knocks reply. You swallow, and then slowly place your feet onto the carpet with your blankets wrapped around you. Then you stand and begin to make your way to the door in a very slow and quiet pace. When you reach the door, you check to make sure it's locked before asking very quietly, “...hello…?”
The silence stretches far and wide once more with only your near-silent shuddering breath. You frown at the door and fiddle with your blankets a bit for a while before you decide to leave it be and go back to the couch. Just as you take a step away from the door, you hear a happier sounding, “hello!” You nearly jump out of your skin, abdomen twinging with pain, before freezing up to listen for anything else. The absolute silence on the other side is extremely unnerving, especially since the front deck is known to make wood sounds when people stand there and shift about. For there to be no sound, this person would have to stand completely still and be light as a feather. You're not sure there are monsters like that who exist, but it's nonetheless unnerving.
You finally frown irritably again and then sigh before responding, “who are you?”
The voice doesn't hesitate to answer, “Open the door so I can meet you!”
That sounded extremely wrong and strange to you, so you get a bit snappy when you reply, “Heck no, I don't think so.”
“Aw, why not?” The voice sounds sad, but there's something about it that almost seems… fake, or forced.
“You're acting more and more like a child abductor,” you reply honestly.
“Hahahah, oh man! That was good! Seriously though, I was really hoping to meet you! You're the… the kid living with the skelebros, right?”
You squint at the door, but reply despite the suspiciousness of this whole thing, “Yeah… why do you-”
“Great!” They cut you off, how rude, “So I really want to meet you, maybe ask some questions!”
You sigh irritably again and this time you roll your eyes, “Uh, I'm not really in the mood…” you look over to the couch with longing.
“Aw, but I came all this way!” All this way? This couldn't be… Mettaton? No way, he couldn't possibly sound like this. Sure the childish behavior is somewhat like him, but the voice isn’t metallic or suave. “Can't you just open the door a crack so I can see you at least?”
There's something extremely wrong about this, but again you can't exactly put your finger on it. You've heard of the foot-in-the-door technique, but you never thought it could be taken so literally. Nevertheless, there's a good chance that, if they're from Snowdin, they'll respect your wishes and leave you alone after a short while. You sigh and groan, “Ok, fiiiine…” and begin to unlatch the door.
“Oh, yay! I'm so excited! I can't wai- urrRRRRRGGgghhh…!” he's cut off by the sound of splattering and heaving.
You pause as you're touching the doorknob when you hear what sounds strikingly similar to someone throwing up. You cringe and turn the knob, and just as you crack the door open, your brain stops dead when it all starts to click; the lights in the forest, the puking, that voice. There's no way this could be-!
The door slams open, staggering you back until you land on your behind with a startled yelp. Your cramping body screams from the movement, spasming your abdominal muscles. Standing before you, with a galaxy and some dark splotches in the distance behind him, is the protector of the AUs. Ink Sans.
“Hi there!” he waves at you with a fist resting on his waist and his posture in some kind of mock hero pose.
Your mouth falls open and your eyes bug out as you stare up at him. You blink a few times to make sure you aren't seeing things, and once you're a little more grounded with the situation and how bad this could be, all you can say is, “Oh fuck.”
A bonebrow raises on Ink's face at your comment, “What's that supposed to mean? Aren't you at least slightly excited to meet me? I came all this way per request to see you, and that's all you have to say to me, Ink?” He puts a hand on his chest when he says his name before continuing. “You know I was told you knew who I was, heh!” he says with a grin.
You only stare at him as he keeps talking.
“Yeah, they said a lot about you, and how much you know about all of us. So you must know about the AUs right?” He snaps his fingers with an excited look. “Hey! Why don't you go visit some?!” Ink seems excited at this prospect.
