Chapter Text
The first message came on a cold winter night. You were sleeping soundly, curled up under a mound of blankets, until your phone buzzed beneath you. You cursed your habit of always ending up sleeping on top of your phone by tossing and turning during the night, and dug around until you found it.
Half awake, you squinted through the screen’s blinding light and read the message.
- Unknown 2:17am
“knock knock”
You squinted again in annoyance. Was an unknown number really sending you a knock knock joke in the middle of the night? You didn’t know whether to be angry or laugh from the absurdity of it, but you picked the latter. Smiling, you rolled onto your back and tapped your fingers to your screen.
- 2:19am
“…Who’s there?”
A small bubble in the corner of the screen popped up immediately. The anonymous sender was typing.
- Unknown 2:19am
“pasture”
You smiled lazily, wondering if you had heard the joke before. You knew you had little time to sleep before work, but you continued to play along anyway.
- 2:20am
“Pasture who?”
Again they began typing almost immediately. While you waited, you wondered who this person could be. Had you accidently deleted somebody’s contact information? Before you could check, a new message popped up.
- Unknown 2:21am
“pasture bed time, isnt it?”
Despite the groan that escaped your lips, you were thrown into a fit of giggles, almost dropping the phone on your face. You couldn’t believe you were being awoken and trolled by a stranger.
- 2:21am
“Lol wtf?? Who is this?”
You watched the minutes tick by and preoccupied yourself with a game of Tetris as you waited for their response, but none came. And every time you checked, there was never any bubble to indicate they were typing.
Confused, you stared into the darkness and measured your options. You thought, maybe, it could be your friend. She loved to mess with you and make dumb jokes, but you knew she’d probably be asleep at this hour. The only time she wasn’t asleep this late at night was on Fridays when you two sometimes went out and… Oh. It hit you.
Your head throbbed as partial memories of last Friday night came flooding back. You went to a house party with your friend and met a ton of people. There was drinking, and dancing, and some puking, but you couldn’t remember much else. You must have given your number to someone there, you concluded.
Perfect. You rolled your eyes and covered your face as if to hide your embarrassment from someone watching. The first time in your life you get black out drunk, and you give your number to a stranger! Thankfully that was all you did (at least you hoped so.)
With the mystery solved, you turned your phone off, pulled the covers over your head shielding yourself from the cold, and fell back to sleep.
___________________________________
The next message came on your day off work while you were browsing the aisle of monster foods at the grocery store. Surprisingly most of it was edible to humans, if not slightly disgusting. You were dunking a box of Nice Creams into your cart when you heard your phone beep inside your bag.
- Unknown 4:38pm
“knock knock”
What, this again? You did a double take. Ah yes, you silently chuckled, everyone knows when you get drunk at a party and give a stranger your number, they’ll send you a knock knock joke sometimes. Despite the strangeness of it, you couldn’t help but be amused.
- 4:38pm
“-_- Who’s there…?”
You rested your forearms against the shopping cart’s handle and held your phone in front of you as you kept walking down the aisle, not interested in the food any longer.
- Unknown 4:39pm
“alex”
Alex? You wondered if there even was an Alex at the party, if that was their name.
- 4:39pm
“Alex who?”
You stuffed your phone back into your bag as you neared the register. When it beeped you were tempted to check it, but you needed to pay and bag your groceries.
“You know these are for monsters, right?” an unenthusiastic cashier scoffed while holding up the box of Nice Cream. “I mean… you don’t look like a monster. If I were you I’d stay away from their stuff.” Your guts churned at the cashier’s implication, as if monsters were less than humans.
“I’ve actually had them before! They’re pretty good, and the nice sayings on the stick cheer me up.” You smiled as sweetly as you could, “maybe you should try one?”
The cashier nearly gagged before scowling at you and shoving you your groceries.
You couldn’t believe the amount of unnecessary hatred some people had for monsters. Actually, you could believe it, but you wished the monsters were welcomed more on the surface. After all, it was the humans’ fault they were banished to the Underground for so long. But some people were just still stuck in their old ways.
As you lugged your bags to your car, you almost forgot about the stranger texting you. After quickly throwing the groceries in your trunk and cranking up the heater, you fished your phone out of your bag and read the punch line.
- Unknown 4:39pm
“alex the questions around here.”
You huffed out a weak laugh.
- 4:50pm
“So is that your name? Alex?”
You watched the snowfall outside and played with the radio as you waited for what felt like much longer than a minute.
- Unknown 4:52pm
“heh didn’t u hear what i just said”
“alex the questions around here”
“get it?”
