#enber life | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mrfunnybonearchives · 7 years

Text

𝕄 𝔸 𝕋 ℂ ℍ 𝔼 𝔻

From the horrendous minds of @lettersfromthepit and Mrfunnybone, we present yet another AU amongst the plethora of AU’s already featured on this blog. Inspiration is credited to this wonderful plot post.

Happy endings are not guaranteed.

“To our freedom!” A young monster, blazing in a mass of blue flames, laughed as he lifted his large frosted mug upwards, splashing froth over the edges which splattered onto a pinewood table below. “The last night we will ever have of it!”

A roar of laughter and cheers grew as mugs, beer bottles, and cans were clinked together in celebration or mourning, whichever perspective was chosen. Within the confines of Snowdin, a small town run somewhere between what used to be Maine and was once called New York, it was customary for the local 18-year-old men to join together and enjoy one last hoorah before they were forever bound by adulthood and the many, heavy obligations it came burdened with.

The long, detailed governmental contracts had been signed months ago, and one by one the monsters had received their packets. Thick and weighty, it contained all of the information they would need to know about the future spouses they had been matched with, what level home they had been assigned, and how long before they would be expected to have their first child.

None had been opened. Contract Day was tomorrow, a large ceremony in which the assigned couples would finally meet face-to-face and officialize their marriage, doing their part as respectable contributors to their nation. With all the buzz and excitement that surrounded such an occasion, it was almost certain that other towns had opened their packets already; but tradition was tradition, and so the boys-turned-men of Snowdin had waited.

They would face the uncertainty of their future together, and make some fun memories while they were at it.

“Gentlemen, I just wanna say—”

“Ah, sit your ass down and let’s get this thing started already!”

The group laughed. Sans looked over to his firey friend with a grin before glancing back to the others, speaking in a low, easy drawl as he tapped at the table. “Aw, don’t be so hard on the guy. He’s just got a burning passion for this sorta stuff, that’s all.”

A series of groans and well-aimed wadded up napkins responded, as was common for the grotesquely horrible creation known as “puns”, or, perhaps more fittingly, “Dad Jokes”. Sans basked in the reaction in the way only the bearer of such atrocity could, and threw his skull back in laughter.

“New drinking game; take a shot every time Sans tells a bad joke.”

“Oh, we won’t live to see tomorrow, if that’s the case.”

“Well then, guess it doesn’t matter who we get assigned to!”

“True!”

“Pressure’s off.”

“Thanks, Sans.”

Sans winked and tilted his drink in cheers. “Anytime, pals.”

They went in turns opening their packets. Enber in his enthusiasm went first, his blue flames growing bright when he found that he had been matched with a girl who lived locally and often visited his parents’ bakery. She was an overly quiet sort and so none of the group really knew her, but from what they recalled she wasn’t at all unkind. Besides that, according to the results on their compatibility stats the two would get along just fine—both socially and sexually.

There was a bit of laughing and nudging before Enber discovered that the house they’d been assigned was a significantly lower level of quality than the one his parents owned. His flames dwindled, and Sans poured him another drink.

“They’re gonna be so mad.”

“Man, they’re not gonna be mad. It’ll be fine.”

“She’s gonna hate it. She’ll ask to be re-matched.”

“No, she won’t. ‘Sides, no one ever actually gets re-matched.”

“That’s not true.” Gabbro, a rock sort of monster with carefully chiseled spikes on his head, leaned across the table and dipped his voice into a whisper. “I heard that Mr.Withers partner requested a re-match, and when she got it, he had to leave the town just to save face.”

“Gab, I know your information is usually pretty solid, but that ain’t even close to right. He got a promotion and they sent him and his match to one of the southern towns.”

“Oh—”

“Take a shot!” One of them shouted, and there was a short bit of huffed laughter before the group downed back a mouthful of liquor.

The following packets had mixed results. A good portion received local matches, but many were assigned wives who lived farther than they’d ever traveled. Some stats were high, some were low. One fellow received a score of only 10% social compatibility but had 87% on the sexual aspect. By that point the group had been through numerous drinks and a plethora of shots, thanks to Sans big mouth, and were laughing so hard that some had tears in the corner of their eyes.

