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I had no idea what “snowstorms” were like in the Underground, but they were nothing like the real thing.
Around 2:30 in the afternoon, I received a call from my partner asking me to pick up groceries for him. Now, Sans had always been lazy—it was a point of pride for him—but not to that extent. Papyrus usually handled the grocery shopping. He normally dragged Sans along, too, which Sans always allowed with a smile. So, naturally, I asked if Papyrus was okay. Sans’s little brother was rather important to me, of course. Really, it seems like he’s important to everyone he knows. Of course, though, he was just fine.
“He’s just hanging out with Undyne,” he had told me over the phone, “and he forgot to pick up extra spaghetti noodles for dinner. Can’t have him spag-empty.”
I laughed and agreed, but I knew he was lying. Papyrus? Forgetting something for spaghetti?
Unrealistic.
There was definitely something going on, but then, the only way to find out was to buy some noodles. A very easy task… on the surface. Except the surface was covered in snow, about four inches beneath frost and mush. It was still falling, too. So I sighed, zipped up my puffy red jacket, and headed out on my way.
Sans’s house was a pretty far walk. It wasn’t uncommon that I’d stay there for a few days with him, spending time with my partner and his brother, so on my way to the store, I figured I should grab a couple of extra things to tide the whole house over. It felt nice if I’m being honest; it felt like taking care of a family. I’d been with Sans long enough that I guess we were a family. That’s what kept me warm while I made my way down the street. A loving partner, and a new family. I really got lucky.
I had always been a bit forgetful, so the first thing I put in my shopping cart was the noodles. If I left this place without the one thing Sans asked for, he would… make jokes about it for the rest of my life. Dumb ones, too. I shuddered at the thought.
After that, I picked up some ketchup for that silly skeleton. I don’t know why, or most importantly how he drank the stuff, if he even did, but it makes him happy. When I asked Sans about the whole “skeleton eating food” thing, all he had said was, “What, are you scared it will pass right through me ?” and refused to elaborate. It made for a very interesting first date. I never saw him touch the food, but there wasn’t any left when we were finished. I smiled at the memory. What a little gentleman he was.
I really only got the essentials; some cereal, milk, eggs, a couple of sugary things, popcorn, anything my budget would allow. Checking out was easy enough, even if the cashier was a cat-monster complaining and contemplating his life with wild hand gestures. I paid him extra for his troubles. I didn’t exactly know what his troubles were, but there’s obviously way too many, so I gave him five bucks. After having to keep my mental health from following this cashier whose only name on his tag was “Pants”, I was faced with another problem. Carrying five bags of groceries to Sans’s house through four-inch snow. I groaned and thought this is why Sans made me do this. I knew that wasn’t true, though. That wasn’t his kind of practical joke.
It was far too practical.
Snow had stopped falling long before I began my way down the street. Some of the snow had turned to slush, which felt like walking through one big puddle. It made it easier to forge a way through the sidewalks. Sans’s house was just around the corner from the store, so it wasn’t long until my soggy boots were at his doorstep. I sighed, heavily, and opened the door without a thought because the day Sans locks his door is the day pigs fly. So only on Saturdays.
Shivering and struggling with the bags, I managed to maneuver the door open with my feet and kick it closed once inside. I wasn’t even graceful with the groceries, I just dropped them by the door, exhausted.
“Honey,” I called sarcastically, “I’m home.”
Nothing. I furrowed my eyebrows and slung off my coat. It was immediately warmer once I set foot into the house—overbearingly so. It was a nice change sure, but going from shivering to sweating in a matter of seconds wasn’t the best sensation. I looked around the living room. Sans had told me before that this house on the surface was much like his old house, with a nice stairwell and a comfortable couch. Very simple, but comfortable. On the couch, there were usually some throw pillows (which were always scratched up, because Papyrus always threw them) that Toriel had given them as a housewarming present. And usually on top of that gloriously mundane couch was that skeleton, but not when I walked in. My eyebrows furrowed and I picked up one of the lighter bags from my shopping. I looked up at the stairwell. Two doors were there; one that had basketball stickers all over and caution tape all around it, along with multiple printed out stock photos of “cool guys”, and the other blank, with an odd changing light slightly illuminating beneath it. Both were closed.
I was about to round my way up the stairs before I heard some rustling behind me. Turning my head, I saw the lump under the blanket of the couch slowly descend up to reveal a white skull. Sans head turned to me with that same, lazy smile. He seemed sleepy.
“Boo,” he said, unenthusiastically.
“Ah,” I gave a fake, sarcastic “scream” at a normal volume, “I am so, so startled.”
We both gave a bit of a laugh as I came back around the front of the couch, crouching down to meet him at his level. “Decided to take a nap while I froze my ass off outside, huh?”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” With a yawn and a stretch, Sans was quick to put the blanket over his head and around himself, “you know I can’t control the snooze.”
“Yeah, yeah, well, I got you what you wanted.” I went back to the front door where I dropped off my groceries and sat on the other side of the couch. I put the bags in the middle for both of us to sift through. “I thought I’d get myself some stuff since I am not walking back through that slush-fest.”
“So I guess there’s snow way you’re going back home?” Sans chided with a grin. I rolled my eyes, trying not to laugh, and shook my head. Sans took out the ketchup from the bag with a sigh of content. “Thanks.” I nodded, sat criss-cross-apple-sauce on my place on the couch, and stared at him expectantly. He opened the bottle, then paused, glancing at me. “Why do I have the feeling I need to explain something?”