Of course they weren’t going to make this easy. You tapped your thumbs against the steering wheel and hummed along to the music, thinking of a response.
- 4:51pm
“Ok... Tell me your name then.”
“(Not a question btw)”
Again you waited, and waited, until you felt silly sitting in the parking lot waiting for a response that would never come. You were strangely disappointed as you drove home, quite liking the small distraction the texts brought you. And as you watched the sun set over the horizon you secretly hoped another “knock knock” would come soon.
___________________________________
A week passed, and after a long day of work you flopped down on your couch and checked your phone for any new messages, but there weren’t any. As the week went by you could feel your heart speed up every time your phone buzzed, but were always slightly saddened to see it was never the stranger. Sometimes it was your friends asking what you were up to (which was always work.) Sometimes it was your phone company annoying you about the bill that was due. And sometimes it was your boss checking on the paper you still hadn’t written.
Sighing, you adjusted yourself on the lumpy sofa and opened your laptop. You only had a few days left to write up an entire report on monster culture, and you still hadn’t interviewed a single monster yet. It wasn’t that you were afraid of monsters or anything, but the thought of writing about their culture and upsetting them terrified you. Not to mention you could lose your job if you messed it up. A human writing about monsters could be tricky, especially with the tension between the races.
Tapping the keys and watching the line on the empty document blink filled you with anxiety as the minutes ticked by. Maybe you could take a break and work on the report tomorrow, you still had a few days left anyway right?
Before you could stop yourself you were scrolling through your social media accounts. By recommendation of your co-workers you had joined UnderNet recently, and the former monster only website was now booming with humans. You had to give the monsters a lot of credit; they were so much more accepting of humans than humans were of monsters.
It’d been almost three years since the day the Underground’s barrier was broken, and humans were still adjusting to the monsters presence on the surface. You remember the day vividly, especially because you lived right in the infamous Mt Ebott’s shadow.
Hundreds of years after the fabled war between humans and monsters, people were beginning to believe the stories were just that – stories.
Everyone knew the stories of course. Humans and monsters tolerated each other for quite some time; some were even allies and got along peacefully. But as time went on, the humans’ fear of the sheer power monsters possessed grew immensely. Not even the magic of the most powerful warlocks combined could compare to a single Boss Monster. Out of fear alone the humans forced the monsters into the underground.
Even you stopped believing in the stories as you got older, you admit. As a kid you were almost pressured to climb Mt Ebott yourself, but chickened out when you saw just how daunting it was up close.
Thankfully the brave child Frisk made it out of the Underground alive with thousands of ecstatic monsters in toe. No one is quite sure how they managed to break the barrier, but somehow the small kid did it. Now, with some help, they served as the official ambassador for monsters.
You continued scrolling through the sea of monster selfies, Mettaton videos, and memes you didn’t quite understand until deciding to make a post of your own:
Any monster(s) up for an interview about your culture and life living in the Underground? PM me and we can work out the details!
You wondered if setting up an interview over social media was unprofessional. Maybe it was, but it was better than not having a report to turn in at all.
The buzz of your phone pulled you away from your laptop screen. Was it a private message from UnderNet already? No, your heart skipped a beat to see text from an unknown number instead.
- Unknown 6:51pm
“knock knock”
Your stomach did a backflip as a giddy smile spread across your face.
- 6:51pm
“Hmm, who’s there?”
You couldn’t tear your eyes off the screen.
- Unknown 6:51pm
“gorilla”
The only noise in your living room was the quick clicking coming from the phone as you typed.
- 6:52pm
“Gorilla whoooo?”
You couldn’t help but smirk as you awaited the cheesy joke.
- Unknown 6:52pm
“gorilla me a burger would ya?”
A snort escaped you and you shook your head in mild disbelief.
- 6:52pm
“lol you’re gonna have to do better than that next time! ;)”
You were only kind-of joking.
- Unknown 6:53pm
“whaatt”
“they love that one over at grillby’s”
That name sounded familiar to you. You thought Grillby’s was the name of a new bar downtown, but you couldn’t be sure.
- 6:54pm
“When are you going to tell me who this is?”
You hoped you weren’t pushing it too far by asking again.
- Unknown 6:55pm
“buddy u don’t remember me?”
The giddiness inside you dissipated. Damn! You were hoping this wouldn’t happen. Maybe you had met them at the party and didn’t remember after all.
- 6:55pm
“Um…no. What was your name again?”
You crossed your fingers and hoped the stranger wouldn’t disappear like every other time you asked for their name.
- Unknown 6:56pm
“the joke masteeerrrrrr.”