“Here’s your wife, sir. You’re gonna fucking hate each other but the sex will be fan-fucking-tastic. YOU’RE WELCOME.”

“What kind of shit are you into that you both scored a fucking 87!?”

“Apparently they’re into hate-sex. Lots of hate-sex—”

“I would have never guessed!”

“No kink-shaming, friend—”

“No FUCK THAT, if you aren’t the first one to have a kid, ALL OF THE SHAME.”

“SHAME.”

“Shame, shame, shame, shame—!” The group took to chanting in a broken mass of slurs and laughter. The “shamed” monster sank into his seat, covering his face, and Sans leaned across the table, his grin cocking to the side.

“Well, y’know, pal—”

“No! Someone shut this short fucker up!”

“GET READY FOR ANOTHER SHOT.”

“Damn it, Sans—”

He waved the others off with a wave of his bony hand and somehow managed not to spill his drink. “If all else fails, you could take her camping.”

There was a pause. The group looked at him with squinted eyes and tilted heads. Sans, meanwhile, sat back down, and let his grin slip into an entirely too satisfied expression. He took a sip of his drink, and then looked up with a smile. “I hear it’s fucking intents.”

An outraged cry erupted, hands were tossed into the air, and had the table not been bolted to the floor it would have surely been flipped over. They had used up all of their napkins on the terrible jokes from earlier, and so one monster reached over and stole a handful from another table, only to toss it in a flurry at Sans direction. They fluttered down to the table and floor before even reaching him.

“I hate you so much—”

“Actually I thought that one was pretty good—”

“Enber, shut the hell up, don’t encourage him—”

“Wait, do we still take a shot if it’s a good joke?”

“Fuck it, I’ve already poured them, drink up, ass-hats.”

Each monster grabbed a small shot glass, the spinning inside their heads begging them not to, but true to their word they dunked back the drink and took the increasing inebriation that came with it. Gabbor pointed to Sans still unopened packet and slammed his drink on the table.

“Ok, shit, it’s Sans turn, open your damn packet, let’s see wha’ Mr.Comedian got!”

Judging by the slurred shouts and messy clapping, the rest of their table seemed to agree with this idea, and all eyes were suddenly on Sans. He shrugged. While most of the other packets had been kept in good condition, his own was bent and full of creases, with the occasional smudge of dirt or ketchup along the outside of the envelope. Never had been the cleanest in his family. Or maybe it just felt like if he didn’t treat the piece of mail like it was important, then it wouldn’t be.

“Welp. Now or never, right?” He picked the packet up and lifted the edge of its sealed backing.

Sans had always been naturally curious. Ever since he was a kid. It was why he chose the career he did, why he took extra classes when they were in school, despite hating the workload. Not knowing what had been in the packet for the last 12 days, 23 hours, and 43 minutes had been maddening.

Now, he suddenly wanted to wait.

With Contract Day literally right around the bend, though, there wasn’t much point in delaying the inevitable. He tore into the backing with little regard for keeping it tidy and pulled out the many documents inside. The first page was a sturdy piece of parchment with fancy lettering at the top, congratulating him on a successful matching. Directly below laid out, in fine black-typed print, the details of who he would spend the rest of his life with.

Name: Kailee Mae Dyer

Age: 18

Gender: Female

Species: Human

Location—

“...Wait.” Sans brought the paper closer, as though he’d misread, as though the words would somehow magically change if he only read them a bit more carefully. They did not.

Species: Human

“Holy shit, Sans...” Enber shook his head in disbelief, tilting the paper towards him to get a better look. The opposite side of the table grew quiet, a subtle shift forming in the loose atmosphere that had been created.

“What’s wrong?”

“What happened?”

“You did get matched, right, Sans?”

“Yeah, he got matched. To a fucking human.”

“What? Gimmie that, don’t fuck with me!” One of the monsters reached out to grab the piece of paper and read it for himself, but it still, strangely, did not change what had been written. He, along with his side of the table, looked from Sans to the document and back again.

