Chapter 1: A Confusing Prologue
Chapter Text
You breathed heavily as you felt sunlight warm your cheeks for the 100th and last time. This had to be the last time. You promised Chara that this was it, because this time he had begged you, pleaded with you. His eyes were dull and worn from trying to make you stop from letting you influence his decisions.
You were the monster, the real monster.
But, you wouldn’t be anymore. Not this time. This was it, the final reset. You knew that Chara had little faith and you couldn’t blame him. After everything you pulled, after blaming him for actions that could only fall on your shoulders. After lying again and again about why you couldn’t let this power go.
It was a matter of control in the end. It always was. The reason you ran away? To feel some type of control over your life. To feel control over a body that decided to not work. Lungs that didn’t take in air when or how they should. Legs that were stiff and felt like lead to move. Bones that could crack under any sort of pressure. A body that overall? Was trying to kill you.
Oh and don’t get you started on your eyes. You could see but barely, everything was a world of literal shapes and colors to you. No form of eyewear had ever worked.
But even so, even though you knew that’s what awaited you after you let it go. This power, this ability to feel strong. Your crappy situation didn’t justify what you had done. It never would. You were forcing an entire civilization to be stuck in a perpetual groundhog day because you just wanted…
You wanted to be happy, you wanted a life worth living. The magic in the underground had done that for you. And now you were giving it all up…for people that you loved.
You had done a crap job at showing it, and any sort of friendship with sans was nonexistent. You could never win his trust back, no matter what you did. And strangely enough that hurt more than any physical pain you’d ever experienced.
Maybe if you had just been kinder, braver, more patient, even just had the smallest drop of integrity…maybe even in your physical turmoil…maybe you would have had a lazy little skeleton by your side to tell you bad puns in an attempt to cheer you up. Maybe…maybe you could have had that.
But now? You looked over at the blurry round blue blob that was sans. The large black round eyes had small white dots but they didn’t look at you. They probably never would again if he could help it.
You reached out for Toriel's furry hand but landed on her hip instead. She sighed, laughing softly before taking your hand. “Thank you my child, you truly are our little hero.”
You weren’t so sure about that. You didn’t feel like a hero. And who’s to say that doing this would even be better? Was going through all that pain really worth it if monster kind-
Stop it.
Stop it, Frisk. Don’t you dare go back on your word, you promised. I don’t care if your miserable while everyone else frolics. I don’t care if something worse does happen. At this point, I’ve been forced to kill my family and friends so many times that I’m numb to their deaths at this point.
All I want, Frisk, is for them to be free. I don’t want to see them trapped anymore. Even if there’s something worse out there, even if they all die the moment you finally close the game.
At least they would have died seeing the sunlight one last time. To me, that’s real mercy. End this Frisk. I don’t care how.
…
You were approaching the old but somehow still well kept cottage that Torel always found. And like always Asgore and Undyne worked tirelessly throughout the day to gather all the monsters around it in a makeshift camp.
Like always Torel suggested that all the children come to stay in the cottage.
Like always she approached Grillby, his Brother, and Fuku, Heats daughter and Grillbys niece. She asked if they wouldn’t mind lending their heat to the children in the cottage. And like always Grillby would insist that Fuku and Heats do so while he would stay behind and tend to the other citizens.
You followed Toriel into the room she made for you in the cottage. And like always you sat on the bed.
It was soft, and with Heats and Fuku working the fireplace downstairs, it was warm and cozy too.
You leaned back in the bed, stretching out your lanky and awkward eighteen year old limbs and waited for that feeling.
The feeling that slowly creeped up your arms and legs. The feeling that made you feel ever so weaker the closer night came. The feeling that made you reset.
But this time you endured it.
You felt the magic slowly start to leave your bones. Making them brittle once again, you left tears prik the corners of your eyes as you felt your muscles hiss with pain. As your body slowly started to return to how it once was.
And for the first time since the underground.
You felt weak.
You knew you couldn’t do anything just yet. You didn’t dare bare your teeth knowing it would only make things worse. You cried but tried to keep it quiet.
You hoped this was worth it. You saw Chara above you. He floated above you and as you got weaker he became easier to see, more visible. He looked confused and unsure and even a little sympathetic. But you could tell that on some level he was enjoying this.
You waited until you knew moving would hurt but did so anyway. You sat up and cringed at the feeling of delicateness that swept over your body.
And that was it. The underground had finally taken back the magic it had lent you to free those inside. You were never meant to keep that power, never meant to really have it in the first place.
And maybe it had been your soul calling out desperate for something to end the pain.
And maybe the underground had heard its cries, determined as they were. And maybe…
Maybe that’s why the underground had chosen you, your soul.
You looked to Chara who now sat gingerly on the bed in front of you and he smiled softly. I guess I’m stuck to ya now. Good to know. He hummed. Leaning back and sort of rocking ware he sat, which, you had to admit, was a weird thing to see such a lanky teenager do. But you were one to talk.
You looked out the window, carefully turning your body with your neck. So you could watch the moon start to rise and the stars with it. You could see Ebott city twinkling in the distance. One of many technologically advanced cities in the world. You hoped that you could be a good Monster ambassador.
Sure you were a scrawny eighteen year old, and sure they probably wouldn’t listen to the famously sick Daughter whose parents had to put in a children's home cuz they couldn’t afford her hospital bills.
But you had faith in yourself. Which was rare nowadays.
You had quit the game. But that meant that what happened next was completely unknown to you, every choice You made mattered now. And honestly you didn’t know where to even start with making choices.
You supposed you could only really focus on your own, and you could only hope the rest of the world decided that it was done screwing with you.
Sure, you definitely deserved it now.
You knew that a lot of things could go wrong. And you still needed to tell Asgore and Troiel what topside was really like. You still needed to make sure that they knew this wasn’t going to be as easy as they thought.
But how could you tell them that monsters…weren’t as rare as they thought.
How did you tell them that they weren’t what was left of their race?
Chapter 2: Fire and Graffiti
Summary:
French translations ✨ *Salope - Bitch, *Pour Paris - for Paris *A La Revoyure - goodbye
Also ‘words like this’ are ment to be italicized i just dont know howwwYou really have a nack for getting yourself in messes, huh?
Good luck.(Plz go read burning chains its really poggers but it got discontinued. I loved it so much so I’m kinda takeing the same idea but putting my own personal spin on it. Gonna try and deviate as far away from it as i can but ya. LOLOOLOL ENJOY)
Notes:
THANK YOU TWO PPL for the kudos and thanks for the hits. Plan to update this at least once a week. For now I’m kinda pumping them out cuz i really love writing this ITS SO FUNNY to write. Also yes. This is SlaveTale fic that is ment to be both hilarious and serious. Enjoy lol.
Chapter Text
You had gotten fired. YOU. you were great, who the hell in their right mind would fire you? You were a great employee. You were nice and considerate. You got things done, cleaned rooms as thoroughly as damn hell. And they had fired you! The nerve!
This was all that damn prick's fault. That racist, misogynistic, no good- ok that was all the insults you could think of to give him. But ugh you hated him. Oh and who was he?
He would be Mr. Roseabi, a short little man with a charming yet stern grin and…and annoyingly handsome face, he was well shaven and had pretty dope black hair that swooped to the side. Of course you had been given the hot jerk to be mad at like in those dumb romance flicks you hated so much.
…
But watched anyway because damn it if trash TV wasn’t your favorite thing.
That was besides the point. This customer, who was both mean and needlessly hot. Was the reason you had gotten fired. He tapped his foot angrily on the tiles of the kitchen making a shooing motion with his hand as Isabella pushed you outside onto the sidewalk. Muttering how you should have behaved better.
You knew that *salope had it out for you. Ever sense the first day of work Isabella hated you with a passion. And you genuinely didn’t know why!
Ok maybe you had gotten distracted more than once just talking to guests like old friends. And maybe you were a little loud and scatterbrained.
And sure you definitely needed to stop playing with the elevator-
But that’s why you had been moved to cleaning duty! Cant talk on cleaning duty. OR SO YOU THOUGHT.
apparently when some snotty guy is checking you out you can’t just ignore him and go on with your day. Because if he talks to you by calling you a slut and then the n-word ‘pthen you aren’t aloud to then hit him over the head with your broom as hard you possibly can.
You snickered as you stumbled backwards and saw the bandage around his head. Isabella clicked her tongue and spat in your direction “will you leave already? Go and stop living in the past.”
Oh the nerve. But you bite your tongue. It was like your dad always said “the best last word is no words at all.”
As the door swung shut behind you, you stared at the door you’d just been pushed out of and then looked up at the very pretty clean wall above it.
So you were fired, it wouldn’t be hard to find a new job. You were getting better at finding job and keeping them…well at least this one had lasted ten whole weeks! That was impressive in your book. But now you wanted revenge.
Grinning you started walking around the hotel until you made your way to the parking lot and then your car. You rummaged a round in the back for a bit before you grinned evilly at the sight of what you were after.
“I think it’s time i pay a tribute to my country, *pour Paris”
***
In hindsight maybe graftting the wall of your now ex place of work, could be considered a bad idea. But you didn’t think putting the flag of France and then a big middle finger on top of that is bad necessarily. Actually it looked pretty dope. After relaxing and letting yourself regain more of your monster features it had been easy to finish it in record time with your wings to lift you off the ground.
Of course if you were being honest your human “form” and monster “form” were not that different. The only difference was that in monster form your hair grew all over your body. Thin like a cats. You gained wings and a tail and…..that was it. Other wise you looked human.
Your ears? Human. Your feet? Human. Your eyes? Hands? Anything else remotely interesting? No, human. So ya, aside from the fact that your hair was permanently tipped purple and had a purple fade. You weren’t a very interesting looking monster.
Which was fine by you it took wayyy less magic to only change your skin to a rich brown like your moms and hide away your wings and tail.