“Because you have to explain something,” I retorted, “like why you made me get your groceries when it’s below… some number of degrees.”
Sans went quiet, then focused on trying to get the plastic off of the ketchup top to actually get to the sauce. I furrowed my eyebrows; something was wrong. I leaned over to look him in the face. “Hello? Sans, you’re lazy, but not that lazy.” Silence. “What’s wrong?”
Fiddling with putting the cap back on the bottle, the skeleton sighed. “I guess the idea of going out was a little bone-chilling for me to go out.”
“No, Sans, seriously, what—” I stopped. I looked at him with wide eyes, blinking in a bit of disbelief. “Hold on, is it too cold for you? Is it… possible for you to feel cold?”
He just started drinking his ketchup, avoiding eye contact. I couldn’t help but laugh a little, though I attempted to stifle it with a hand. I started to not feel so grumpy about having to stumble my way here; especially after I got a glace about how he was holding the bottle. It was shaking, he was shaking—shivering.
“Holy shit—Sans! You could’ve just told me!” I reached out to put an arm around him which was a bit of an awkward position because the groceries were between us, but he leaned into me nonetheless. “Jeez, I thought something was really wrong. Don’t you have a heater?”
Sans opened his mouth and then closed it. He looked up at me sheepishly. “I have you.”
“That’s real cute, but that’s just an excuse for you not knowing, isn’t it?”
“Guilty as charged.”
I snorted and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder. “Tell you what; I’ll go locate the thermostat, and then we’ll make the living room a little bit more cozy for you. How does that sound?”
Tilting his head, Sans gave his best attempt at a confused frown. “You don’t gotta do that, you already did a lot today, and—”
I stood up and kissed his dumb head. “C’mon, don’t start giving me the cold shoulder now.”
He laughed, I laughed, and he fanned himself dramatically. “Damn, don’t even bother with the heater, you got me hot under the collar when you start talking like that.” He joked.
“Quit it, you.” I rolled my eyes. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
I was not, in fact, back in a few minutes.
Upstairs, downstairs, under the stairs, near the front door, the back door, I could not find the thermostat. It was a little ridiculous. The layout of this house was insane enough as it was, but I didn’t think it would be that much of a mess. So about ten minutes into my searching, I scratched my brain a bit and got an idea. If I was a nonsensical house, where would I have my thermostat…
The kitchen.
I sprinted to the room. I had such a heavy gut feeling that I finally got it right. The kitchen was relatively normal; save for the sink that was about five feet tall and didn’t match anything else in the entire house. But lo and behold, there it was, right under the sink. I had to crouch just a bit, but I got to finally turn the heat on. I jogged out of the kitchen and had to put my hands on my knees to catch my breath. Sans turned to look at me.
“Sans?”
“Yeah?”
“Move. Get out of this house. It’s hell.”
He gave a string of laughter in response. I couldn’t help but smile, and once I got my witts back I made it over to the couch. “All right, next step: Cozy this place up.”
“Okay,” he slothed, “what’s that mean?”
“Go upstairs, get your blanket, and I’ll show you.”
Sans groaned at the idea of standing up. Dramatically, he slid off the couch and laid like a pile of bones on the floor. I watched with a sigh, rubbing my forehead. “Did you forget you can teleport?”
“Nope,” Sans said, and in a blink of an eye, he was gone. I snorted and went back into the kitchen. I picked up one of the chairs from the dining table, which originally was just two, but they’ve recently added one for me. I smile at it. Who knew a chair could hold so much emotional value? I guess I am part of the family.
By the time I had dragged the chair back into the living room, Sans was laying on the ground with his blanket over him. I laughed, setting the chair backward in front of the couch. “Get up, you numbskull.”
He arose like a mummy, arms stretched out and eye sockets closed. I always wondered how he could close those things. I try not to question it nowadays. With a grin, Sans turned his attention towards me. “What’s next, Boss?”
“Straighten out that blanket, I need to get another chair.”
Sans gave me a salute and hopefully started on the task. I was already back in the kitchen, dragging another chair out. The blanket was straightened once I got out there, with Sans sitting on top of it. He watched in curiosity as I put the chair in front of the couch on the opposite side of the other. Both chairs had their backs facing each other. I stood next to Sans to pick up the couch’s blanket, and I threw it over the chairs. Then, I grabbed the pillows from the couch and set them inside the blanket fort, then sat next to my boyfriend.
Overall, it was a pretty shitty fort. There was a dip in the middle, and part of it was kept up by the top of my head. But he didn’t seem to mind; he went ahead and laid down, looking at me expectantly.
“C’mon,” he said, “you’ve worked hard. Take a load off.”
“Don’t mind if I do.” I laid next to him with my arms behind my head, smiling over at him. He mirrored it, and I felt my chest flutter. This was love, huh?
“Well?” Sans said, “I finally got a new house, what do you think?”
“Oh, it’s much better,” I played into the joke, “though it could use some better roofing.”
We both got a kick out of that. Sans turned onto his side, closer to me, and I draped an arm over him. We were closer this time, with Sans resting his head on my shoulder and an arm over my midsection. We both sighed in content.
“Moving into our own house together,” he chided, “can’t believe we moved this far forward .”
I pierced my lips. “Hey Sans?”
“Yeah, babe?”
“You’re not very funny.”
There was a pause for a moment. Silence. Then, we both started laughing, as I curled up into him with both arms around him. We laughed, and we laughed, and we laughed because we were both pretty funny.