“...Well, I’ll be damned.”

Roughly 100 years had passed since the disastrous plague had roamed their earth and took away most of their population. Monsters had been hit hard; humans, worse. For a disease that could affect both magical properties and biological cells, they didn’t stand a chance and had fallen in massive waves—yet, somehow, both monsters and humans survived, perhaps by sheer determination alone. It was the reason behind the entire matching process, to help salvage the lost numbers on both sides, to rebuild what had once been a thriving, co-inhabiting civilization.

Human numbers were growing, but much more slowly. They were still the smaller population by far, and it was, technically, a possibility for one to get matched with a monster due to limited options for that period. So sure, it was something that Sans and his friends had known could happen—but that sort of thing happened to other monsters. Other towns. Places far away where it was just a story and a name and nothing more.

It didn’t happen in Snowdin. It didn’t happen to one of their own.

The contract in Sans hand said differently.

“Why would they choose Sans, though? No offense.”

Sans looked up from re-reading the document and gestured his hand in a mixture of excusing the offense while simultaneously suggesting that he didn’t have an answer. When the occasional human-monster match had occurred in the past, it had always been with monsters of higher-class, supposedly to give the mixed genealogy its strongest chance. To have a human spouse was as much of an abnormality as it was a status symbol, these days.

One that Sans had no interest in being marked with.

“I bet it’s because of your fancy science job.” Gabbro suggested before taking another swig of his drink. The others looked to Sans with renewed attention, some with brows raised.

“Wait, you got the Royal Scientist job? And you didn’t fucking say anything?”

“I got the assistant job.” Sans corrected, finally turning the page, which revealed more information about his match and their respective scoring results. “And I dunno, just didn’t come up. S’not a big deal, it’s just, nerd stuff.”

That wasn’t true, and both he and the others knew it. To work with the Royal Scientists team at all was a high standing position; to work along the lead scientist himself was another thing entirely. Through careful avoidance of certain questions and occasional side-stepping, Sans had arranged it to where only a select few of his friends actually knew where it was he worked and what level of housing he lived in, for very good reason. He had hoped to keep it that way. It seemed, though, that the truth was trickling out in its own time.

He took another, rather large, drink.

“Well, congratulations, you fucking short-ass nerd.” There was laughter, but it sounded tired, their minds still processing what had been revealed. “A god-damn human. Man. What’s it say about her?”

“Welp, she’s not local, that much’s for sure.”

“Yeah, no shit. How much is she gonna tower over you, huh?”

Sans offered a snirk at that, and trailed his gaze down the list of technical stats until it covered physical aspects such as height. His own bony brows raised, and he couldn’t help a small laugh.

“M’taller than her.” He said, and showed the paper as proof. “By an inch.”

“What!?” The group laughed much harder than he had, and Enber snatched the paper again. “Well THAT’S why she got fucking matched with you! Wait—wait. Look at this. Look at this shit.”

Sans and the others leaned forward to look at the small line of information that Enbers pointed finger illuminated. It was the section on family; the girl, Kailee, apparently had a mother, father, and—

“A TWIN!” One of the monsters looked over to Sans with wide eyes, jaw hung loose. “She’s got twins in her family! Shit, Sans! Do you know how easy it’s gonna be for you guys to meet your quota!? You’ll probably have more than four, and get all sorts of cool benefits.”

“Are you kidding me with this!?”

“Lucky sonofabitch!”

“What are your compatibility marks? They better be fucking low.”

Sans took back the packet, and flipped through pages until it listed his and his prospective wife's scoring results. 61% for social compatibility, 63% for sexual.

Sexual—lord. How was that even going to work. Somehow human-monster intercourse hadn’t been covered in school, and Sans honestly didn’t have the faintest idea how they expected him to create a child with this person. It was obviously possible, had been done before many times, but he didn’t know the details of it all, how similar it was to monster conception, if it was similar at all.

Yet, by all accounts according to the paperwork, he had been given a very decent match. Many would call him fortunate.

He glanced to his phone, which held hours upon hours of text messages and laughs and late night conversations with someone who was certainly not this Kailee person. Try as he might, there was no internal glee when he looked back to the packet; just a quiet, resigned sense of obligation and uncertain expectation.

