Chapter Text
You are late, wake up!
You launch forward in your bed. “Oh sugar jets.” You look at the clock, 7:08 A.M. You throw the sheets off you and search for some clean clothes on the ground. You throw on some jeans and keep the shirt you slept in on. You run down stairs as you pull up your hair and your apron in your mouth. You can see someone standing at the door already. Crud. “Sorry, hold on!” You unlock the door and quickly open it. The mother was about to knock on the door when you opened it. “G-good… good morning, Mrs. Corbin, Blake.”
“____, you slept in again?” She giggled. Blake, her daughter was rubbing her eyes as she held her mom’s hand.
“Heh, yeah, I’m not an early riser, Axel was the one who usually opens up first. I became so used to him, that I can’t adjust to him being in school all week.” You bent down to Blake’s level. “Hey, sweetheart, want to go back to sleep with me.” She nods and crawls into your arms. Blake snuggled your neck and was fast asleep again by the time you stood back up. You hold the little body close to you. “She is so big. I can’t believe she is three now.”
Mrs. Corbin sighed in agreement. “Yes, she is growing up. Though, I can’t wait till she starts school. I’m going to send her to that monster-human relation school.” You give her a strained smile. Yeah, monsters, they are a thing now…
You waved Mrs. Corbin good bye and take Blake to the play area. You place her down gently on the couch; you know that she will be up and about within an hour so there was no need to put her in the nap room. You head into the kitchen and start to prepare breakfast snacks for other children to arrive. You were left this two story house when your dad had passed. The second floor is where you and Axel live.
Axel is a college student studying to become a nurse that rents a room from you and works part-time for you, mainly in the summer when he doesn’t have school. You have two other empty rooms, but no one wants to rent where there is a daycare just below them and those who do are creeps that you don’t trust around the kids.
The first floor used to be where your dad would rent out to families, but you had converted it into your business. You turned the bedrooms into a nap room with nap-matts and cribs, an arts and learning room with desks to do arts and crafts and homework, and the smallest one into your office where you keep all your paperwork and have meetings with parents. You then tore down the wall between the living room and the room next to it to make one big open space to be the common playroom for all the children to play and mingle with each other. You also remodeled the kitchen, making it more spacious for the kids to run by without getting hurt since there was a sliding glass door that leads to the backyard that has a mini playground from when you were a kid.
You finished cutting up some fruit and place them on the long children’s table for kids to come freely snack on. You wonder if the monster children will like it… You sighed, thinking about the school Mrs. Corbin mentioned before. There is nothing wrong with monsters. You have no problem with them. It’s just the Royal family. You heard about what they had to do to get out of the underground, granted that a small child was the one who saved them, but the Queen… You can’t like anyone who is willing to kill mere children. You understand that they were desperate to get out, but you can’t get over it.
Though you might have to meet the former King face to face soon, with the new school he made. You are close to it and made a contract with them that a bus is to pick up the older kids from here to school and drop them off back here after school if the parents choose to do that. You are the only daycare in the area of Mount Ebott that declared to be monster friendly. You have plenty of kids now. You made it a requirement for monster parents to write you guides on how to watch each one of their kids. You were surprised that very few had anything magical or out of the ordinary to watch out for. You are washing dishes when you hear something that sounded like a crash against the front door.
You rushed over, opening the door. “Oh honey, are you okay?” A little boy had tripped and landed face first into the door, you bent down to check their reddening nose.
“Hi, Miss ___, I fell again.” The boy grumbled as you held their sweet little face.
You sighed as you felt his nose for anything broken. “I can see that, in fact I heard it from the kitchen. Where is your brother, Sam?” On cue, Caleb came running down the path.
“Sam, you little punk, I told you to wait!” Caleb was panting, hunched over with his hands on his knees and holding a child’s backpack.
“You are too slow; I wanted to get here sooner.” Sam hugged your leg pouting. You pat his head; Sam’s parents were on a business trip together and he was now being watched by his older brother Caleb till they came back.
Caleb sighed. “Yeah, yeah, you love Miss ___ more than me, I get it.” He hands Sam’s bag to you as he rolls his eyes at Sam’s behavior. “I’ve known her longer than you, you brat.” Sam sticks his tongue out at him then buries his face into your leg. You giggle at their interaction.
“Shouldn’t you get going soon?” Caleb has been a friend of yours since college and now he is working at the new monster school as a school counselor.
He looked at his watch. “Sh-” You narrow your eyes at him. “Shoot, I got a meeting in twenty minutes. Last minute prepping before school starts next week. Behave Sam. See you later ___.” He turned around and ran back to his car.
You look down at Sam; his nose was becoming slightly swollen. “Let’s get some ice on that face of yours hon.” You take his hand and walk him inside.
“I’m sorry, but there is no way. What if they come after us?” A lawyer was tapping her fingers on her desk, listening to the excuses the woman was giving her.
“It will only be temporary; you are close to the school they are going to and their family. There is no reason for the child to be taken from them, people are just overreacting. It will only be for a few months, just till the case is settled.” The lawyer begged the woman as she watched the child play with some toys in her office.