The less to hide the more comfortable you were.
You grinned at your masterpiece. A wonderful message from France that your dad would be proud of. You even put his gang symbol as a tattoo on the hand. A little maple leaf with a spiral in the middle.
To this day you still didn’t know what it ment but it was cool nonetheless.
Satisfied with your handy work you turned around just in time to see a police officer staring at you in surprise.
Then his eyes flicked behind you and to the wall.
And then he looked at you again.
You looked at him.
His expression was becoming less surprised and more angry.
“You damn millennials!!” He yelled and then you grinned and gave him a salute.
“Sorry but as much as I would love to stick around I got places to be, crimes to commit! *À la revoyure”
You took off bolting for the back door of the hotel. What? It was the only logical way to go that you could easily lose him in! This made perfect sense. Besides if you got caught, the news of you being fired couldn’t have spread that quickly yet. If at all.
Most likely the staff would talk about you afterwards in a meeting. Literally you had been fired on probably one of the biggest nights of the hotel's life. A lot of big powerful people had come tonight. Dressed up and dolled up. A mascarade ball of sorts which was why you were currently wearing a cool as all hell panda mask. Cuz pandas were cool. Along with the regular butler outfit. You just didn’t wear the tux and rolled up the sleeves of the white tunic. Overall you looked like a hot female butler. Hell ya.
If you were being honest, you really wanted to know what was going on. It’s just now you actually had a reason to go in!
you were being chased.
YOU WERE BEING CHASED.
Like lightning you ran as fast as your legs could take you the moment you opened the door. the shouts from the Police man loud and angry. You ducked and dodged staff's arms and priceless vases, all the while saying sorry as you pushed your way through.
You ran down hallways with the policeman following you but making a effectively glorified show of being the clumsiest man on earth. He bumped into someone that knocked them both down so you of course took this opportunity to lose him.
And then get Immediately shoved into one of the biggest fanciest rooms you’d seen.
This was the entrance hall, and no matter how many times you saw it you could never get over it. Gold and ruby red covered everything. Slick curtains, to plush carpet.
It was like walking into a castle.
There were people gathered around walking through the entrance hall and walking into the restaurant that you had to walk through to get to other parts of the hotel. Like hallways and elevators. You had just come out of the staff way. Luckily it didn’t seem as if anyone had spotted you or even realized that you looked a little disheveled.
Your hands were stained with graffiti paint, because you loved to get messy, it was really just something you stopped trying to avoid at this point. Anything that could get you messy, would. There was just no fighting it anymore.
Especially not now, seeing as it didn’t matter if your hands were clean or not, you were free! Good ridoce and thank goodness you hated this place anyway.
…
Ok so you definitely were gonna miss this place. Isabella was mean but she was one mean little bug in a sea of very kind and very bubbly faces. Sure you weren’t friends with everyone. But their company was nice and the gig had decent pay.
You sighed and looked around, you needed a minute before you left. You glanced at the exit and then at the staff door and shrugged. If you blended in with the crowded and….got a new mask.
You plucked a monsters mask of its face as you walked into the conjoined room, it was a bunny monster with an owner that clearly liked to dress up her monsters. You replaced your mask with his and gave him a friendly salute. He gave you a confused stare and then grimaced when his coller turned red and his master flicked his forehead.
You paused but only for a minute, your dad had always said “if you don’t know em, kill em.” You definitely were not gonna kill the bunny. But you figured your dad had always meant like…don’t care about people you don’t know or something like that so ya. Screw that cute and really sad looking bunny guy. He was fine.
It would be fine.
That's right, distance yourself. You were the damn daughter of a mob boss for goodness sake.
As you walked under the arch away and threw the crowd of people you were met with the familiar sight of the stage. Big and grand and gold and red. Glimmering red silk underneath a gorgeous chandelier.
Yep you were realllyyy gonna miss this place but at least you had left a part of yourself with them.
You’d infused the graffiti bottles with your magic.
It was gonna be a while before they got that off.
As you kept walking hoping the crowd and the change of a mask had helped you lose the police man you realized that going out the entrance door was probably a fairly bad idea. But fear not for you were the most amazing person and had a plan.
Back stage in the changing rooms or whatever they were called. There was a fire exit that led to an hallway that led to a stairwell that led to an elevator that led to down stairs in the garage area where you could easily walk from and make it to your car. Pretty simple stuff.
And a safer route you as well. When you realized this you were quite pleased with yourself. Man you were so cautious. This was great.
You couldn’t help but grin like an idiot as you walked. All you had to do was get back stage and then get out of here pretty simple.
Very simple-
You bumped into someone and had to grit your teeth so as to not curse.
“Sh- sorry sorry my bad” you said waving your hands. The lady in front of you glared at you “ew”
Ew? No no you we’re not something to EW at your were a damn SNA-
As you looked up and your eyes focused on the scene in front of you. You promptly realized you had Interrupted the midsts of a very rich conversation.
You had to bite your lip to stop yourself from smiling.
Then you took a double take. “The fu-“
“Language! heathen!” The women who had “ewed” at you said.
“Oh Mara please, she's clearly never seen a spesimen quiet like him before.” A kinder sounding male voice said though it still had an edge.
He was right. You really never had seen something quite like it before.
Before you stood a stoic faced fire elemental. He was in nothing but some boxers. However he didn’t look like someone who was half naked. He kept his eyes straight like a soldier. His shoulders were lean and leaned back as his hands rested at his sides. He looked like he could kill everyone in this room.
He reminded you of maple leaves in the fall. He definitely looked like a soldier or a general or something, he looked powerful and strong, he didn’t look humiliated. It was kinda impressive. His flames were a low even Orange with occasional violet tipping his hair like flames. The crackle of his flames a low sound. A warning to on lookers that he would burn anyone who touched him. If he could.
However the effect was promptly ruined by the fact that he had freckles.
This fire man had the cutest freckles that were dotted on his cheeks, chest, and parts of his arms and legs, and his fire kinda looked a little bit like hair. Except constantly moving and dancing like well…fire.
He kinda scared you. But at the same time it was hard to stay scared when he had FRECKLES.
Oh, he also reminded you of your dad.
You didn’t like that.
You took a slight step backwards and then heard some snickers,
“Don’t worry dear he’s harmless, all he's good for is cooking and looking absolutely stunning” the man said as he slapped the fire elementals back.
You noticed the very faint hue change to a more vibrate violet at his tips. but he stayed Orange just..a darker more sinister orange. Did no one else see that???? His flames crackled softly but fiercely.
He really did remind you of your dad. This wasn’t good.
“Y-ya, uhh this is an auction isn’t it?” You asked, and oh no.
Your soul was doing that annoying thing it did whenever it wanted you to do something that got you ‘involved’ with other people.
“Yes it is dear, and this fine horse is up for sale. So ladies…” he turned to the richer women as he walked over to You.
Your soul needed to shut up. It was making you feel really guilty about that bunny monster and making you remember how quiet and scary your dad was. There was no doubt he loved you but still. He never talked. And something about this fire monster was giving you serious flashbacks.
“…if you're interested in something pretty and useful please don’t be shy” the woman swooned for the handler. And he laughed as one of the ladies asked ware he’d gotten such a beauty.
This was none of your business. Ok sure this fire guy was a lot like your dad and it was making you miss your dad. Bad. You had to swallow your sniffles and tears that threatened to fall. You wouldn’t think about it. It hadn’t been your fault.
“You, your staff aren’t you?” The handler said.
You blinked being brought sharply out of your thoughts. You nodded not trusting your own voice and then the man nodded. He handed you a folder with some papers in it. It was bound and had some sort of monster handler symbol on it.
“Do me a favor and take this candle backstage. And get him ready.” Then to your terror the fire elemental was looking at you no it just looking. He was glaring. It was a glare that wasn’t really full of any emotion. He just looked tough. You believed it too. The monster wasn’t really toned but he definitely had muscle or he used to. Now it was more faint and soft but it was pretty obvious this jerk was flexing just enough to make himself look bigger and meaner than he was.
“Obey this young women’s every command. However she is not allowed to overwrite previous commands.” Then the man turned to you. “Please do take care of it. It would be a shamed if it got damaged before the show.” You were quiet and didn’t dare say anything.
What in the hell was happening.
Before you knew it You were silently leading a fire monster who’s shoulders, as lean as they were, came to your head. He was built like a runner. As you walked backstage you turned around the moment you could and looked up into the white slits that were the fireman's eyes.
They narrowed but remained trained on you.
“Uhh hell, go uhh si….” You trailed off. You couldn’t order him around. Not with that thing on his neck. Not knowing that. NO NO NO.
you slapped yourself to keep yourself from crying or thinking about what you DEFINITELY DIDN'T NEED TO THINK ABOUT.
The fireman infront of you made a soft crackling noise that sounded slightly distressed. You looked up and saw that his face was more confused then it had been before. He was kinda looking at you like you were stupid. He was still dim but now yellows and blues flickered together. What on earth?
Didn’t matter, one things was for certain.
He was a huge jerk, pretty freckles or not.
Then you felt guilty and like the worst person on the planet. You could practically hear what your mother would say “everyone has a story.”
Of course he kinda acts like a jerk. You looked at his collar and couldn’t even imagine how uncomfortable it must be. How humiliated he probably was. No matter how good he was at hiding it. And how probably being a jerk was his last attempt to hold onto his dignity.
You sighed and groaned as you let gravity take your body backwards before you caught yourself and started to run your hands through your hair.
“I can’t. I cant, this is not a good idea-“ you whirled around and pointed a finger at him “do you know how dead I’ll be if I do this? I mean I’m already in choppy water for vandalism! I cant-“ you closed your eyes. You couldn’t look at him without wanting to cry.
He kinda looked like your dad too. If it weren’t for his element and the height difference he'd be the spitting image of your father.
