Chapter Text
Skeppy is not a morning person.
The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Skeppy cannot wake up earlier than 1pm. Skeppy sleeps like the dead and will stay asleep for probably the whole day unless Puffy goes into his room and shakes him awake like a tambourine (She has done this many times. It's a daily routine at this point).
So it comes as a bit of a surprise when Skeppy finds himself abruptly sitting up, gasping and sweating from a nightmare he can't recall (nightmares he usually doesn't have) at five am. There's a feeling of foreboding as he rolls and falls out of bed into a slump on the floor. There's a weight on his shoulders but not the physical weight you get from carrying a sack of rocks. It's a bit of an unnerving sensation. A feeling of foreboding.
But fuck that, Skeppy doesn't have the brain cells to deal with that at five am. He does his best to just shrug it off as something that came with waking up too early and he leaves his room, gets dressed, and goes to the bakery.
Skeppy works at a bakery, and while bakers are known for being people who wake up at the crack of dawn, Skeppy isn't a baker. He just works there. So he comes in at like ten am (Puffy doesn't mind anyways. And it's a small village so it’s not like it’s very hectic).
He unlocks the front door to the bakery and just gets to work and busies himself with random things to distract from the fact that he feels weird and awake at 5 am. He actually does manage to distract himself with menial tasks and cleaning until he hears the chimes at the entrance of the bakery jingle. Strange, he didn’t lock the door but he left the CLOSED sign there, just in case Puffy or Velvet came in so they wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of unlocking the door, and no one else really goes to the bakery at 5:30 am.
Skeppy quietly leaves the storage room and sneaks around to the counter to see an eight feet tall Demon .
Just standing there.
At the front of the door.
Looking sheepish .
So this is why he woke up at ass o'clock feeling like shit. There's a Demon in the village. Nothing is strange about finding a non-human in the bakery. In fact, the village is a known safe space for non-humans and hybrids.
But Demons????????
Demons are one of, if not the most, secretive and ancient species on the planet. They almost never leave their realm (most overworlders AND nether creatures don't even know what their realm is called ) and the majority of them probably don't even know English or other overworld languages.
Although they've been taught a little about Demons and shown drawings of Demons in school, not just anyone has seen an actual Demon.
Yet here's Skeppy, looking at one and seeing them right in front of him, face to face. At five-thirty am.
Demons are described to be intimidating and imposing figures with magical prowess and abilities to level kingdoms but the Demon in front of him doesn't exactly fit the bill. They're slouched and awkwardly tilting their head to the side because their head hits the ceiling. There's a nervous smile on their face and they're twiddling their thumbs. Like, sure, their overall appearance is intimidating but the Demon's attitude is that of a shy kindergartener.
Skeppy would later realize that he probably looked rude just staring up in shock at the guy but right now, the Demon opens his mouth and instead of the deep rattling, eldritch horror voice that Skeppy expects, he gets a nasally and anxious "hi".
What the fuck.
Skeppy can’t just stare forever so he tries to say something.
“Oh, uh, hey man- sorry do you need something? I mean, we’re kinda closed right now but if you’re really hungry, I can get you a loaf or something?”, Skeppy says in his best customer service voice (he didn’t think he’d ever have to use a customer service voice in his life).
“Well, I- uh. I’m so so sorry- I just saw that the lights were on and I can’t read and I don’t know Overworld time yet and I thought you were open and I don’t exactly have a place to stay or know how Overworld society works and-” the eight-foot-tall Demon rambles on.
Aw shit. Now Skeppy has to help him. He’s like a polite and clueless giant demon toddler.
Time to get to work.
-
Later, Puffy and Velvet will enter the bakery to the shock of Skeppy actually being up early for once, followed by the shock of Skeppy casually sitting with a Demon at one of the tables. Skeppy is sitting right next to the Demon (He’s named BadBoyHalo, apparently) with alphabet flashcards, a letter tracing book (where did he even get these???), and a pencil as he teaches Bad how to read English.
Skeppy also attempts to teach Bad cuss words, but apparently Bad adamantly is against crude speech and yells “LANGUAGE” while Skeppy lists off all the cuss words on the top of his head. Bad does get into the habit of replacing cuss words with “muffin” (something they soon find out is his favourite pastry).
Puffy and Velvet, and soon enough, the whole village, get a new friend while the bakery gets a new employee.
(Skeppy tells them of how Bad tried to give him a soda cap when he first gave him a muffin. Bad heard that Overworlders pay for their things with money and thought that all shiny silver round things were valid currency.)
Bad helps out a lot in the bakery and they find that his huge hands make kneading dough much quicker. He does other errands too such as deliveries and cleaning up. He gets free food and as soon as he’s earned his first salary, Skeppy and Puffy teach him finances because Bad just might get scammed into buying "a lifetime supply of muffins" or tricked into investing in a pyramid scheme.