It takes you a minute to catch your brain up to processing everything he said, so you have a delayed reaction when Ink suddenly grabs your arm and pulls you to your feet towards the door, which now leads to a dark snowy place. “Uh, wait, wait a second-” You dig your feet into the carpet to try and stop yourself, but Ink is apparently the Hulk and just drags you without a sweat or any fault in his step. No wonder Error can get the crap beaten out of him by this sociopathic skeleton.
“Oh, don't be so worried! It'll be fun!” He looks back at you with a broad grin that doesn't quite meet his eye lights. ‘Fun for you, maybe,’ you think to yourself. “You can even meet Swap Sans and Swap Papyrus, or even Underfell if you're feeling up to it!” Ink smiles that unapologetic smile at you before shoving you through the doorway of the house.
You pinwheel your arms with a failed attempt at reversing momentum. “No wait, I don't want to do this-!!” and before you can finish your sentence, you trip into the portal and face-plant into the snow with an “oomph!” Your ovaries scream at you for the sudden slam to the cold hard ground. You growl loudly and turn over to tell Ink off… but all you see is snow, claustrophobic placement of trees, and the dark ceiling way high above you. However, the air above you is tinted a slight reddish dark color instead of being mostly clear. “Oh no…” you say to yourself, because this could mean many different numbers of bad AUs. You don't mean bad as in badly written either, you're talking about the difference between foul mouths and violence verses torture and cannibalism. You're talking Underfell versus Horrortale, and everything in between and all around; this could even be Dusttale! You're just sincerely hoping it's not at all what it looks like. You decide it might be better to start moving instead of being stationary and freezing. Speaking of freezing, you're kind of happy you wound up falling through that door with three blankets around your shoulders, because the chill in the air is unforgiving to your exposed skin.
You get to your feet and wrap the blankets around you in a more secure fashion, ensuring at least your lower face gets covered and in turn your breath keeps your heating space warm. Once you feel as ready as you can get, you start to walk through the snow with sock covered feet. You huff at the fact you only have socks, but you're also grateful you're not barefoot. You tromp through the snow and slowly weave between the thick forestry, having to constantly stop to pull your trailing blanket out of grabby tree limbs. You sigh and huff irritably with each happenstance, and after doing this ten times in less than two minutes, you snap and tuck part of the blanket middle into the waistband of your pants. Once that's done, you straighten yourself out and huff before continuing through the forestry. At least your abdomen, cramping painfully as it is, now has some soft and warm compress against it.
As you move through the forest, you start to feel the sense of being lost baring down on you. Everything looks the same whether you stare at it or glance at it. You swear you even saw that one fallen log ten minutes ago, or at least what felt like ten minutes ago. The snow is starting to seep through your socks and turn your feet frozen and pruny. You shudder despite the blankets wrapped around you and push yourself to move faster through the snow. You keep telling yourself that civilization is just up ahead, just around the next tree, but then… what if it's closer the other way? Or what if civilization is just to your left or right? You pause and look around in the silence, and then take a moment to listen, and that's when you realize just how silent the area is. Every hair on your body stands up when your loud breathing is the only thing you can hear against the deafening silence. Your ears start to ring a bit as the seconds pass, and you let out a small whimper just to fill the silence.
Then the silence is utterly shattered. “heya,” someone speaks right behind you, and you shriek and whirl around, nearly toppling over from the lack of feeling in your frozen feet. Your legs and abdomen spasm in protest. A Sans stands before you, but your heart drops in your stomach when you realize which Sans is standing in front of you. He's wearing a blue jacket with a fuzz lined hood, and the shirt underneath has some suspicious red stains on it. His smile is thin and has way too many teeth in it, and his one working eye light, his left one, is swollen red. Finally, there's a big hole on the back side of the top of his head. It's Horrortale Sans, and he's tugging harshly on his empty eye socket as he stares you down with an engorged red eye light in the other socket. You cringe and then jolt slightly when he speaks again, “could smell ya from a mile away.” You frown with uncertainty at this statement. “Ya smell like somethin’... somethin’ good, heh.” His single eye light quivers and widens a bit as his smile twitches upward, and his limp arm twitches.