“No, it would be different if we weren’t talking about monsters. I have seen him; he could kill me and my family. No way will I risk being eaten by a monster.” The woman hung up on her before she could retort. Misconception of monsters was becoming a real issue for her to place the child. She started looking through her contacts list of emergency caregivers. Usually family court lawyers can take children home with them in worst case scenarios, but she lived in a one room apartment that is an hour away. On top of that she was hardly ever home because of work. She has done it before but with older kids who are waiting to be adopted, this situation is different and needs someone to watch the poor kid better than she could…
“Wait a minute… ___. Wow, haven’t heard that name in a while…” She looks up your address; it is right in the neighborhood she was looking at. You usually did only a week of caring for children waiting to be placed in a new home; maybe you’ll do this one favor for her for old time’s sake.
She types your address into her phone and calls out to the child. “Hey Chara, I might have found a place for you.” The child looked up at her with their crimson red eyes. “But we are going to have to have a game plan to convince her; luckily I know her true only weakness that she will never say no to.” She has a devious grin on her face.
Chara sneakily peeks at the address on the computer and texts it to awaiting friends as the lawyer packs her brief.
“Oh, I know that place.” Asgore mumbled to his phone as he was baking some scones. Chara had texted him where they were going to be taken to next. Asgore shook his head, that mischievous child of his plans to run away from there and come back here. Even after lecturing the child for many hours, they still do what they can to torture the foster families to send them back. Asgore is starting to feel worse for the kind lawyer woman who has to constantly move them around. At least Chara likes her and hasn’t tried to set anything on fire in her office…. Asgore sighs, wondering what he is going to do when Chara becomes a teenager. He feels ice crawl up his back.
“The brat texted you again?” Papyrus was leaning back into his chair, eyes shut as he smoked a cigarette.
Asgore nodded, passing his phone over on the table. “They are heading over to this daycare that most of my younger students go to, a large proportion of the monster children are enrolled there too. I myself never met the owner.” He scratched his beard sheepishly. “One of her employees came down to talk to me and hand over bus route contracts."
“Isn’t that kind of strange? Never meeting the person who will be taking care of your kids?” Papyrus chuckled at his pun. His brother was too involved in what he was watching on TV in the living room to comment.
Asgore gave a deep nervous chuckle, placing a plate of fresh honey scones on the table and a cup of tea for himself. “She seems to not… like the royal family… she had heard of the previous children and what happened which has her wary of me, even though I explained that I gave up my title of king such a long time ago and wasn’t involved with Toriel’s so called ‘war’… I was somewhat lectured by her on the phone…”
Papyrus couldn’t hold in his laugh, he had to take his cigarette out. He leaned his head on a hand perched on the table as he used the other hand to continue smoking. “Asgore, the master of lecturing and all things dad, got lectured by a human girl…pfft… what was it about?”
Asgore almost dropped his tea as he was placing it back down. Papyrus raised an eye-bone. Asgore’s eyes shifted around the room. “I told her that I left Toriel before any of it had happened, but I was aware what was happening. She doesn’t blame me for it but made a point of that I could have done more for the children….and my wife…” Papyrus put a hand on his dear friend’s shoulder. He understands the weight those large shoulders carry.
“Hey, well at least you know Chara is going into capable hands.” Papyrus pointed to the phone.
Asgore sighed. “I wish I could go there and keep an eye on them. You know what Chara is like.” Boy did he know, Papyrus thought. Unlike Asgore being a worried father he is, he is more worried about the human woman trying to take care of that chocolate-loving brat. He is still very suspicious of the kid. Asgore looked at his empty teacup. “I’m going to make myself some more tea, would you like some or the usual?”
“That’s sweet of you to offer, I’ll take honey.” As Asgore worked on making more tea, Papyrus looked at the cell phone, he typed in the address and was surprised to see that you were renting out rooms above the daycare. Papyrus finished off his cigarette, discarding the bud into the ash tray. “Hmm… Hey Sans, wanna go for a little walk?”
Sans poked his head into the kitchen, skepticism written all over his face. “PAPYRUS, DID YOU JUST ASKED ME TO GO ON A WALK WITH YOU, SOMETHING THAT INVOLVES YOU MOVING, LIKE PHYSICALLY? ALRIGHT WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY LAZY BROTHER?”
You hummed happily in the kitchen making lunch as you watched children play in the yard. Summer vacation is almost over; soon most of the kids will be in school all day. It’s nice to not have as many kids, but you love watching them as they play around. They were just too cute. You watch a little human girl hold hands with a bear monster child. They seemed to have bonded over the fact they wore the same pink tutu. They ran together, giggling. You can barely handle how adorable they are, you squeal into your hands shaking your head. “Oh goodness, I’m gonna die from cuteness overload.” You sighed with a hand over your thumping heart. The fear you had of the human and monster children not getting along seems so silly now.
