Chapter Text
“Ugh…” you groaned, flailing around in your bed, trying to silence the alarm on your phone. You rolled out of bed and shuffled your way to the kitchen, pausing only to slip on your purple slippers and grab your favorite purple hoodie.
With only one arm in the hoodie, you opened the fridge and pulled out one of your energy drinks, immediately cracking it open and taking a long drink.
“I hate Monday mornings…” you grumbled to the empty house, setting the can of lifeblood energy drink down and pulling the hoodie on properly, “... and Mondays, and mornings…”
Taking another sip of your caffeine filled drink, you grabbed the pack of smokes and the lighter on the counter and stepped out onto the back porch. Lighting your cigarette, you took a long drag as you thought about what chaos would be waiting for you at work today.
Hopefully, no one on second shift or anyone over the weekend had screwed anything up, again . There are honestly only so many times you could explain proper production procedures and material handling safety before you started throwing things instead of using words.
Oh, that’s right! This week you were going to be training some new hires, and not just any new hires. Monsters. Monsters had been on the surface for a few years now, fully integrated into ‘normal’ society and all that.
You let out a snort, taking another drag. Normal is nothing but a bunch of conformists, you thought to yourself, taking one last drag off your cigarette, stubbing out the remaining embers in the ashtray you kept on the railing of the porch, and threw the butt away in the trash. Well, at least today is gonna be more interesting than usual.
Heading back into the house, you hummed to yourself as you completed the rest of your morning routine with an extra pep in your step. Living on an island, only connected to the rest of the states by bridges meant that it had taken quite some time for the monsters to move out this far. Mt. Ebott, or ‘Ground M’ as you called it in your head was practically on the other side of the country. Probably in Utah or something. You only ever half paid attention to the news, too many people whining about irrelevant issues, in your opinion.
Heading out the front, locking the door behind you, and hoping into your second hand Rav4, that you still couldn’t identify the color of, you lit another cigarette, rolled down the window and headed off to work.
~ ~ ~
“aww, boss, do i hafta?” Red grumbled as his brother bustled about the kitchen, making them both breakfast.
“SANS!” Edge scolded, rolling his eyelights. “WE HAVE BEEN OVER THIS, TWELVE TIMES ALREADY. YOU WANTED A JOB TO KEEP YOUR MIND OFF ‘THINGS’. YOU ACTUALLY MANAGED TO GET HIRED, SO NOW YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO START SAID JOB,” Edge huffed as he shoved a plate of eggs and bacon in front of his brother.
Red grumbled under his breath as he started to shovel his breakfast into his mouth. “yanno, boss… ya gotta get used ta callin me ‘red’ now tha’ we’re livin’ close wit’ th’ others…”
“SA- RED, ” the taller skeleton scoffed before he got a soft look in his eye sockets. “ Red, I will call you that when you stop calling me ‘Boss’.”
The shorter skeleton looked up in surprise when his brother spoke with an ‘indoor voice’, rather than projecting throughout the entire house. “uh, yea, you got it, bo-bro,” he responded nervously, red drops of sweat beading on the back of his skull, as he fiddled with the collar around his neck.
“GOOD!” Edge said, his volume returning to normal as he turned towards the sink to wash the pan he used to cook breakfast in. “NOW, REMEMBER YOU NEED TO BE THERE FOR 10AM TO FILL OUT THE NEW HIRE PAPERWORK AND YOU SHOULD FINISH WITH IT BY ONE.”
“i know, bro,” Red rolled his eyelights. “are - are ya gonna be okay t’day wit’ me outta th’ house all day?”
“RED, I AM NOT A BABYBONES! I CAN TAKE CARE OF MYSELF, WHICH MORE THAN CAN BE SAID FOR YOU. I PLAN ON SPENDING MY DAY FINISHING WHATEVER NEEDS TO BE UNPACKED, AND MAYBE IF THERE IS TIME, I WILL SET UP THE STUDIO SOUNDPROOFING, BEFORE I PRACTICE,” Edge stated, grabbing Red’s now empty plate and placing it in the sink.
Never one to pass up an opportunity to rile up his younger brother, Red let out a chuckle. “heh, bro… yer claimin’ ya ain’t a babybones, but yer sure yellin’ like one, a ton...”
“RED, NO!”