You shouldn’t. You really shouldn’t. It didn’t matter that he reminded you of your dad. It shouldn’t matter. It didn’t mater.
Your soul did that annoying thing it did again.
You looked up at him again and saw that he was tilting his head. Definitely bewildered about something. His slight concern admit, even if he didn’t like you or thought you were bad news he still seemed worried for whatever reason.
The action filled you with kindness.
You couldn’t resist.
“Take a picture it will last longer, bub ch chiiing” you said making a cash register sound before you burst out laughing.
He didn’t seem very amused. And no longer looked concerned.
“Wow, ok tough crowd.” You said raising up your hands.
You sighed. And shoved your hands into the pockets of your black slacks. This was probably the closest you were ever gonna get to your dad for a while.
Ironic honestly. Kinda poetic.
He was fire your dad was a shadow.
The world was definitely trying to tell you something significant but you didn’t care.
And then one of your menny bad ideas popped into your head.
You shook your head and turned towards the fire exit. “Fallow me, please!” You ordered. What? Just cuz you were saving him didn’t mean you were gonna be nice! He could mess everything up if you trusted him. You had no idea what he’d do. It’s like your dad always said “only trust your family”
The fire monster made an agitated noise as his collar beeped green. “Oh also please be quiet.” You added. The collar peeped green again. And obediently he followed you. Though you did catch dark violet out of the corner of your eye along with a very muted flash of white.
You walked through the hallways just fine and made it to the elevator without much trouble. You made it to the elevator, clicked a few buttons and then gestured for the fire elemental, man you really needed to get his name, into the elevator.
“Soooo what's your name?” You asked him, he shifted uncomfortably in response and reached up to tug in his collar before he stopped himself. He made a bitter sounding crackle.
“Uhhh you may speak???” You tried. He crackled again as the collar beeped red. He side eyed you his soft glare returning. Like a fathers scowl. Or a general about to make you run laps. He didn’t make any motion to open his mouth, if he even had one. Violet shot thew his body as a response. And you noticed he seemed…brighter.
Either the fire man couldn’t speak or even if he could he didn’t seem to intent on speaking or making any small talk and you couldn’t blame him.
“Ok be rude” you scoffed. In response the fire man turned completely violet and growled and then yelped As the collar beeped red. He quickly went back to a calm but dark orange. But now he just looked offended.
“Oh, no speaking was your owner's command huh?” You asked him. He didn’t look at you but the violet slowly returned. His colors were still muted and dim. You were starting to think that violet ment pissed. You decided to shut up. And not make it worse. Who knew what he thought of you.
Oh word he probably thought that you were some poor beggar that really wanted a monster. He probably thought he was being kidnaped. Which no. Once you got him back to your apartment you’d give him some clothes, some food, smash his coller and then you and him would split ways.
It was the perfect plan. then he could be the world's problem. And you could feel like a decent human being, truly a phenomenal train of thought. You really were great.
The elevator dinged signifying you had hit the last floor. And revealing the garage. You walked out and the fireman, who you deemed as Maple, followed you. You started looking around the place and started off in the direction of the incline. You both walked up it along the side. All the while you hoped and prayed that no one noticed you both.
One feet
Two feet
Three feet
You were out of the garage and walking out into the parking lot.
Four feet
Five feet
You spotted your car and it took everything in you not to run. Your heartbeat nervous you turned to maple, his bright flames making you anxious even if they were pretty muted as is. “C-can you dim yourself?” You said with more of a sutter then you meant to talk in.
He raised what looked like an eyebrow at you before nodding. He became a darker, more muted orange violet. His flames are low but still gently dancing.
Six feet
Seven feet
You grabbed your car door and ordered Maple to get in the passenger seat once he was inside, you started the car and slowly drove out of the parking lot. Once you could no longer see the hotel or hear any police sirens. You let out a sigh of relief.
“Oh thank FRIKEN goodness…” you shook yourself and grimaced “I probably just made a really powerful enemy, yaaayyy” you cheered sarcastically.
Maple stayed quiet, his eyes trained on you. As you derived. The silence was deafening.
“I- uh so the plan- Ima gonna you're gonna come home and get dressed and Uh Ima feed ya and then uhh idk deactivate your collar or something….? Sounds good? Then we can uhh never talk to each other again and we both agree to not rat echother out?”
You chanced a glacé at him and he was giving you a pretty intense stare.
You sat up straight and kept your eyes on the road. You could feel his eyes on you. You really wished he’d stop. It made you feel small and not at all cool or tough. Cuz that's what You totally were. And Maple was really harshing the vibe.
You thought for a minute, only a minute, but you swore you saw his flames get brighter. As in he wasn’t dim anymore and he was a much brighter Orange to what you had been used to so far.
But then it went away and he turned his eyes to the road as well.
He didn’t believe you. And honestly? You probably wouldn’t have trusted you either.
“August.” You blurted out suddenly. He turned to you slightly and you gave him your full attention when you hit a red light “my uh mom and dad got married in August so…kinda an important month for EM so er they named me after the mo….” His stare made you shut up immediately. You knew, you knew you could order him to stop that but.
You couldn’t. You should feel in control but you didn’t. He just had a presence you didn’t wanna mess with. You had told him your name in hopes that he wouldn’t be so damn scary. As in maybeeeee tone it down for you? Damn your stupid soul.
He made a very soft crackling noise that vaguely sounded like an amused laugh. You chanced another glacé at him and saw that there was a new color among his Orange hue. Green. It was so faint and so hard to spot you were surprised that you did. It just barely covered the tips of his fingers, which were gripping the file with all his information in it. The green even faintly dusted across his cheeks.
Violet ment he was pissed, Orange seemed to be neutral, so…what was green?
You shook your head “You, you don't need to trust me, frankly i don't trust you. But right now we kinda need to work together so…can you do me a solid and make the next few hours as easy as possible?” You pleaded. His collar didn’t change or even react. “Command not recognized” it said.
He didn’t do anything for a long time. But eventually out of the corner of your eye. You saw him nod. Violet still mixing with orange. However the orange seemed to out way the violet.
The green was gone. But he was brighter and yet you were still intimidated by him. And he definitely now thought that you were an asshole. But he really didn’t have a choice in the matter. Trusting you was his best bet. You both didn’t want to be in this situation, but at the same time, you both also didn’t want to think about what the alternatives would have been.
Talk about an uneasy alliance.
Chapter 3: Hopeful Unease
Summary:
You make it home, and things are still pretty unsettling between you and Grillby. Actually you STILL don’t know his name. But your creative so you come up with the ✨funnest✨ Things to call him. And I’m sure he appreciates it.
Notes:
You don’t need to call yourself August. Just as long as you stand It in for the name of a month then feel free to use whatever month you want. Otherwise things you say in latter chapters won’t make sense LOL.
Chapter Text
August. Grillby finally had a name to put to the face of his kidnapper. He looked at you giving you a very suspicious raised eyebrow as you drove the both of you out of the city and to a little quaint town just on the outskirts. There were modest buildings that lined the streets, apartments, hotels, and of course small businesses littered them too. Overall it was a smaller cozier version of the city. And for the second time that night, he dared to hope.
Grillby looked down at his file which was in his hands and thought back to the start of his night.
He had been mentally preparing for the auction. As he always did every time his previous owner got bored of him. Or, until the Monster protective services stepped in (MPS for short). Humans really did treat his race as if they were nothing but trinkets or pets.
Of course, Grillby wasn’t a racist, he knew for a fact that there were kind humans out there. And he had gotten lucky over the past seven years with kind hearted owners. Albeit most of the nice owners had green souls of kindness and only a few with determination or Integrity.
So when he had been handed over to your care he had made the usual assumptions. He had guessed the color of your soul before he actually decided to look at it. He had seen your fear when looking at him and had assumed that you were one of the weak hearted humans of kindness.
Well, perhaps weak wasn’t the right word. More accurately humans with kind souls, green souls. We’re typically timid, shy, nervous, but also sweet. They were sympathetic and tried to show kindness when they could. Or, they were cowards.
And when you had led him backstage and then hesitated to order him around he had thought he was right. It was a game Grilbby liked to play. Guess the human's soul. It was one of many tricks he’d picked up to keep himself entertained and sane.
But when he had actually looked at your soul.
He’d done a double take.
He had been right, it was green.
But it was also upside down.
Like a monsters.
Suspicion had creeped through him. Understandably. And honestly you hadn’t helped your case when you started to talk out loud to yourself about “not being able to do this.”
He wouldn’t find out until later that you had ment kidnapping him. Or he guessed a better term would be ‘very loosely speaking’ that you had ‘saved him’ which he was still skeptical about even as you drove.
He had grown even more skeptical when you had completely gone back on your previous apprehension of ordering him around. And then when you had called him rude in the elevator?
He had finished his character analysis on you. His conclusion?
That you were rude and a hypocrite.
Which had surprised him. With a soul like yours it didn’t make sense why you were so dramatic and bold. Or why you were so rough around the edges. Why you cursed, and it especially didn’t explain the childish glint in your eye.
Maybe it was because your soul was upside down? That was the only explanation he could think of. Humans with upside down souls must mean that they acted like the opposite of what their soul should be. Then again…that answer didn't completely satisfy him either.
Because in your own strange way. You were kind. And you did have some traits of a green soul. You were easily frightened and intimidated. Didn’t seem to have the best backbone, and overall very nervous.
You confused him. It made his head hurt to try and understand you with the little data he had gathered from this entire experience.
One thing was clear, you were driving him outside and rather far away from the city. And you hadn’t taken back the papers that you had haphazardly thrown in the passenger seat before he had gotten in. You had also told him exactly what you were planning on doing. And whether or not it was the honest truth was up for Grillby to determine.
Grillby dared to hope. He dared to hope it was true. But…even if it was…even if your plan was to just treat him decently and then let him loose.
……where would he go?