You feel someone tug on your apron. “Miss ___.” You look down to see Blake, her lower lip sticking out as she squirmed.
You know that look. “Need help going potty?” She nods vigorously.
She does a little dance, trying to contain herself. “I gotta go really bad.” You wipe your hands with a towel then lead her to the bathroom.
After assisting her, you step out of the bathroom to hear someone knocking on the door. “One minute.” You called out to the person on the other side. “Wash your hands then you can go back out and play okay?” Blake gave you a little nod as she steps up on a stepladder to wash her hands.
You open the door with a smile. It must be a new family; you don’t remember any children being dropped off at this time on the schedule. “Welcome to Buttercup… Day… care….” Your smile drops from the smell of smoke. Your nose scrunches at the culprit, a cigarette in between white teeth… no, fangs? And the white doesn’t end there; his whole head is white, like real white. Wait… that is a skull, your eyes widened, taking the entire sight. There is a tall smoking skeleton in an orange hoodie at your door. The grim reaper wears a hoodie?
Before your brain could fully process the hoodie wearing skeleton, a loud voice comes from below, startling you. “HELLO HUMAN, I AM THE MAGNIFICENT SANS AND THIS IS MY LAZY AWFUL PUN-LOVING BROTHER, PAPYRUS!!” You look down to a shorter skeleton, you are only a head taller than him, giving you a cheerful grin and wearing what seems to be armor and a blue scarf. He has a childlike cuteness atmosphere about him. You can’t help but find him adorable, especially with the stars spinning in his eyes. He poses as he made his and his brother’s grand introduction. A smile comes to your face as you giggle at him. What a sweetie.
Your brain was functioning again, you aren’t dying yet. There are just two skeleton monsters at your house. You give Sans a bright smile as you shake Sans’ hand. “Hello the magnificent Sans. I am ___. It is very nice to meet you.” You look up to see Papyrus give you a sluggish wave. Smile gone.
You narrow your eyes at him and point to a no smoking area sign. “Do you mind?”
“Sorry, I didn’t see that, on a count of-”
“BROTHER, NO!” Sans groaned, stars disappear leaving just blue pupils in his eye sockets.
“I don’t have any eyeballs.” He takes the cigarette out and drops it on the ground, stomping it out. Your eye twitches, before you could tell off the taller skeleton about proper methods of discarding his trash, Blake had come out from behind you. Her eyes were full of wonder.
“WELL HELLO SMALLER HUMAN!” Sans bent down to her level, the stars in his eyes returned. “I SEE YOU ARE IN AWE OF THE MAGNIFICENT SANS! MUEH HEH HEH!”
Blake goes over to Sans and places her hands on his face. “Miss ___, he so soft and squishy.” Your eyes widened as you watch Blake play with his face. She looked like she was in heaven as she rubbed her little hands on his cheekbones. You feel a grin trying to come out.
“Um, SMALL HUMAN, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?”
Blake starts hugging him, rubbing her face against his. “Can he come play with us, pwease Miss ___?” She gives you the biggest puppy-dog eyes and sticks out her lower lip, face still pressed to a confused Sans.
You feel tears swelling in your eyes. This is too cute; you can barely bite back the squeal. You nod and she takes his hand, dragging him to the backyard with the other kids. “MUEH HEH HEH SEEMS LIKE A HUMAN HAS CAPTURED ME THIS TIME BROTHER!” Sans has a small hint of blue on his face as he points to Blake’s little hand. That was the finally straw.
You can’t hold back anymore and squeal loudly into your hands running in place, right there in the doorway. “Oh my goodness, that’s so adorable! Sans is just the sweetest little thing and Blake, oh my goodness!” You place your hands over your overjoyed heart.
“Heh, yeah, my bro has that kind of effect on people.” You flinch, turning to Papyrus who was closer than before. He takes a step forward to enter the house. You slam your hand up, blocking his path inside. He jolts back, shocked.
You stare at the discarded cigarette on the ground still. “I asked earlier if you mind, but obviously you don’t have one, so I’ll give you a piece of mine.”
He gives you a questioning look. “What?”
You point at what he left behind. “You know this is a daycare right? With small children around. You know what children tend to do when they find something new?”
“They ask a thousand questions? That’s what I did as a baby bones apparently.” He shrugs.
“Yes, but that isn’t my point. They also put new items in their mouth. Baby logic is ‘I don’t know what this is, so I am going to put it in my mouth’.” You cross your arms at him.
He seems to understand finally and turns around to pick up the burnt bud. “Well damn, you should have just said so.”
“Watch the language while children are still here.” You point him to the trash can with a child safety lock on it right next to the door so he can throw it away as he walks in.
He gives you a smirk, placing his hands back into his sweater’s pockets. “Are you always like this?”
You smile at him for the first time, giving him a wink. “Don’t worry; I’m only sternum when it comes to rules.” You tap your chest and giggle at the bad joke you made.
You walked into the house, following the path Blake took. You didn’t even hear the throaty chuckle come from behind you. “This will be interesting.”