You think about this for a moment before you go pale. Your period, he can smell that from who knows how far away. He can smell the blood, and it probably makes him… crave meat. Oh no. As you think about the implications of this, you look down to his left hand which has been twitching and your eyes lock onto a stained meat cleaver; THE meat cleaver. You feel your heart stutter at the sight before you reconnect your eyes to his one eye light.
His smile widens at your look. “What's ‘a matter, got ya hooked on somethin’?”
Oh God, meat puns, he's just… ok, ok, you can handle this. “ U-uhm… n-no, I…” you lose your voice, partly because you're terrified and partly because you don't know what to say.
“Heh, ya seem tongue-tied, maybe not so cleaver if ya ask me, heh heh.” His smile widens again, and you feel chills roll up and down your spine. He takes a step forward, and you quickly take a step back and pull the blanket around you tighter with another shudder.
“Um… well, it's… n-ice to MEAT you, heh…” you give a poor smile and almost put your hand out for a handshake before you remember exactly why you should never ever do that with a murderous Sans.
He stares at you for a moment before he responds, “heh. heh heh, some meat on your bones with a bit of a funny taste. I bet you wouldn't mind marinating in our house a bit, maybe get out of this cold so ya don't become a human popsicle. Not that I'm opposed to that.”
Whoa… seriously? There's no way there isn't a catch here. ‘Marinating?!’ Is that a pun, or…? You feel your blood drain down from your face again at the second possibility. He's clearly going to eat you at some point, or at least try. He's going to get your guard down. Why is he even inviting you over, albeit in a creepy manner? Unless, maybe… maybe Aliza came through here? Did she make him this paranoid that he might lose a meal? Oh fuck no, he's going to trap you. And then you're going to be eaten and-!
Something grabs your wrist tight and yanks on it, and you squeak and yank back as you come to. You see that Sans had reached for the hand visible between the blankets it was holding and now he's got a hold of it. The meat cleaver is poised behind him, not exactly in a good position to swing around and down on you, but it wouldn't be hard to do so. Seeing all of this in a split second, you gasp and kick at Sans’ pelvis as you tug on your captured wrist. Luckily, Sans grunts as he loosens the hold on your wrist enough that you can pull it free with some bruising, and you turn and bolt away from the supposedly cannibalistic skeleton. Your feet crunch loudly through the snow and the trees tear at your hair and blankets as you bolt blindly through the forest. You gasp as much air as you can despite how fridged it is.
Escape is cut short when something thin and unyielding bites and digs into your ankles, swiping your feet right out from under you. A choked noise of shock escapes you before you slam face first into the snow with a gag caused by the position of your neck. You feel the rest of your body fling up a bit as you drag through the snow for a few inches. Once the momentum stops, the rest of your body flops to the earth and you're left to lay there completely stunned and confused. You stay still as you work to find your breath, trying to find the rhythm that you breathe with despite the shock of falling. Once you start to breathe more easily, you try to stir a bit so you can get up. Suddenly, something stomps on your back and you give a guttural, coughing yell from the shock and pain.
“heh, so close, huh, sweet meat? But not close enough…” your breath catches in your throat and you gasp in terror at the sound of his voice. His foot digs into your back and you try to scramble to get out from under him.
You hear him chuckle and your blood freezes over, “n-no wait, S-SaaANS!!” You tense up completely as you hear his cleaver cut the air, and then… silence. After a moment, you start to breathe again and crack your eyes open. You see that you're still alive and in no more pain than you were before. You sigh slightly and untense a bit with this realization before remembering that there's still a killer skeleton’s foot digging between your shoulder blades. You decide to chance your luck despite how stupid this could be, “...Sans, I need help. I-”
“Heh,” the foot in your back jabs you a bit to cut you off. “That's funny, that's real funny, sweet meat. See, eye need your help too…”
You decide rushing is a good idea, “I- I'm not from here! Not this universe!!”