Everyone was his enemy, even, he thought sadly, Monsters. There had been a few to many times when another monster had ratted him out for clawing at his collar, or sneaking some extra food for himself if he was being under fed. And Grillby had heard far too many stories about monsters turning other monsters in. Some of his species had been successfully domesticated. At least, he hoped it was some.
There was no one he could completely trust. And no guarantee that he’d even make it that long to be proven wrong. It had been seven whole years since Frisk had freed monsters from the underground only for them to find that humans still hadn’t learned their lesson.
Seven years had gone by since he’d seen his brother or niece. Since he’d asked Sans to pay his tab only for the lazy little skeleton to make a joke about bills and cause Grillby to once again feel pity for his struggling friend. Since he’d talked to Muffet and insisted that he would always have the better food.
He laughed out loud, he actually missed Muffets terrible sweets. He missed Sans' terrible puns. He missed the cozy safety his bar had given him. He missed the underground.
At least there he could walk around freely. At least there he wasn’t forced to talk if he didn’t want to. At least there he had his friends, his family, at least there…at least there he had been free. Sure, maybe it hadn’t been the surface. But it had become his home.
He had lost his parents to the war, he had made and lost friends to the war, comrades to the war.
Hed lost so much, given his unwavering loyalty for…
What? Nothing. He'd lost more than he would ever gain. Humans had taken everything from him. All he had left was his dignity and pride. His will to keep living and stay strong despite it all. They could do whatever they wanted to him.
As long as he didn’t break. As long as he didn’t lose hope. They would never win.
Grillby was taken out of his thoughts by a jolt. He was thrown slightly forward by the sudden stop but placed his hands on the dashboard before he could accidentally hit his head on the roof of the car.
He looked out the window, his eyes focusing on a modest little house. It was one story. But had a garage and a small closed porch just big enough for the swinging bench that hung from its roof. The door to the house being behind it and off to the side.
It looked fairly cozy and aside from the overgrown yard and the broken screening that was supposed to keep bugs out of the porch. It wasn’t a bad house. Grillby turned his head to see that you were already opening your car door and stepping outside. As you were about to close it you noticed Grillby staring a you.
You stared back and he wondered if you were gonna order him to get out. Or if you were just ooglying him like you had when you had first laid eyes on him back at the hotel.
“You coming or what? Unless you would rather sleep in the car and stay half naked.” You said sarcastically. Grillby couldn’t decide whether to be grateful that you weren’t bossing him around or annoyed, Like he had been for the majority of your unwanted company.
After a few seconds Grillby silently got out of the car making sure that his file was safe and nothing had fallen out. He stood up straight and held the binded file close to his chest with one arm as he closed the passenger door with the other. He made sure his body was muted and as dim as possible, which was fairly hard since he didn’t feel quite as down any more but he managed.
He watched you nod before turning around and heading to your house. Grillby would have stayed put for a few more minutes. Weighing his options of running away or following you, that was, if it weren’t for his collar.
He felt his magic react and hiss as the collar's inner teeth pierced his neck. He felt the magic inside of it be shot and injected into him, it happened every ten hours far before the collar's magic could ever get weak.
And then he was following close behind you. No pause, no minute to collect himself, no nothing.
He'd Gotten used to the pain at this point. His neck numb and raw, the magic around his neck weak and brittle. He didn’t want to think about what it looked like. He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t have it on after he left the underground. Every time a new collar had been made they would knock monsters out and when you woke up the new collar was in its place.
They didn’t give you any moment to feel free. Yes, there were kind humans, but no monster could even really trust the good ones. Sometimes their inaction was the greatest form of mistreatment. Which was why Grillby doubted that you would take off his collar. If you even could. That's why, even though he dared to hope.
He didn’t believe a word you said. He couldn’t. Trust was no longer something he could give to anyone.
*****
As the door of your house closed behind you and Maple, you knew full well that probably wasn’t his name buttt…it really did fit him, you knew the first order of business was getting him fed and clothed. He didn’t look too skinny but it was better to be safe than sorry. You knew you had some oversized shirts and pants he could wear. Your friend Robin had stayed here for a few months. He needed a place to stay since his roommates had kicked him out of their apartment, and he was a ‘very’ good friend of yours so of course you had to help.
In any case, he was about the same height and build as maple just maybe being slightly smaller? You hoped maple wouldn’t mind if it was a tight fit.
Honestly? So far? You thought you were pretty badass. You saved this walking fire hazard, you narrowly escaped being caught by the police for vandalism, AND you hadn’t crashed into anything on the way home! Which was very rare. Also, you felt MUCH more confident and less like a cry baby now that you were home and safe. It really was weird how your mind worked.
You had to admit, you still thought this all was a terrible idea regardless of your new found confidence, but at least you were executing it well.
You walked into your room leaving Maple standing awkwardly in front of the door. Once you entered your room you rummaged around for Robins clothes in your dresser, he still hadn’t come back for his stuff yet and actually…you haven't heard anything from him in a few weeks. You hoped he was ok…
You made a “ha HA!” Noise when you found a nice white collared shirt and some jeans to go with it. You folded up the clothes and then went looking for underwear, socks, and…you weren't sure about shoes. Robin had small feet for a guy while you had the opposite-
You rushed over to your sliding closet door and opened it. Dropping to the ground and sifting through your four pairs of shoes. you finally decided that your black sneakers would go better with the white polo shirt then your yellow ones. You placed the black sneakers on top of the pile of folded clothes and then picked them up.
with that, you were walking back down the hall and entering the living room/Kitchen area.
Your house was, admittedly, small. It would only take a few minutes to walk once around the entire house due to everything being so close together.
It had two bedrooms, one master bedroom (yours) and one guest bedroom. Which were located behind the wall that separated the kitchen and the one bathroom you had as well as the stairwell that led down to the basement, you had transformed it into your epic man cave. Which hadn’t been hard considering that it was already meant to be both a basement and game lounge type deal.
The bathroom was between the open basement stairs and your bedroom with the guest bedroom being in the basement/man cave.
You walked into the living room, passing the shorter wall that separated the basement stairs, and you realized, with alarm, that MAPLE WAS GO-
You heard rummaging behind the kitchen wall. You poked your head around and there he was. Opening your fridge, he was brighter but still a dim orange, those familiar flics of violet danced in his flames as he had his hand on his hip while the other was on the fridge door. He had placed his file on the island in the middle of your small but modest kitchen.
You remembered your guess of what his different colors ment and then realized with great offense-
That he was disapproving of your food choices!
You rushed in the kitchen and made a loud show of slamming his soon to be clothes on the island. Which…he heard, because he slowly turned around, but…it hadn’t been nearly as satisfying or loud as you had hoped.
…Probably cuz they were made of fabric and not bricks.
Maple stared at you, his expression hard to read. his violet had disappeared and green had replaced them. Now a bright green and orange mixed together and slowly, cautiously, a soft crackling noise came from him.
It was a much louder laugh than he had made before in the car, but still soft and deep. Green was more prominently covering the tips of his fingers and it mixed in with the orange hair like flames. They reminded you of your purple streaks.
You were quiet, this was the brightest you’d seen him get. A faint green and orange glow filled the room and it was only then you realized you hadn’t turned the lights on.
Whatever offense you felt had been committed by his silent judging was gone now. Melted away by his laugh and pretty bright body. He was beautiful when he was happy…
Green ment he was happy, or at least ment he wasn’t miserable. Because of your brief moment of anger…you’d made him laugh. It was such a nice feeling, knowing you made him laugh.
You remembered that dream you’d had a long time ago, that dream that had been sparked cuz you managed to make some friends laugh. The joy and energy it gave you knowing that people thought you were funny, being able to bring light into the lives of others. Being able to make jokes about hard or dark subjects and the response being the joy of being able to, for once, make fun of something unpleasant.
You couldn’t help but smile, for a moment you were genuinely happy and you forgot about all your problems. And it hadn’t been because you made yourself laugh or distracted yourself. It had been because you made someone else laugh. Even though you knew it was an unreachable goal now, you couldn’t help but wonder if one day…maybe…you-
You shook your head, the smile on your face still present. Soft, gentle, and bittersweet. It was a nice thought but you’d given up hope a long time ago. No point in igniting an extinguished flame.
“Your clothes, Mr. FireHazard” you cooed with a slight bow as you gestured to the kitchen island.
He had stopped laughing, a soft and gentle transition. Now he raised a brow at you, probably at the nickname, then he looked at the clothes.
Yellow and green swirled together in quick short explosions across his skin…..(?) He looked genuinely surprised. You watched orange disappear for a minute and then quickly reappear until he regained his composure. Breathing in and out to do so. Smoke escaped from his mouth as he did and then, gingerly, he reached for the folded clothes as if he was scared they would turn to dust in his hands.
He held them, he stayed orange, and then, red slowly started to become more prominent at the edges of his flames and fingers. It gently outlined the rest of his body. The red really added to his already powerful and intimidating presence. Again, though, in the comfort of your home it was easier to treat him like you would anyone else. Despite the slight bit of intimidation you still felt lingering.
You wondered what red on its own ment, and you also wondered if red and orange was his usual combination. You had only seen him turn a handful of colors and you were doing A LOT of guesswork as to what they could mean. But they had all disappeared rather quickly but this red lingered.
The red complimented his orange and it felt like staring at artwork that had finally been finished. You hadn’t even noticed that he had looked incomplete. But as you stared at him now, comparing him to before…he definitely had looked…unfinished.
There was an uneasy silence between the both of you as Maple quietly stared at the clothes you had just gestured to.
You knew you should probably break the silence but you found yourself sort of, admiring him. He was also fairly beautiful when he looked calm. You noted that the oranges and reds didn’t move or swirl like other colors had. His flames just crackled, calm and soft.