“a skele- ton. ”
“NYEH!” Edge let out a frustrated shout. “Red...” he started again, using his ‘indoor voice’, “isn’t it time for you to be leaving?”
“alrigh’, alrigh’, i’m goin’” Red sighed, standing and grabbing his black fur lined hoodie. “don’ miss me too much, bro. i’ll see ya t’night at practice at th’ main house,” he called as he took a shortcut out of the kitchen with a ‘pop’
Edge let out an exasperated sigh at his brother’s usual antics but swiftly began moving about, setting the kitchen to rights and moving on to unpacking the rest of the house.
~ ~ ~
Clocking into work, you took your normal route through the production area, greeting everyone you passed. As you normally did on a Monday morning, you reviewed the work orders left on your workbench for you to take care of, and mentally created your plan of attack for the day. Popping in your earbuds, you navigated to your playlist of your favorite indie group, Forgotten Underground, and got to work.
It was business as usual for most of the morning, all your machines were behaving and all your material was where you had left it, until you came to an order to make some plastic guards for some machine or another that your company made. Grumbling, you headed over to the ancient punch machine to fire it up, hoping against hope that it would cooperate right away. And…. of course not… It was Monday after all.
Sighing to yourself, you shut everything down to let it sit for a minute before starting it all up again. I thought I was done with IT, you chuckled dryly to yourself, and yet ‘Have you tried turning off and on again?’ has never been more appropriate than with this hunk of junk. While you were letting the machine rest, you wandered over to the sheet metal department to commiserate with the ‘head’ of sheet metal, Blake.
“Blaaaaake,” you whined, pouting dramatically, as you walked up.
“Eh? Punch not workin’?” the large Jamaican man let out a chuckle, too accustomed to your antics by now.
“Yeah… it’s throwing a bitchfit with non-existent errors again, and I’ve got a bunch of Lexan shit to run,” you drawled, waving to Mark, the other regular sheet metal guy, a soft-spoken man of Hispanic descent. “At least the laser’s working, but man, I am sooo done with circles.”
Both men laughed, and Mark chimed in. “You have all the material you need, ___?”
You nodded, “Yeah, got that all prepped on Friday. Might need to bug one of you later to help swap pallets on the laser though, but that depends on how quickly I get through the current stuff.”
Blake rolled his eyes at you and chided, “Learn ta drive a fork truck, ___”
“Nah, I’d rather come bug you,” You smirked at the Jamaican. “Oh! Did you hear about the new hires starting this week?”
“The monsters? Yeah, seems pretty cool.”
“Any idea where they’ll be working?” Mark asked.
“I know at least one of ‘em will be with me,” you answered with a smile that was just a tad maniacal.
“Poor sap...” Blake sent you a shit-eating grin.
“Oh, go sit on a cactus,” you glared back, but almost immediately started giggling. “Anyways, I’m gonna go try the punch again. Bug ya later.”
Walking back over to the beast of a machine, you tried once again to start it up. It got about halfway through its startup process before stalling out at a point where it could continue to boot up, if you were lucky. Rolling your eyes, you flipped off the machine as you moved back over to the laser area, or as you called it, your ‘laser lair’, and continued pulling out finished parts. Singing along to your music, you made decent progress through the finished parts, until Blake walked by and tugged out one of your earbuds.
“Break time, ___.”
“Oh, yay!” You pulled off your work gloves and followed the crew outside for a smoke break. Looking down at your phone, you paused your music and flipped through a few of your games, before D, one of the QC guys strolled over.
“Sup, ___,” he greeted, lighting up his own smoke.
“Sup, D,” you returned, with a smile.
“You see the new guy yet?”
“No, I’ve been fighting with the punch again.”
D laughed, “Girl, you ain’t given up on that yet?”
“Noooo! I can’t cut plastics on my laser!” you whined, drawing another laugh out of D. “Have you seen the new guy?”
“Yep, passed him in the lobby on my way out.”
“ And?!? ”
“He’s a skeleton.”
“Dude!” You exclaimed excitedly. “That’s so awesome!”
“Ain’t you worried ‘bout him? He’s literally all bones. Wouldn’t that be worse than expecting Simon to run things?”