“that's ok, more for us.” His foot digs even more into your back as if he's leaning forward, and then he grabs a fistfull of your hair and yanks your head back. The sudden motion makes your throat spasm and you gag a bit with a cringe before managing to look up. You see Sans staring down at you with a gleeful smile and a purely red eye socket. His cleaver is hovering right above your forehead as he stares down at you.
“Bone appetite,” he says, yanking your head back more into a crick as he slowly raises the cleaver. Your eyes feel like they're about to fall out of your head and your heart tries to jump out of your chest with each quickening thu-thump. You kick your legs a bit to try and catch Sans off guard again, but you can't quite reach to kick him, and any amount of wiggling only seems to excite him.
“Heh, one headdog, comin’ up!” and then he swings the cleaver down once more as you scream in “vein.”
Suddenly, the sensation of being held down disappears and is replaced with a falling sensation. You gasp and open your eyes to see a floating island in literal space right below you, which is coming closer much faster than you'd like it to. You yelp and put your hands out in front of you. It only takes a second before you realize how pointless that would be, so instead you start pinwheeling your arms. This slowly but surely manages to change your position in the sky, which is more like an eternal night sky with all the stars. Once you've done a 180 spin, you find yourself falling with your back to the island. This feels even more nerve-racking, so you quickly pinwheel your arms again and finish your full 360 spin which would equate to a slow motion back flip. Your thoughts are cut by panic when you suddenly see the island right there and you yelp and cover your eyes as you're about to fall and splat onto it! And then you come to a jarring halt. Your insides slam against your bones and skin in a sickening manner and you nearly puke right there. Luckily, you don't.
After a moment of thought, you open your eyes and then scream when you see a face right in front of yours.
“Hey, whoa, calm down, hahah. It's just me, Ink! Sorry about that mix up by the way. I meant to send you somewhere else but uh…” you watch as his eyelights change quickly with a few blinks before he gets a blank look to his face. “Wait, what was I saying?” Your face goes blank at this statement, and then you facepalm with a groan. “Oh right!” he suddenly yells, catching you slightly off guard, “how did you like Horrortale?”
Your hand immediately drops from your face and you stare at him with wide eyes and steadily furrowing eyebrows. This asshole… did he actually send you there on purpose? You know what, you wouldn't put it past the jerk! He can do some really mean things just to make something new! You feel the fires of rage steadily rising as you get angrier and angrier at him. “D-did you do this on purpose?!”
Your rage must show on your face because he comments on it, completely ignoring your question, “Huh, not too good then, I guess.” He doesn't sound the least bit apologetic, and that only makes your rage boil over. Without another thought, your rage explodes into a swift hand swipe at Ink, and a resounding smack fills the air. Your stinging palm snaps you out of your blind rage and you look to Ink in shock. His face is blank and turned away from the direction you'd smacked him. He doesn't move as he stares at seemingly nothing. You're actually slightly terrified now, because you honestly don't know how he's going to react. Then he looks at you, and his face has a bit of a dark shadow to it. His mouth twitches upward at one side and black ink starts leaking from his sockets. He speaks, and it sounds demonic, “YoU sHOuLDn't haVe dOnE tHAt.”
You shriek and try to pinwheel away from his face while still floating right in front of him. He grabs your shoulders and starts cackling maniacally, and you push against his chest in hopes he'll let you go. Suddenly his laughter changes into a loud guffaw and he lets go of your shoulders before collapsing to the ground.
“Hahahahah, you should have seen your face! Ahahahah!!!” He rolls on the grassy ground, laughing his non-existent ass off at you. You fold your arms with a frown and look off to the side.
“Whatever,” you say irritably.
After a while, Ink calms down and stands back up. “Ahhh, heh,” he sighs, wiping a tear from his eye socket. “That was great. Anyway…”
“Send me back to my world, damnit!” You suddenly yell with a burst of bravery.