This was definitely how he was supposed to look 24/7, you wondered if you’d be able to keep him like that if-
THE FU- NO
You ended up breaking the silence, and making the poor monster jump which caused flashes of pure white flame to chase each other along his skin, when you slapped yourself.
NO YOU WERE NOT KEEPING HIM. Both because it was morally wrong and because you literally could not for the reason that OH RIGHT you probably had a target on your back because of this damned fucker.
You tried to glare at him, and, finding you didn’t have the heart, gave him your best annoyed sigh. Tapping your foot and crossing your arms for good measure.
“Well? I’m starting to think you like looking like a stripper” you said as you stared up at him.
He made a noise that sounded like a snort but seeing as he didn’t have a noise…you weren’t sure. He squinted down at you and held up the clothes in his hands, gesturing to them with his head and then to you.
“Wha…?” You said staring at him like an idiot. A flash of violet threw his flames letting you know that you had annoyed him. As well as the very unnecessary huff he produced. He tilted his head down to his neck and…was he gesturing to his-
OH HIS COLLAR- he couldn’t talk cuz of his, that’s right. You remembered now. You snapped your fingers.
“RIGHT right…” you reached over to grab his file, thinking that, logically, something about his collar and how to get it off was in there.
Then you heard a warning hiss. You looked up as you grabbed the file and saw that Maple did not look happy at all that you were touching it. Very quickly you backed off and put your hands up as if you were being mugged.
You were reminded of exactly ‘why’ you were scared of him. The space ware his nose bridge would be was crinkled up in a scowl and his brows were furrowed. And- holy shit HE DID HAVE A MOUTH, it was open and sharp fangs were being flashed at you. You shuttered, he was suddenly very terrifying. But violet did not splash threw him, were you wrong about his colors? Did they actually not mean anything? Or were you really just that stupid?
“D-ude- I can’t do shit if I don’t know how to work that-“ before you could finish your sentence Maple had grabbed the file off the island. Gave you a good hard glare that said. I’ll give you the papers you need. And then he walked out of the kitchen. Clothes wrapped in one arm and file in the other.
“HAY! Bub! Where do you think you're going???” You yelped as you saw him heading down to the man cave. He turned to you and as your eyes met his pure white slits. You saw a very purposefully put amount of violet creep up his arms.
Ya it was pretty clear he wanted to be alone and that you’d figure out the collar stuff in the morning. You still didn’t get why he was being so hostile all of a sudden, you were just trying to help! You didn’t want him here any more than he did.
You had even thought that you’d shared a ‘moment’ together but APPARENTLY not. His orange-red glow disappeared as he walked down the stairs. But you could still hear him hissing and crackling.
Didn’t he want food? You rolled your eyes but you also remembered that there was a little mini fridge downstairs and there should be some stuff in there for him.
You walked over to the ledge and called down to him “Yo! Jerk face! There’s a mini fridge with stuff in it if you're desperate!” A loud hiss was the response that followed and you rolled your eyes again but shuttered despite yourself.
“Ok, whatever, sorrrrrrrrry” you mumbled to yourself. Hopefully tomorrow he would be in a better mood and…you yawned.
Ya…you were only now feeling exhaustion hit. You’d been filled with adrenaline up until now so ya, after the day you had? You were gonna sleep in. You didn’t have work to go to anymore, and while you were upset that you couldn’t deal with fireboy tonight. You guessed that a day and a half of dealing with him would be fine.
Cuz you ‘were’ gonna kick him out tomorrow after you took his collar off. And even if you couldn’t, at least you’d be able to say you tried.
You yawned again and head to your room. You didn’t even bother getting changed or closing your door. You just walked to your king sized bed flopped onto the soft mattress. And closed your eyes.
As the darkness of sleep began to consume you, you thought about how happy you were gonna be when you didn’t have to worry about babysitting Mr.FireHazard anymore. And As you closed your eyes and konked out.
Grillby was thinking something similar about you.
Chapter 4: Unwanted Comfort
Summary:
You wake up to breakfast but leave the house pissed.
What happened?
Notes:
Thank you guys, I can’t believe that we got 33 HITS! That’s insane, it’s probably changed by now but still. Thank you for all the support.
Reminder that this is a slow burn. So please be patient like Grillby lol.
Chapter Text
You woke up to the most unfamiliar smell. Scrambled eggs, bacon, and pancakes. You slowly sat up and felt your wing tips brush the bed. You flapped them and cautiously opened one eye as you noticed your door was slightly ajar.
The smell got stronger when you slid off the bed and walked over to your door. You peaked outside and then also heard the faint drone of your TV.
You were too drowsy to feel afraid, however you were a little concerned. You had thought the smell was in your head but now you knew for a fact that it was not, in fact, in your head.
The smell was incredible and you couldn’t help but hum at how good it was. However you weren’t sure how to react to that. You didn’t have a roommate unless Robin had come back, but you would have known the moment you woke up this morning if it was him. Robin wasn’t a morning person.
You shook yourself and quickly used your magic to look human. Your wings and tail became tattoos on your back and leg. Your skin turned a rich golden brown, and then you were struggling to take your clothes off from the night before.
You jumped around for a bit as you struggled to take off your pants. You promptly fell as you threw your black slacks at the wall and then you were struggling to get your shirt off. Which was already partly pushed up your body when your magic had faded from the night before. Your wings most likely pushed your shirt up in the middle of the night.
You ended up tripping over your own two feet as you stumbled out of your room, you had picked out an oversized hoodie and some shorts to wear.
You still had no idea why you could smell the food of heaven in your home since you usually eat take out or- ok That was actually it. You also couldn’t quite remember what had happened last night. All you remembered was getting fired and then that policeman had chased you…then…
You shook your head deciding that it wasn’t important. As long as you didn’t have to deal with an intruder so early in the morning you’d be fine.
You rested your hand on the wall as you walked, this helped keep you steady and from tripping as you brushed your fingers through your hair, doing as little work as possible to comb your hair. It was still fairly messy though. You figured you should be more concerned and alert but seeing as Ms.Dawn had infiltrated your house more then once- you’d kinda gotten used to the idea of people breaking in.
The old lady had always come in and cleaned your house for you free of charge, the first time she had seen it she'd been so concerned for your health that it was inevitable she would take on the role of a grandmother neighbor. Though you admitted you didn’t know how she had gotten a spare key.
Eh a mystery for another time.
As you made your way into the kitchen and yawned you jumped and yelled at the sight in front of you.
“WHAT THE-”
In Front of you stood a tall lean fire monster. He wore a very nice white long sleeved polo shirt. He had rolled up the sleeves causing them to bunch around his elbows. He also wore some nice skinny jeans and finally…were those your shoes?!
You had been about to-timidly- demand what he thought he was doing when you spotted the two plates in his hands as he faced you.
Both had the foods you had smelled from your bedroom.
And suddenly you were hit with a memory.
“All hes good for is cooking and looking absolutely stunning”
The words echoed in your head and your eyes lit up.
“OOOOOHHHHHHHH” you said. Maple gave you a quizzical look before he gestured with his shoulder for you to join him at the dinner table. You weren’t quite sure how to react. No one had ever made you food before at least…not for a while. Especially not something that looked and smelled that good.
Except maybe…
You shook your head and Like a robot you awkwardly followed him around the kitchen island and to the dinner table. Sunlight shone brightly through the sliding glade door that led to your small backyard. It was just big enough for the trampoline you had bought and an outside table with an umbrella.
You plopped down in a chair as Maple placed one of the plates in front of you. He then placed the other at the seat across from you, he turned around briefly to pour you the leftover orange juice from-who knew how long at this point- but it smelled fine and didn’t look like it had gone bad.
Could juice go bad??
You were brought away from that train of thought as maple set some papers in front of you- and by a “few” you meant like two.
He quietly took his seat and began to eat. You stared at him, still trying to wrap your head around the idea of someone making you breakfast. But you remembered that The last person who had was…
Your mother.
You quickly scarfed down the food to keep yourself from thinking about it further but as the food entered your mouth you choked.
Not because it was bad, actually quite the opposite, it was amazing. It was the second best tastiest thing you’d ever eaten. Your mothers cooking being the first-
You tried to finish it as fast as possible so you didn’t dwell on it. Or focus on how perfect everything had been cooked or baked. How the syrup tasted like it had been freshly made or how the eggs had been scrambled to the most perfect consistency.
He looked like your dad and cooked like your mother.
You had to swallow hard and chug down the orange juice before your brain could even THINK about crying. It was like the world was TRYING to screw with you. And you didn't appreciate it one bit.
As you pushed the glass and plate to the side, you wiped your mouth with the sleeve of your hoodie and reached for the papers. Then you heard a very disapproving crackle and looked up.
Maple was giving you glare that reminded you of your mother. She’d look at you like that whenever you had wiped your mouth with your sleeve or arm instead of a napkin. He was already handing you one as you thought that and nervously you took it.
“T-thanks, the food is really good, I just- uh” you tried to think of an excuse when your eyes landed on the papers again. You grabbed them and sort of shrugged as you held them up “i-i just figured you’d want me to get you out of my hair as soon as possible heh..heh…heh…” you laughed awkwardly.
Maple crackled very quietly as he turned a very faint and gentle…periwinkle? It was a mix between violet and white but he didn’t seem annoyed at you, he looked concerned. You were confused, you decided that you were gonna stop trying to read his flames because clearly, you had lost any intuition you had previously possessed.
You shyly looked down at the papers and skimmed through them. One was a general run down of Maple, his height, age, how much he weighed, whether he was from the underground or had always been topside like most monsters. He had been in the underground which ment- he had only been a slave for seven years! That was super short compared to what you’d overheard in passing conversations.
There was more really boring general stuff, like what his magic was, what he was good at, cooking being one of several. The others being a bodyguard or a…
Heater.
You felt a weird twist in your stomach. How could someone write that? Call a living breathing creature an object? As a joke was one thing but as serious information? That was inhumane.