You snorted, thinking of the tiny engineer that worked in Research and Development. “I’m sure it’ll be fine. Besides, I’m fairly certain the metal would be throwing Simon around if he tried to do anything.”
You and D shared a laugh as you both headed back inside, and got back to the daily grind.
Meanwhile, Red had finally arrived, on time for once, but had to wait down in the lobby until someone actually came to get him. He had been shown upstairs, and led into the HR office, where his new hire paperwork was waiting to be filled out.
“So, Mr. Aster, did you have any other questions for me? Otherwise I’ll just leave you alone to fill out the rest of the forms in peace.”
“nah, i’m good,” Red let out a sigh as he flipped through the stack of papers.
“Alrighty then! I’ll be back in a little bit to check on you.”
Red discreetly rolled his eyelights at the bubbly HR lady, not bothering to even attempt to learn her name. He started in on the pile of forms, filling everything rather hastily, and as a result, the handwriting was just barely legible. Scanning over the paperwork once he was finished, he shrugged to himself and glanced up at the clock on the wall. His jaw dropped when he saw that it was just about noon already.
“geez... how long does it frickin’ take ta fill out a bunch o’ stupid papers...” he grunted in mild annoyance.
The bubbly blonde from before poked her head into the office right before Red decided he could try to snag a few Z’s. She spotted the stack of completed forms and stepped fully into the office, giving the skeleton a bright smile. “Oh good! You’re finished! Right in time for lunch too! I’ll bring you down to the breakroom, where you can eat your lunch and then at one you’ll be meeting up with… Hold on one quick second, I just need to check something… Ah yes! Here we are!” She sang as she flipped through one of the files on her desk. “___ will be the one showing you around today, and I believe for the rest of the week as well,” the HR lady said, her eyes tightening the slightest bit as she said your name.
Red nodded, noticing the way she reacted when she told him your name, but mentally filing it away for later. He stood up to follow the woman out of the room, trying to ignore the nervous feeling in his SOUL at the thought of actually meeting his new coworkers. He was too used to working with only his brother or by himself.
When the two of them made it to the breakroom, the blonde woman looked around the room, as though searching for someone, but quickly gave a small shrug when she apparently came up empty. “Oh well, it seems ___ has already left for lunch, Mr. Aster, but she knows to pick you up from here when she gets back. I need to go file your paperwork, but I’ll come find you if anything comes up. Enjoy your first day!” she called cheerily, leaving Red alone in the breakroom as she made her way back upstairs to her office.
Red shoved his hands into the pockets of his black hoodie, taking a step backwards so he was leaning against the wall, and warily looked around the room he was left in. No one in the breakroom already seemed to be paying much attention to him, so he continued to scout out the room, slipping into old habits from when it was just him and his brother. There were a few vending machines and a fridge along the wall he was propped up against, and across the room, there were several microwaves above a counter. The skeleton was drawn out of his ‘observation mode’ by the sound of a female’s voice shouting in the hallway leading to the cafeteria.
~ ~ ~
You quickly checked your phone as soon as you finished up the current production batch you had been working on after break and you smiled when you saw that it was 11:59AM. Stripping off your work gloves and protective sleeves, you locked down the machine, because you didn’t trust anyone to not fuck it up while you were gone, and met up with Blake, Mark, and D to head outside for lunch.
As you were passing the breakroom where a lot of people took their lunch, you broke off from the group and called out to them over your shoulder, “I’ll catch up to you guys! I wanna go check if the new guy is waiting for me yet!”
The three men waved to show that they had heard you, and D yelled something back to you that you chose to ignore as you stepped into the cafeteria. Looking around, you quickly spotted the skeleton monster casually leaning against the wall, apparently trying to disappear into the fur lined hood of his jacket. You paused for a second to observe him before you just walked right up to him.
He was wearing a blood red tee shirt underneath the hoodie, dark blue/ black jeans with rips in the knees and around his neck was a dark red, studded leather collar. Kinky , you thought as you smirked to yourself, strongly reminded of your goth phase back in high school. Finally walking up to the edgy looking skeleton, especially with his sharpened teeth and gold incisor, you smiled and introduced yourself.
“Hi there! I’m ___! Are you the new hire I’m supposed to be training today?” You tried to maintain your friendly demeanor, while your mind went straight to the gutter. Holy shit! Those teeth are just taunting me with a good time!