The others huffed and laughed and teased him for the scores, made raunchy jokes and insisted he tell them later what it was like to be with a human. Sans made a couple of pointedly horrid puns in return, and the others were forced to take multiple shots at once. They gave him another round of congratulations, so distracted by the alcohol that they forgot to ask what level house he’d been assigned, and jumped to the next person of their group.

By the end, they’d gotten far drunker than any of them had intended, had stayed out far later than of them had intended, and had somehow managed to flip over the bolted down bar table. They’d be charged for damage costs later.

Sans, who had been only slightly less incapacitated than Enber, had helped him stumble home, acting as arm support despite their height difference. His blue flames were sporadic but had grown small and timid by the time they reached his front door. Sans watched as his friend leaned against the knob, only to hesitate and turn back to him, a quiet hush to his voice as he spoke.

“So...e’erythin’ changes ‘morrow, righ’?”

There was a small shrug of Sans shoulders. “I guess.”

“The other’s r’gonna know you’re Gaster’s son...”

“...I guess.”

“And we’ll...be in differen’ social circles. I saw y’assigned house. S’nice.”

“Come off it, E, that don’t matter.”

“Not to you, bu’ it should.” Enber slumped against the door and let himself slide down into a sitting position, hands gripping the back of his head. Sans watched him a moment, then took a breath and sat beside. After a second he took out his phone and checked his messages on reflex.

Enber sighed into his knees and shifted to look over at Sans. The blue of his fire seemed muted, somehow. “I dun’ wanna bring you down, man. If you an’ your match have trouble havin’ kids, your status’s gonn’ drop, and if you’re seen bein’ friends with me it’ll drop more, and you’ll lose your nice house an’ maybe your job an’—”

“E.”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

They grew quiet. A single ping filled the air from Sans phone; he looked down and gave a short lasting smile to the text message filled with emoticons before closing it and hiding everything away. He turned to Enber with unusually tired eyes.

“None of that’s gonna happen. You’re just drunk. Tomorrow we’ll meet our matches an’ after awhile everything will go back to normal. You’ll see.”

There was a moment of consideration, but eventually, Enber nodded.

“Go get some sleep. I’ll see ya at the ceremony tomorrow.”

Another nod. Enber struggled to his feet, Sans joining him, and finally got the door open. He turned back one last time. “Thanks, Sans.”

“Anytime, pal.”

Sans walked the rest of the way to his home after that, hands in his pockets, and crept up the stairs carefully to avoid waking his younger brothers. In the safety of his own room, he looked over the packet again. Kailee’s picture showed a young human girl with brown hair that fell a bit past her shoulders, brown eyes, and a small nose. Everything looked proportional, which he was fairly certain met the standard of “attractive” for her kind.

He wasn’t sure what to think. Liked her eyes, he supposed. They looked intelligent, bright. As if she was thinking of something witty to say even as the photographer took her portrait.

Maybe, if nothing else, the two would at least become decent friends. Their social stats certainly seemed to think they’d get along, anyway, and if they were going to be married and raising kids together, it would be nice to at least have that. Especially if she did actually have one or two sets of twins—

Sans took a deep breath. Let it out slow.

The standard pre-meet letter was tucked away behind the more official documents. It was the one thing that wasn’t traditional to be shared, but instead served as a private moment between the matches before they even knew who they’d been assigned to, a first impression of sorts. Something to give an idea of who it was he would be marrying tomorrow, beyond the simple facts provided. His own letter that he’d wrote had been a little short and bland—he just hadn’t known what to say. Hopefully, that didn’t make her regret the match, if she didn’t already.

He unfolded her letter and found the handwriting tidier than his own, but still a bit quick and not so focused on fancy loops or flourishes like some of the monsters he knew. Leaning back onto pillows, Sans made himself comfortable for reading over the letter.

“To the one unfortunate enough to be stuck with me:” it began,

“So I'm being sold off as prime real estate because I'm a twin, so I hope to god we're at least a little compatible. Hi, my name is Kailee. When you meet me, please remember the 'ai' sound is like 'eye' not 'ay.'