You knew you were a hypocrite, seeing as you tried your damnedest to refer to monsters as “its” as if they were nothing but wild animals. But…it was how you stayed sane, what kept you from sympathizing and doing something…
Well, so much for not getting involved.
You looked up at Maple catching him puting some bacon into his mouth…which was kinda cool, kinda unsettling to see. It kinda just parted open. It was like watching his face be torn apart in two different directions by invisible hands. Not to mention that he had formed teeth out of a lava type substance to chew- it didn’t just burn up- you had thought it would be different but….
As you watched him it really did look like he chewed his food.
Kinda blew your mind if you were being completely honest.
Your eyes shot back down to the paper as his head tilted up at you a bit. He didn’t have any pupils to speak of, just white slits. But even as you looked at the paper you could feel his eyes on you.
Trying desperately to not think about how spooky that was you kept reading.
Finally you came to the end of the page. It was about his temperament;
“Fire-Gb11 is known to be very quiet and agreeable. It will do tasks without resistance and without any emotion. It does change color from time to time but the MPS have determined that these changes in color mean nothing. They are merely a pretty feature. Fire-Gb11 is well versed in many fields as already listed. However it is very easy to teach it new things such as the knowledge of how to do something and to do it well. Simply ask it to learn and then you need only show it once how to do a task. It picks up very quickly and is very intelligent. If given the choice Fire-Gb11 prefers not to speak. Feel free to fix this with a command but we are sure a quiet monster will be much more enjoyable. For more in depth information read the PAST OWNER page. Which will give you a summary of Fire-Gb11s past owners. Please enjoy your fire elemental.”
How stupid could these guys be?
NO EMOTION? As far as you could tell this jerkwad had TO much emotion and was TO expressive. He seemed so opinionated and acted like he was older and wiser than you, which he was…the paper said he was thirty-Five, he was old. Ok, sure maybe you had just turned thirty BUT THAT'S BESIDES THE POINT. He had such an attitude and presence about him that you could only describe it as powerful. He looked powerful.
You couldn’t believe this. You looked over it again but you still didn’t wanna acknowledge what you had just read.
“Ok, ew, ew, ew,” you said pushing the paper away “that was somehow worse then the time Tiffany framed me by putting a gun in my bag! I was like Twelve to- i mean at least wait until I’m seventeen I ACTUALLY had a gun then. Would have been a lot more effective. She was so stupid.” You said as you absent mindedly went into a mini tangent.
“I mean who WORDS stuff like that? Heater? Really? I mean sure it's a funny nickname but like a serious thing to list? AS AN ABILITY? They really act like w-“ you stopped and shook it off. Not missing a beat, you couldn’t give him time to acknowledge your slip up. “…That women and men monsters are Pokémon” you finished awkwardly.
You didn’t want to risk looking at him in case it gave you away. “Let's see…if the second one is worded less like a kitchen appliance.
The first words of the page made you shift uncomfortably in your seat.
“TAMING COLLAR FOR YOUR FIRE ELEMENTAL.”
You had to stand up and walk outside into the backyard. You screamed some curses. Then headed back inside.
“I can get through this.”
You said and saw that Maple looked mildly amused and also something else, but you couldn’t quite put your finger on it.
You shook out your arms and picked up the paper. As you read through it you realized that it was a very detailed guide for the collar. Along with very detailed instructions for first time users.
After you had read through it thoroughly you got up and walked over to him. He leaned back in his chair to tilt his head up at you . He had finished his food and had, in a much neater fashion, pushed his plate to the side as he folded his hands on the table. You took the seat beside him, your table had four chairs, a little overkill considering it was usually just you in the house.
You were straddling the chair as you rested your arm on the back of it. Looking down at the paper and then back at him you took in a deep breath. Something about being so close to him was making you quiet.
And nervous.
Maybe it was just because between the sunlight and his natural heat you were feeling sweaty. Exhaling you spoke timidly.
“Uhh I need to touch the collar? I guess this takes blood or something and it's the only way I can reset it.” You said a lot more timidly than you wanted to. Maple nodded. He had stayed Orange-red which was helping with your slight fear of him.
“Ok so it says there’s this indent in the collar on the back.” You said reaching for his neck you felt around for the indent until you found it. You yelped as you felt something prick you.
“Temporary owner not found. Blood is new. Female. Thirty. 5’2. French origin. Rush, August. Is this correct?”
You had not been accepting the collar to speak “I-i uh yes. Yes that's all correct….creepy…” you said with a shutter. Maple tilted his head at you and looked a little disbelieving for some reason. Though you didn’t know why.
“August. Rush. Would you like to override TEMPORARY OWNER? This will instigate FIRE-GB11s tenth PERMANENT OWNER transition.”
You shuttered at how cold and robotic the voice was before you let it sink in what it had just said “w-what?! Tenth? How-“ he growled at you, violet.
You didn’t push it “uhm, i mean i guess? Yea.” You said hesitantly.
“Override accepted. MonsterCode needed to continue.”
You quickly scrambled through the two papers and found the monster code, they really tried their best to make this as hard as possible huh?
“998105” you said nervously, then you heard a ding.
“Number accepted. TEMPORARY OWNERs commands now being overridden. Returning to Default settings.” It said, you stayed quiet as you heard a soft ding sound being repeated. Then.
“BEEP Default settings in place. LANGUAGE SETTING: please choose English or French. WARNING we have detected ZERO other citizens that can speak French. You will be the only one that can order it. THIS IS HIGHLY DANGEROUS as if the collar malfunctions or is unable to recognize your voice due to Damage then your monster is at risk of HARMING you and OTHERS. This is only if the collars built in SHUTDOWN system fails to subdue the monster.”
You had to rub your temple from all that information. The robotic voice was really getting on your nerves and as you looked to maple you couldn’t help but laugh at seeing him doing the same.
“My word that is the most annoying shit.” You giggled. He stared at you as purple tipped his flames before green replaced them and he nodded. A soft crackle following.
“PLEASE CHOOSE English OR French.”
The collar drowned. Your first instinct was to choose English since well, you mostly spoke in English as a learned habit. You were still fluent in French but you had guiltily only used it at home, when you watched TV or listened to music. But then you caught the slightly brighter green glow.
You looked up just in time to see Maple moving his gaze from you to his folded hands. He was much greener now but it looked like the green and orange red were fighting each other. Each color demanding dominance over the fire elementals body.
His expression was struggling to stay still to as he nervously began to rub his hands together.
He wanted you to choose French.
As that realization hit you it made sense. Of course. Even if being given orders was narrowed down to only one person, you in this case, then literally he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone else.
And this was exactly what you had wanted for him. Sure it wasn’t as nearly as exciting as breaking his collar, which you were pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to do- it was hella thick- well at least compared to your weak tiny hands.
You also hadn’t seen a way to release the collar by a command so…
“French,” you said confidently. He was completely bright green for a moment before he coughed and turned Orange red again with blue seeping onto his cheeks.
The collar started talking to you in French. There were a few more things you had to confirm like what you wanted his default settings to be on top of the collars permanent ones. Which you had just said that you’d change them as you needed, which was a lie, it had then told you what the collars natural default settings were.
Don't attack humans. Regulate intense emotions. Only prohibit magic as needed. Follow orders. Obey PERMANENT OWNER no matter what.
You shivered at the last one. These were fairly reasonable you guessed so you could only imagine what other people added.
Leaning back as you held the back of the chair to keep gravity from pulling you down you smiled at Maple.
“All done. You are free to leave, finally.” You sighed with relief. He looked over at you with slight disbelief.
“What? I told you I’d let you go. Didn’t i? Also I did try to say “release” but it said I’d have to take you to a Monster Vet to do that…so…ya” you popped your lips and stared back at him.
“Though, if I have one thing I’m curious about- I’ve been calling you Maple in my head but…what's your actual name?”
****
It had been so long since someone had asked him what his name was. So long since anyone had cared enough to ask. So long since he'd be treated like a…person.
He tried to keep his emotions steady and under control. It had gotten harder when he'd seen your reaction to his papers. He had dared to hope.
When you told him about how you couldn’t believe they had called him a heater. He had dared to trust your word.
You asking what his name was made him realize how lucky he'd gotten. How, despite your eccentric personality, you were a genuinely good person.
“Grillby” He whispered. It was a quiet crackle laced with a soft southern accent.
Your reaction was fairly amusing, then again all your reactions were fairly amusing to watch. You were so animated and overly dramatic that Grillby couldn’t help but feel entertained.
Your eyes went wide and you slammed your hand over your mouth which caused you to nearly knock yourself backwards from the force.
“Holy- ok was not accepting a cowboy accent, i thought you’d be a posh British guy or something but ok! Cool. Wait- did you say Grillby?” You asked and he nodded. Still amused.
“Grillby, like in a Grill? Like the crap we cook stuff on???” You asked in disbelief “that's so- literal-“ you said shaking your head.
He laughed at you “Monstas prefer to-tha-point namein” he explained softly. You nodded as you ran a hand through your hair. “Besidas, you're literally named afte’ a month.” He retorted. You snickered at that.
“Ya you have a point there, guess i have little room to talk.” You said with a shrug. He nodded.
It was quiet for a long time after that. You both just stared at each other and Grillby noticed you didn’t seem as nervous around him anymore. Which felt nice.
After a few more minutes you coughed.