Red looked at you with a brow bone raised, “uh, yea, i guess… ‘m red,” he grunted, appearing to size you up as you approached, his red eyelights giving you a once over.
You raised your own brow in response. “Well, Red,” you said as your smile grew just a little bit wider. “Do you think you’ve got the guts to join me for lunch so I can introduce you to some of the guys? Or do you think that’d be too much for you to stomach? ” You sent a wink towards the skeleton, but mentally started face-palming. Stupid ___, you just met the guy! Don’t pun ish him already!
There were a tense few seconds of silence while Red just stared at you, before he threw back his head and let out a deep full bodied laugh, his golden tooth glinting in the light. “hahaha! heh, tibia -nest, girly, ‘m thinkin’ me and ya ‘re gonna get along jes’ fine. no bones about it,” he said, wiping a fake tear from his eye socket. “i’ll follow ya, girly. there ain’t no- body else i know ‘ere.”
“Good one,” you let out a snort of amusement. “Come on then,” you added as you led the skeleton towards the picnic tables set up outside. “Oh man… I can’t wait...” you chuckled darkly, glancing back at Red and rubbing your palms together.
“can’t wait fer wha’?”
“For the two of us to start tickling everyone’s funny bones !” you cackled.
“heh, ‘m sure tha’ it’s gonna be pretty humerus. ”
The two of you traded puns back and forth as you approached the tables outside, causing the three from before to groan.
“Aw man… another jokester?” Mark grumbled, faking annoyance at you.
Blake and D shared a look before rolling their eyes as you stuck out your tongue. “You’re all just mad that, with our powers combined, we can double all the pun ishments!”
Red let out a chuckle behind you, drawing the attention of the other males. ”sup? name’s red,” he introduced himself.
“So yer the poor soul tha’ got stuck with Laser Lady, eh?” Blake commented to the skeleton, holding his hand out for a handshake.
“laser lady?” Red raised his brow bone as he shook Blake’s hand.
Blake rolled his eyes again as you sang out “Poor unfortunate soooooouuuls!” in the background. “Eh, she runs the laser cutter, and programs it, basically adopted it honestly. One of the bosses called ‘er ‘Laser Lady’ and it just kinda stuck,” he explained with a shrug.
You stuck out your tongue and gave Blake a one-fingered salute, before turning back to Red. “So, Red,” you asked as you sat down with your lunch, “what made you apply for a job here?”
Red gave a shrug. “saw th’ job postin’, ‘nd i like tinkerin’ wit’ mechanical shit…”
“Cool, cool,” you gave him a friendly smile. “Like Mechanical Engineering levels or just general tinkering?”
“eh-heh...” Red chuckled nervously, trying to hide in his hoodie again. “i got a p.h.d. In mech eng…”
“Nerds! The both a yous!” D shouted from the other end of the table.
Blake laughed at the look of confusion on Red’s face, explaining while you were busy flipping off D with both hands. “___ has some degree in videa games er somethin’.”
“sweet.”
“Ayo, ___. Doesn’t Simon have a P.H.D. in something engineering? Maybe you should intro-”
“NOPE!” You cut him off with a glare. “Not now, and not ever if I can help it. Too clingy,” you said as you let out a shudder.
The guys started laughing, and Red sent a concerned look your way as you stood up. He trailed behind you as you walked a little bit away from the tables and pulled out your smokes. A few beads of red sweat appeared on his skull as his eyelights flickered between your face and the pack of cigarettes.
“uh, _-___?”
“Hm? You need to bum a smoke?” You asked after you lit your own nicotine stick and took a drag. You held out the pack towards the skeleton and smiled invitingly. “Go ahead, we smokers take care of each other. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve bummed one from one of the guys.”
After a moment of hesitation, Red practically snatched the box and lighter, and quickly lit a cig of his own. Taking a greedy pull, he handed everything back to you with a blissful look on his skull.
“ah, fuck, tha’s good...” he groaned, as he took another drag.
“Heh, been a while, Red?”
“yea... my bro don’t like me smokin’ around him, and we jes’ moved inta a new place,” the skeleton explained, his eye sockets closed as he enjoyed the buzz of the nicotine.
“You, uh, you won’t get in trouble for smoking with me, right?” you asked, not wanting to cause problems for your new pun-pal.