Anyways...I come from a standard size family. I have my twin, Kyle, my older brother, and a younger sister. I guess, judging by the stupid giggling around me, I'm supposed to write...something.

You're probably a politician or celebrity's kid. I'm not interested in status. Really, I just want a normal life. I guess this is what counts as normal, but whatever. Here, have some stuff about me:

I love icees. A lot. Any color. I have a collection of every Disney movie ever, and still own a VCR. Be prepared to watch these with me if you want to spend time with me. My brothers will curbstomp you if you hurt me. If I don't, first. (:

I am a person, not a breeding machine.

My medical papers probably have this but when it says allergic to fish it means YOU WILL BE CHARGED WITH MURDER IF YOU FEED ME FISH.

One last thing: I can be plyed with bad television and sweet potato fries, if all else fails.

See you soon. Try to look excited, yeah?

-Kai”

Sans smiled a little and let out a quiet, amused huff under his breath. He hadn’t read the bit about fish allergies in her medical notes—probably should look over those more thoroughly now that he was going to be sort of, well, responsible for keeping her comfortable and safe. At least it seemed like she was willing to be blunt with him, instead of batting around the bush with everything. He could work with that, even if her sass levels did seem to be on the high spectrum.

Icee’s and bad television didn’t sound so bad, anyhow. He had only watched one or two Disney movies, though, and never tried sweet potato fries. Time would tell if he liked either.

He did a quick skim of the letter again, then placed it to the side and folded his arms behind his head. Kailee—or Kai, apparently—didn’t seem too bad, overall. A little haughty, maybe, judging by how she talked about her value as a twin and thus expected a high profile match, but she also mentioned not caring about that sort of thing, so he wasn’t sure. And the letter definitely came off a little defensive, but again, Sans was left uncertain whether to judge for that.

It wasn’t like he thought any match of his would be a “breeding machine”, and the whole bit about him hurting her was weird. He had to live with her just as much as she had to live with him, so why would he even bother being a jerk? Even if they didn’t get along, nothing would change. Sans would still be bound to her and she’d be bound to him. There was no point making things more difficult than they had to be.

Maybe it was just a culture difference, though. Humans did a lot of stuff different from monsters, and no doubt she had expected a human match. With time, maybe she’d relax a bit. Hopefully.

Sans considered something a moment, then reached back over for his phone and did a quick search of Kailee’s full name. It brought up a few hits, but eventually he found what he was looking for, a familiar face sticking out from a list of online social profiles. “Undernet” was a website that Sans himself had never really gotten into, but did have an old, dusty account with. He left clicked on Kailee’s name, and selected the message option.

“to the one i am apparently unfortunate enough to be stuck with:” He typed,

“i forgot to mention in my letter that i make a lot of really bad jokes. i mean a lot. i mean there’s been an established drinking game based on it and it’s really, really effective for getting drunk. so, there’s that.

hope the traveling is going good and i’ll see you tomorrow, will do my best to look excited, but you should know i’m a skeleton and we pretty much always grin anyways so there you go. i’ll also try not to fish for compliments (because you’re deathly allergic and i don’t really want you die cause that would look fishy oh hey didn’t even mean to do that one)

ok well. i didn’t expect this match and i don’t think you did either but it’ll be fine i think. i like bad tv and icee’s too. never tried sweet potato fries but maybe we can get some tomorrow? anyway goodnight. will be sober tomorrow so no worries. signed your future husbone.

His thumb hovered over the send button for a moment, but in the end, he clicked it with little remorse. After that, he spent a few hours texting and laughing with someone else, and when he fell asleep, he dreamed of eating pie with a person whose face was hidden in shadow, but had the sweetest, gentlest voice he had ever heard and told extremely good jokes.

It was nice.

#lettersfromthepit #ᴹᵃᵗᶜʰᵉᵈ (Plot AU)#Younger!Sans #Science!Sans #((HERE. HAVE CHAPTER ONE. APPARENTLY. OOPS.)

19 notes · View notes