“well uh,like I said you're free to go? I mean that's what I said and I like keeping my word. Also i can't actually really afford to get caught with you, like I literally stole you from an auction at my old place of work WHICH, by the way, i got UNFAIRLY fired from! Like literally this guy called me the N-Word and then a slut to boot! I mean the last part can be debated but like it’s LITERALLY 20XX i mean i know we got monster slaves n shiz and like we’re DEFINITELY going back a couple of years like- it feels like everyone forgot that Balck people couldn’t always vote, or that we used to have to look over our shoulders every ware Incase a police man spotted us- noted that was more men then women but women had it bad to! Like literally people used to say we couldn’t learn how to read n crap CUZ WHY? I hear you asking BECAUSE OF THE COLOR OF MY SKIN isn’t that stupid? Like
literally i know black people with ten different monsters AS IF IT'S COMPLETELY JUSTIFIED CUZ YALL ARE “supposedly” more animal than human. Did you know its considered beastiality to have sex with a monster? YA! Me neither i found that out like two days ago when i saw a guy making out with this water monster. They arrested him right on the spot and everything. Isn’t that crazy?!”
Grillby was overwhelmed by how much you had just said. Your speech was fast and rambling. It was hard to follow along with what you had said but he somehow had managed. He hadn’t known that humans had done what they were doing to his people to your people. He hadn’t thought humans could get any worse. And he realized again how lucky he was to stumble upon someone who hadn’t forgotten your people's past.
But it also gave him a bit of hope.
“Ya think it can happen again?” He asked, trying to keep the hope out of his voice.
“It…took a really long time, Grillby, when I was born I was born in a world that was completely equal, it took generations to get to where we are now. The only reason I know anything is because my mom and her mother and her dad, and so on and so forth kept telling that story. So…while I do think it can happen again, just…and maybe it won't be as long…but…i…not anytime soon. Sorry.”
He watched you look down at your hands and away from him. But little did you know that you’d given Grillby something to look forward to.
“I have time,” he said with a bit of happy crackle.
“What?” You asked.
“Monstas are immortal unless we take alota damage or have kids. I have literal eons ta wait for if I have ta. Just can’t die.” He informed you as he taped his knuckles with his fingers.
Grillby would be as patient as he needed to be. Now that he knew there was a reason to hope, to keep going, he would. He would wait forever if that's what it took. If it had happened once it could happen again.
“Well, glad I could give you some hope! I'll get a backpack for you and put some things in it. Then I guess I could drive you out of state? Or at least as far as i can, I can’t leave the city i uh….” You trailed off. Grillby furrowed his brows. This is what he wanted. He should feel more overjoyed but…
His friends, his family, he couldn’t leave them. No. He needed to find them and…and what? What could he do? There was nothing he could do. Besides, they were probably either dead or had gone mad. Or…. he didn’t want to think about worse options.
He was so close to freedom, you had practically handed it to him on a golden platter. He was so grateful to you. He owed you everything. And the last thing he wanted was to be a burden to you but, he couldn’t in good conscience leave.
“Hay…are…you ok?” He looked up at your voice. You were standing now and had pushed the chair back under the table. Grillby looked down at his hands and saw the colors of sadness, Violet and Blue. He grimaced and tried to make himself calm again but he didn’t have it in him.
“I can’t.” He said.
“What?”
“I can't leave Ebbot, believe me i want ta, badly, but I can't leave knowin’ that my friends might need me” Grillby said, sitting up straighter and growing determined “If there's anything I can do, anything at all ta free ‘em, I have ta try.” He said as he gripped his hands into fists. Flames on his hands rising for a moment from the intense emotion. Bright red.
“That's nice and all and you can totally do that! But I have my own fish to fry my guy.” You said “I can't waste my time with people I don’t know.”
What. Did you really just say that? After you had JUST told him about your peoples past?!
“What is wrong with ya?” He stood up sharply, shoving the chair to the ground as he did. He towered over you and hissed.
“Monstas are sufferin’ everyday the same way your people apparently did and you’d rather sit around on your bottom then do somethin’ ‘bout it? If that's how you feel then why in the everloving hell did ya “waste your time” savin’ me?” He yelled at you. He was furious, he couldn’t believe how little integrity you had. Green soul or not. Where the hell were your morals?
Bzzzt
Grillby hissed with pain as he gripped his neck his violet turned back into orange as the collar sent a controlled shock into his body. He gripped the table and shook his head.
When he looked over at you he saw that you were pulling on your hair and crying.
He didn’t want to feel bad about yelling at you, the hypocrisy was insane. but… he did. And for once he was actually glad the collar had shocked him.
“Look i just- ya have ta under-“
“You look and act kinda like my dad OK?!- you both are quiet and he's scary but he loves me so much. And he'd do anything to make me happy, he'd hurt anyone, i was his princess and then-“ you yelled but fell back into hiccups and sobs. You were crying hard.
Grillby could tell you were remembering something, the way you were shaking your head and gritting your teeth was all too familiar. Whatever it was, it must have been bad. He thought back to the war. To what he’d been through. He saw his hands tip themselves in that same separated violet and white. The white was more prominent as his hands started to shake. He took in a deep breath and as he did orange dropped itself over him before red warmed his outline.
Your father.
That was why he was here. Why you had risked so much to save him. Why you wanted to help but also wanted nothing to do with him.
He didn’t know what happened but…
“Hay…hun-“
“DONT “hun” me, Just shut the fuck up and go. Thank you for breakfast, go. I never wanted you to stay longer than a night. You have no idea how hard its been to NOT think about what happened around you. You don’t understand how much it hurts to look at you. You can’t understand how it feels to lose-“
You squealed and then you felt warm arms hug you. He did know what it was like. Better than you probably could even imagine. He knew exactly what was going through your head, how you felt. The guilt. It was clearly too much for you. It was still too much for him some days.
Grillby couldn’t help it, he was weak when someone was crying in front of him. Especially when they reminded him so much of his little brother. You tried to push against him and you even punched him in the stomach. You started to sob and yell into his chest you cursed him out and called him every slur you could think of.
He didn’t let go. No matter how much of his HP you were scratching off with your hits.
This went on for a while, you sobed and screamed at the top of your lungs. But Grillby knew you just needed someone to be mad at. It was easier, he found, if he could push the blame on someone else.
Eventually your arms just dropped limply to your sides, he was too strong. To pasient. To….
“Let go…please…” you whispered helplessly.
He did as you asked. And stood still in front of you.
You looked up at him, and then down again. But not before he saw more tears fall.
“You even hug like him…” you squeaked out.
“I just want my dad back, is that too much to ask? Like shit man, shit, i…” you waved your hands around and laughed as more tears fell from your face. Before your hands slapped back to your sides.
“Fine.” You finally said.
“Pardon?” Grillby whispered.
“You can stay. You’d probably just die anyway and…i…can't…I don’t want to deal with you, cuz if you're the closest I can ever get to my parents then…” you shook your head.
“I just don’t want it to be my fault again.” You shuttered bitterly.
Grillby wanted to ask what you meant by that but stopped himself. “Ya sure? I just need enough time to find my family, or my friends, someone I know. I just- are ya cert’n?
“Hah! No, not all, i think this is a stupid idea but that was the first time I’ve cried in ten years so- i geuss…I don’t know anymore! You can’t stay here but I also can’t through you out on the street like I was planning to! You- you fucker you made things so much more complicated then they needed to be!” You gripped your head and hiccuped. You hit your forehead with your fist as hard you could and then groaned.
“I’m…i need to go job hunting. Again. So. Here's the plan.” You said placing your hands together and pointing at him.
“Your gonna stay here, in the den, basement, whatever, you will not come up stairs for any reason unless i come down to get you. And while we’re at it let's get one thing clear.” You punched him in the chest and he grunted. It wasn’t hard but still.
“This is,” you gestured between himself and you.
“…is Temporary. The moment I can safely get rid of you without us both dying is when we part ways or i guess you could just run away whenever you feel like it, I don’t care about whatever self righteous vendetta you got going on just. Leave. Me. Out. Of. It. got it?” You said firmly.
“Yes mam” he said, nodding. You nodded back and then grabbed the dishes on the table. You walked over to the sink and threw them in. They promptly shattered and you cursed again, screaming this time before you stormed out of the kitchen.
Grillby didn't know what he expected when he'd woken up that morning.
But seeing you cry and then giving you unwanted, but clearly very much needed, comfort, had not been something he’d thought of.
He groaned. This is why he didn’t talk.
Chapter 5: And They Were Roommates!
Summary:
Long chapter for a long wait lol. In this chapter it’s a bot of a time skip, only a few days have passed but Grillby has already turned your life around. In an attempt to become aquatints and not strangers you tried to play 20 questions…but uhh it didn’t go well. The waters are still as uneasy as ever between you.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
You really hated that fire man, Grillby, what a stupid name.
If it weren’t for the fact that Grillby reminded you so much of ‘him’. His height, his aura, his eyes, pure white and devoid of pupils, his pride, how he stood and refused to be humiliated, how cautious he had been of you, breakfast, and then that damn hug.
You sharply banged your fist on the car horn. A quick but loud ‘BEEEEP’ being met by another equally annoyed and angry honk.
If that bastard hadn’t reminded you so much of your damn dad then he would have been auctioned off by now. And someone else’s problem. Sure he might have been ordered to stand outside next to another fire monster as a lamp post or something, and maybe he would have been ordered to just stay down in the basement and act as a heater. Sure, he wouldn’t have been free, but at least you wouldn’t be looking for a job with enough pay to support two people at that moment.
You had a hard enough time making enough to buy yourself food let alone other necessities. Now you had to worry about an unwanted TEMPORARY roommate? Ya this was not gonna work with the luck you had with jobs.
Why did you have to cave in so easily? You could have left him, and then you wouldn’t have to keep flipping between thinking he was alright to regretting ever running into him. For once you hadn’t been able to walk away, you had looked into his eyes and for once…you hadn’t been able to reason leaving him behind.
Your soul always did this. Getting you into situations that you really didn’t wanna be in, that you couldn’t be in. Maybe if things were different you could follow it with more trust. Listen to what it had to say and convince you to do things with more ease until you couldn’t tell if it had been your idea or your souls. Maybe you could more easily do these acts of kindness if your safety wasn’t on the line.