“nah, my bro jes’ don’t want me wastin’ money on buyin’ ‘em,” Red chuckled. “b’tween th’ mutt ‘nd th’ honeybun, he’s ‘round enuff of it anyways.”
You raised a brow at the skeleton, but didn’t pry any further, choosing instead to finish up your cigarette silently while listening to your music with only one earbud for now.
Once lunch was over, you led the way back inside and Red followed you all the way back to your machines. Before you started them back up, you turned to your minion trainee. “So Red, are you more of an observational learner or are you more of a hands-on person?”
“heh. well i always like a bit o’ hands-on experience, but i’m pretty good wit’ jes’ watchin’, at least fer now.”
“Alright then,” you said, before letting out a snort of laughter. “Pretty sure you couldn’t hand le me anyways,” you flashed him a wink before you turned away, popped in both of your earbuds and got to work.
True to his word, Red seemed to pick up everything you were doing fairly quickly and soon enough, he stopped asking you questions and simply settled in to just watch you work.
Without the constant interruptions of his questions to stop you, you fell back into your habit of singing along to your music and dancing along to the beat. As the next song started, you paused in your work to drum along with the intro. Out of the corner of your eye, you noticed Red sit up a little straighter, as though he recognized the beat. With a sudden burst of confidence, you turned to face him as you sang along to the first line.
“Can you feel that?” you sang, continuing to drum along. “Ah, shit.”
Red looked at you in surprise as you waited for the first verse to start, not even attempting to sing the backup parts. As the verse started, Red’s expression changed from surprised to impressed with a hint of smugness.
“Drowning deep in my sea of loathing, broken your servant, I kneel...”
“will you give in to me?” Red jumped in, singing the backup vocal part, smirking when you jumped at the sound of his voice.
Raising an eyebrow at him, you continued the song with a smirk of your own. “It seems what’s left of my human side is slowly changing in me...”
Red took a step towards you as he sang perfectly in time with the next line, without being able to hear the music. “will you give in to me?”
“Looking at my own reflection, when suddenly it changes, vi-o-lent-ly it changes!”
“oh no!”
“There is no turning back now, you’ve woken up the demon in meeee!”
Red joined in as you started the chorus, causing you to falter when he launched into the next verse flawlessly. You pulled out one of your earbuds to hear him better, and gave the singing skeleton an incredulous look.
Quickly pausing the music, you held up your hand to stop the singing. “You… sound exactly like the singer…”
“i would hope so, girly,” Red said with a shit-eating grin. “can’t say i’ve ever heard a female cover one o’ my songs though.”
You let out a fangirl squeal, causing Red to jump back and pull his hood over his skull to try to muffle the high pitched sound, and Blake to roll his eyes as he was walking passed the two of you.
“th’ hell was tha’ about, laser lady?” Red grumbled, tentatively peering out of his hood when you finally stopped dancing around and squealing.
“ You’re in Forgotten Underground!” you exclaimed. “They’re, You’re part of my favorite group!” You gave yourself a mental slap. Oh my gods, ___. You are going to scare him away at this rate with all the fangirling…
“heh, yea,” Red shrugged, a faint crimson glow on his face. “i sing once in a while, but mostly cover guitar or drums when one o’ th’ others ‘re singin’.”
“That’s so cool…” you whispered, still a bit star-struck.
“we’re, uh, gonna be playin’ at Elsewhere on friday night… if ya, uh, wanted ta swing by ‘r somethin’,” Red offered, the crimson glow getting brighter. “we all jes’ moved out this way ‘nd we had a hookup there. i can talk ta the others t’night at practice.”
“Oh, awesome! I know exactly where that is! Oh! Wait...” you interrupted yourself and shoved your phone towards Red after pulling up the new contact screen. “Gimme your number and I’ll text you so you have my info. Maybe we can meet up for a drink or something before you go on,” you said quickly, looking away as a faint blush dusted your face.
“s-sure thin’, girly,” Red stuttered, still glowing red. He typed in his number, saved it and held out the phone.
Taking back your phone, you sent him a quick text with your name, and shoved the device back into your pocket, not bothering to even turn your music back on. “Soooo… you wanna give any of this a try?” You asked gesturing to the machine you were currently watching over. “Or did you want to see if maybe you have the, heh heh, magic touch to get the punch to cooperate?”