Of course! You rolled your eyes.
- 6:57pm
“But how did you get my number??”
- Unknown 6:57pm
“i found it.”
What? You wondered if you’d left your number lying around anywhere, but why would you? This had to be a prank being played by someone you knew, you concluded. But you pressed on anyway.
- 6:58pm
“You just… found it?”
- Unknown 6:58pm
“heh yup”
- 6:58pm
“So, I’ve never met you then?”
- Unknown 6:59pm
“not that i’m aware of”
You let out a sigh and ran a hand through your hair. You were determined to figure out who this was, one way or another. So you asked once more.
- 7:00pm
“Well can you at least tell me your name then?”
“Your real name.”
___________________________________
He sent the first message on a cold winter night. Frisk was curled up next to him under the bedding that Tori made him promise to buy after the first sleepover that took place on his empty mattress. The mattress was comfy enough, but Toriel insisted that Frisk would catch a cold sleeping without any blankets, and she was probably right (she usually was.)
Sans laid his hoodie across the shivering kid and went back to scribbling in his notebook.
Not much news to share, and nothing abnormal happening lately, good. The kid and Asgore have to go to a council meeting next week to discuss political stuff with the humans, and it should go smoothly. Will update later.
He was just about to shut his notebook and call it a night when a small piece of paper slipped out from between the crinkled pages and floated to the floor. Staring up at Sans was a phone number written in his own scribbled writing. If he had a heart, it would have stopped.
Sans knew all of his notes back to front, and if he wanted to he could probably have recited his whole notebook without even looking at it. Of course new things were added sometimes, things he’s never seen before, but he hadn’t found anything new in such a long time.
This phone number was definitely new.
A shiver ran down Sans’ spine as he picked the paper up and examined it. There was nothing on the back, just the lone phone number waiting to be dialed. He shook his head in disbelief and furrowed his brow bone. How long had this been there he wondered?
The feeling of being watched made Sans turn around and see Frisk’s sleepy eyes looking up at him.
“Huh, don’t worry about me, buddo,” he answered their questioning face, “I’m just not tired.”
Sans shrugged and shoved the note in his shorts’ pocket, but Frisk wasn’t convinced. Despite their age, Frisk was one of the smartest people Sans had ever met, and they always seemed to know when something was wrong.
His grin widened, “heh, you always see right through me don’t ya, kid?” He gave Frisk a wink and patted them once on the head before heading towards the door. “I’m fine, really. Now rest those bones or Tori will kill me for keeping you up.” He shut the door behind him before Frisk could protest.
Sans quietly shuffled his slippered feet down the stairs, and took a seat on the last step next to a fluffy white dog gnawing on one of Papyrus’ many bones from under the sink. He patted the mutt’s fluff, dug the note out of his pocket, un folded it, and flattened it across his femur.
He wondered if he should even bother the person on the other end of the number. Not only did they probably not know who he was, but Sans could unintentionally mess up the timeline after it had been going so well.
But, in another life, he saved the number for a reason: It could lead him to the truth. So Sans swallowed his fears and pulled his phone from his pocket.
With hesitating fingers he typed out the first text.
- 2:17am
“knock knock”
___________________________________
In frustration, you threw your phone down on the couch. It had been half an hour since you asked the stranger what their name was, and you expected not to receive a text after so long. Disappointed, you went about the rest of your evening.
You struggled to write more of your report, and gave up after spewing out a few awful paragraphs, opting instead to order Chinese takeout. Then you ate orange chicken and noodles until the sky turned black, and the only light in your apartment was the flash of the game show you were watching on TV.
But your mind would not leave the mysteriously anonymous texter. The thought of blocking the number crossed you, but it seemed silly – it’s not like they were causing you any harm. You just wanted to get to the bottom of it and put your mind at ease. It was probably just a friend teasing you anyway, wasn’t it?
Later that night you took a shower and let steam fill your lungs as you washed the day away. Being a journalist was something you had always wanted, but yet it was so stressful. Sometimes you wondered if it was even worth it, but you didn’t really have a choice. You were lucky to find the job when you did; with all the monsters coming to the surface it was almost impossible to find an opening anywhere lately.
One day, you hoped to actually visit the Underground and journal about it, too. But that was just a dream. Unfortunately, when all the monsters exited the mountain, the tunnel caved in on itself. At least there wasn’t a way humans could force the monsters in there again.
Exhausted, you crawled into bed, shut your eyes, and listened to the wind outside howl you a song. You almost imagined someone humming a tune along with it…
And then your phone dinged.
- Unknown 10:36pm
“Sans.”
___________________________________