Ink looks at you for a second with a humorous face before chuckling, “Well, I could, but… there's this whole thing going on right now with some, uh… stuff! Yeah! So, you can't go back yet.” He shrugs with yet another unapologetic smile.
“WHAT?!” you scream in his face.
Ink pulls his face back a bit and smirks at you, “Whoa, say it don't spray it. Anyway, in the meantime you can visit some other…” he trails off when he looks at his giant paintbrush and stares for a moment. You watch him make a frown, and you're about to ask what the deal is, when he suddenly speaks up. “Well that's no way to show someone a good time!” He gestures at you as he continues to speak, “She'll find a lot more enjoyment from visiting other places!” You're completely confused for a moment before you remember a fun fact about Ink: he talks to his paintbrush sometimes, and it supposedly responds. With a blank face you stare at Ink as he continues to argue over whether or not you should be visiting AUs. Personally, after what just happened, you're strongly rooting for the paintbrush to win this argument, though you're not really sure how that's going to work out.
Finally, Ink sighs and his posture slumps over, “Ugh, fine, just a break!” He then turns to you with your still blank face and you raise an eyebrow at him. “Ok, we decided that you can stay here for a short while before you go to the next AU.” You sigh a little in relief and silently praise the paintbrush, which you just remembered is called something like Brushy or whatever; you don’t care right now. Ink wags his finger at you as he adds, “But only for a short while! Then you have to leave immediately!”
You frown at him and cross your arms, realizing you're still floating right in front of him. “...Why? Why do this at all? Why bring me here?”
Ink looks off to his right in thought before looking back to you and shrugging with a smile, “I dunno! You seemed bored, and I figured you'd eventually appreciate my efforts to show you some of the AUs, heh.” There's something about him that seems… tricky, but you can't fathom what it is that he's planning. Nonetheless, this doesn't stop you from asking.
“What are you trying to do here, really? And don't give me any bullshit! I know you, Ink. I know you better than most others do.” You squint at him with a firm hold on your determination to get an answer.
Ink stares at you for a moment before smirking at you with a subtle frown, “Heh, so you know me pretty well, huh? Well, that's just…” his face darkens a bit before it pops into a happy smile, “great! That means you know about all kinds of stuff! I already knew that though, so no surprise there!”
You frown and pout, though for a moment there, you thought you had pushed him into telling a bit more of the truth. Then again, now that you think about it some more, you realize how much of a mistake that could end up being. He might not be so nice to you, or he could even drop the whole being friends thing all together! You're trying to survive right now, thank you.
Ink suddenly jolts and looks off to the side at the distant stars. Confused you down and watch him for a moment before deciding to ask about this behavior. A frown creases your face as you open your mouth to speak, but a sudden bark of a laugh from Ink has you yelling out in surprise and jerking back. Ink’s head whips around to give you a curious and amused expression, and you glare back with embarrassment and blame flaring within you.
“What was that?” Ink chuckles at you.
You give Ink a deepened glare, something filled with a nasty bite. “Shut up, what were you looking off into space about? Literally…”
Ink chuckles at the pun and at your embarrassed expense before glancing back in the direction he had been looking before. A startled expression crosses his face before he grins at you once more. “Oh right! I have to go save a universe from collapsing! Bye!” With that sudden goodbye, Ink swipes his brush along the ground and jumps into a puddle of ink.
“What? Wait-!” Ink has already jumped into the puddle by the time you realize that he’s leaving you alone. Angrily, you kick at the black ink, scuffing it along the bottom and edge of your shoe. “Damn you, Ink!” You flop back gingerly to sit down with a glare directed at the Ink.
The impromptu staring contest with a puddle of ink doesn’t last long before you realize something wonderful. Your head raises with a sparkle in your eye, a smile full of joy growing on your face.
“I can go back to sleep,” you utter with adoration, and then proceed to flop on your side, tucked into a blanket burrito. Sleep claims you swiftly.