“i’ll show ya a ‘magic touch’, girly,” Red leered at you, causing you to burst out laughing.
“I eagerly await your demonstration,” you purred, laughing again as the skeleton instantly turned completely as red as his namesake.
“i- uh- jes’- wha?” The blushing Red sputtered.
“I kid, I kid,” you waved your hand placatingly, as you led the way to the ornery punch machine, which was still stubbornly refusing to boot up. Letting out a frustrated groan, you grabbed the main power switch, yanked it into the ‘off’ position, and flipped off the machine with both hands. “Welp, hopefully third time’s the charm,” you sighed. “You fucking stupid piece of shit...” you added under your breath glaring at the machine controller.
“wha’s th’ problem wit’ it?” Red asked inquisitive, stepping up behind you to look over your shoulder.
“Its old, probably’s never been properly maintained, and it’s hyper-sensitive when the other presses are running...” your grumbled pointing to the multi-ton press across the aisle. “If it doesn’t start up this time, I’m just gonna kick it, and try again tomorrow.”
“want me ta take a look at it?” Red offered as he studied the machine in front of you.
“If it still doesn’t wanna work, then sure, be my guest. You wouldn’t be the first one to poke around in this thing’s guts ,” you told him with a shrug as you turned the machine on once again. Miraculously, it actually booted up properly and you couldn’t help but notice the slight disappointment radiating from the skeleton behind you. “Hey, don’t worry man, it clearly only started up under threat of dissection,” you sent Red a lopsided smile. “Once I’m done running these parts, or it decides to crap out again, you can play mad scientist with it.”
“lucky fer ya, girly, i’ve got experience playin’ wit’ old hunks o’ junk like this,” Red grinned as he stepped back once again to watch you work.
The rest of the afternoon passed quickly without anything too exciting happening. Red watched you as you knocked out your work orders, occasionally helping out while you were pulling parts, all the while the two of you traded puns back and forth. You let the skeleton bum another smoke from you when you met up with Blake and the others during the afternoon break, smiling to yourself when you noticed Red start to relax a little bit around the other guys.
After you all went back inside for the last hour or so of the day, you and Red sang a few more of Forgotten Underground’s songs, punned some more at each other, and finished up all of the work you had planned for the day. Surprisingly, you even managed to get ahead on some of the plastic parts, since the punch continued to cooperate, and you weren’t one to squander such an opportunity when it presented itself.
Finally, 4:45PM rolled around and it was time for you to start shutting things down and cleaning up for the day.
As you turned off your machines, you walked Red through what you normally did for the last fifteen minutes of your shift. “After everything's off for the night, I’ll usually go check if anyone left any new work orders for me, and make a list of what material, if any, I’ll need Mark or Blake to prep for me. Otherwise, it’s stare down the clock and shoot off an email to Drew, my supervisor, with my completed production and programming for the day.”
“don’t seem too bad ta me,” Red shrugged, moving to lean up against the wall next to your workbench as you typed up your daily report. “wha’s th’ plan fer ta- marrow , laser lady?” he asked after a minute, shooting you a wink.
“Well,” you snorted, “there’s really no patella -n if it’s gonna be any more exciting than today. We’ll see if anyone decides to surprise me with last minute ‘hot rush’ jobs.” You rolled your eyes as you clicked send on the email you finished typing and once it was sent, you closed your laptop and shoved it into your bag. “And with that,” you announced, turning to face the skeleton, “I’m done for the day! You’re in tomorrow at eight?”
“yep.”
“Cool. When you get here, just meet me here,” you gestured to your workbench. “I usually get here a little bit before eight myself, so I’ll just hang out until you show up.”
“sounds like a plan ta me.”
“Awesome. So, I’ll see ya tomorrow. Text me whenever, about work or not. Have fun with your band practice, and get home safe!” You babbled as the two of you walked outside after you had clocked out. “Bye, Red!” you called over your shoulder as you climbed into your car. “See ya!”
Red waved and watched as you drove off, waiting until you had turned the corner before he looked around to make sure no one was watching before he stepped through the void with one of his shortcuts. If his grin was a little bigger and a bit more sincere than normal, well, no one was gonna question him about it anyway.