If anyone knew, if they found out what you were…who knew what they would do to you. They could experiment on you and decide that human-monster hybrids would be useful for tasks that a full blooded monster couldn’t do. Maybe you’d been put in a zoo and looked at like an animal, the first and only of your kind.
the first successful attempt at keeping your kind a secret.
Or, they might just kill you. Keep your existence from the world and then that would be it. And your parents wouldn’t have known what happened.
Agreeing to letting Grillby stay with you was putting your life on the line. You were risking everything for a stranger. You could only hope the mask you had worn had concealed your identity well enough. And besides, security cameras were usually crap so they couldn’t have gotten to good of a look at you. At least, you hoped.
You should have kicked him out. You shouldn’t let him stay with you.
But you were both on a similar mission, you were looking for your dad and Grillby was apparently looking for his family and some friends. You couldn’t kick him out knowing that was his goal, sure you were still trying to accomplish that goal yourself and had been for seven years now…but you couldn’t give up hope. And maybe that was the real reason you’d helped Grillby. Maybe you just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving a man so similar to your dad behind. You had a lot of reasons for helping Grillby you realized…
You also realized you’d been kinda an ass to him. Sure you were conflicted about all this but that didn’t give you an excuse to be a jerk. You pulled into a gas station and got out of the car to fill up your tank, it was near empty, your thoughts didn’t stop however.
You’d been an absolute jerk wad to the poor guy. Gave him an attitude that your mother would have shunned. She would have been so disappointed in you, but in your defense he had yelled at you, and as much as you’d like to see yourself as a tough as nails girl….you…were kinda a cry baby. Dad being a mob boss or not.
So when he'd asked you why you cared, you had answered honestly. You hadn’t been able to help it. When it came to what happened with your dad you had such a hard time keeping your emotions under control. Even if your mom hadn’t said it, you knew it had been your fault.
As you filled up your car with gasoline you thought about how to make it up to Grillby, in the end you both were just worried about the people you cared about. It was clear, however, that Grillby had a much stronger sense of Justice than you did. You looked at your phone as you waited for your car to fill and scrolled through your camera roll you grinned at the picture you had taken of the graffiti.
You laughed as you had a feeling Grillby would disapprove of it. He seemed like the type of guy to follow the law unless it was clearly stupid. Such as, enslaving all of monster kind. Overall Grillby didn’t seem like the quiet passive monster that his paper had described, then again, you hadn’t exactly acted like yourself either. When it came to monsters you tried so hard to distance yourself that probably every monster you met thought you were an ass. So, it was safe to assume that Grillby had done the same, distanced himself. However his true colors had shone through in that hug.
He was sweet, clearly, no matter your race or what he thought of the majority.
You slumped as you reattached the nozzle to the gas stand thingy. You got back in your car and drove out a bit before parking and resting your head in your hands.
You were gonna drive yourself crazy thinking about how you’d treated him. Welp, going forward you could at least be decent to him while still keeping your distance…that’s when the most bizarre and random idea rammed itself into your head.
The way you could make it up to him, would be saving up money to actually buy him. Ok this sounded terrible so you tried to think it out in your head. There was a 50% chance that you’d get found out, but if you had the money to pay for Ownership over Grillby then you both would have to worry a little less about dying. Quickly, you looked up about how much a fire Elemental usually costs. Once you found that out you could just add to it and then work on saving up that money-
Ten hundred, Five thousand sixty-eight, nineteen million.
That’s how much a Fire Elemental usually cost. And usually, they bid higher at an auction. Your jaw dropped.
Well there goes the legal option.
You could still save up you guessed, but damn, that was insanity. Well at least you now knew how suspicious it would look if you walked around with him at your heel. Or, well, the collar did register you as his owner without much stress…maybe you were overthinking this? Maybe things would be fine and You wouldn’t need to cut off an arm and a leg to pay off the debt you’d owe the guy who had been trying to sell Grillby.
Maybe, as long as you laid low and didn’t hang out in the city you’d been fine. You prefered your little town anyway. Sure the pay at the hotel had been nice but the city was too crowded for your taste. Besides, Ekko Town wasn’t overrun with racists and mean spirited people. There were definitely a few but not as much as in the city. Kinda the only part of Ebbot that treated Monsters like people and not…well…animals. It wasn’t like monsters were being paid or anything. But they were being treated with some level of respect, the point was, it was better than nothing.
Job. You’d been rambling in your head for a straight few minutes but the entire point you were out here was to look for a job. Preferably one in Ekko town if you could help it. But what job would pay good, be enough for you and a roommate, and not take a lot of effort-
You tried to push the thought out of your head but you were already pulling out your phone and scrolling through your emails until you found it.
You stared hard at the screen, thinking over your options. There weren’t a lot of jobs in town that could support two people. And there weren’t a lot of jobs that wouldn’t require a lot of skill. Well…it required skill, and you definitely had the assets required…which was why you had this in your mail to begin with. You still didn’t know how the owner had gotten your email, it was kinda creepy if you were being honest. But Ms.Sani had her ways, she probably had talked to Robin.
You sighed, you didn’t have a lot of options and you were desperate. But, it was the least you could do for Grillby, seeing as he had already put up with your attitude already. And it would be really easy money. in all honesty it wouldn’t be any different then what you already did in your free time, except that, well, you’d be getting paid rather than doing it for yourself.
This way, it would also be easier to feed your addiction. And you wouldn’t have to find ways to keep Grillby from finding out.
You clicked on the email, and started writing.
————————————————————————————————————
“So, let me get this straight.” Oliver said as he wiped down the car he was working on. “You stole a monster from an auction, and now you're working at Sanis…eh for lack of a better term, brothel house to afford enough for both you and him.” The mechanic finished. You sighed and nodded as you leaned back against his garage wall. “Yep, that pretty much sums it up.” You sighed as you crossed your arms.
Oliver laughed and then shook his head “you're insane, August, like literally insane. What are you gonna do when you get caught?” He asked with a smirk.
You rolled your eyes “probably drop dead, I don’t know, kinda hoping it doesn’t come to that.”
The curly redhead mechanic grinned and nodded “ya same, believe it or not I actually like you. Even if you are cheating on me with perverts” He joked as he said the last line with special dramatics.
“Har har har, very funny, you wish you got a piece of this. But you're way too young for me, and besides, you're like my brother.” You said, smiling up at him.
he dunked the window wipe in a bucket of water before taking it out and washing the windshield of the car. The water seeped out of it and poured onto the hood. You couldn’t help but grin at remembering Grillby begging you to get some gloves so he could wash your sink. Over the past three days it had gotten pretty bad and with Ms. Dawn out of town you had no one to barge into your house and clean things for you.
It had honestly been kinda cute how horrified he had been when he’d walked up the stairs that morning to see how griming the sink had become. You looked at the bag of rubber gloves and cleaning supplies Grillby had made you get, he'd made a very specific list for you and thanks to your new job you were able to afford it.
Something you had learned about Grillby over the past three days was that…he was a huge neat freak.
The first time you had gone down to the basement after letting him stay had been like walking into a hotel room. He had vacuumed the rug that covered the floor, and that you always avoided because it was a pain to maintain, then he had not only fixed your foosball table but also washed down the pacman arcade machine that had been collecting dust for two whole years.
He had cleaned absolutely everywhere. Not even to mention the guest bedroom. He had washed the sheets, dusted the bookshelf, and individually dusted each of the books. You could honestly go on about how he’d transformed your basement into a paradise. But…there had been a point while he’d been showing you everything that you had just zoned out from pure shock and awe.
Then there had been what he’d done to your upstairs. When you had been away at work yesterday he had done the smallest things that had greatly improved your living situation. It had been small things that you hadn’t even noticed were a problem. First he had untangle the wires at the back of your TV and labeled what they went to by using little sticky note things that could wrap around the cord. You didn’t even know where he got those from! Then he had done more dusting, and sweeping and vacuuming. And after that he’d gone into your garage and started working in the lawn and backyard.
Grillby had taken it upon himself to turn your house into an actual livable space, which he hadn’t needed to do. And that was why you were pretty sure he was a neat freak.
Oh. He had also done the most Dad thing possible.
He had made a list for both of you to follow. Pretty much just what you both were in charge of doing on Friday, before the week ended. And it did not go unnoticed that he gave you all the chores that were related to water. But apparently he hadn’t been able to wait until Friday to clean your sink so…pretty much? Grillby had kicked you out of the house threatening that if you didn’t come back with the supplies on the list that he wasn’t making lunch.
Which was uncalled for. You were gonna get the stupid supplies but that didn’t mean you couldn’t protest and remind him that he didn’t own the house.
Three days, and Grillbys presence had already changed so much about your life. He was thinking far into the future, that list was proof. You wanted to be insulted that he had assumed you didn’t have a list but…well you couldn’t cause it had never dawned on you to make one before…but you had tried to put your foot down! And it had been…
…Unsuccessful. now you were sitting on Oliver’s garage floor as he washed a car. Oliver had become your best friend when you moved to Ebott and made yourself at home in Ekko Town. He was a friendly bright eyed Mechanic who helped out his neighborhood when anyone needed their cars fixed while also running an actual mechanic shop not too far from the neighborhood.
He had, overall, made your stay in Ebott incredibly enjoyable despite its hiccups. And he was the only person you felt you could trust with everything that was currently going on in your life. Grillby being a small part of that.
“So, you said it’s been three days since all that went down? This Grillby fellow got busy huh?” He asked as he started to buff the car. You nodded before realizing that he wasn’t looking at you, you made an audible “yah huh” sound. You got up and flung the plastic bag over your shoulder.
“Three days of being bossed around by a Fire Monster and two days of being bossed around by Sani, and I’m already sick of it.” You said with a groan “Grillby nearly yelled at me when I tried to move the mini fridge. He’s very…particular…” you said trailing off as you thought about just how specific the fire monster was proving to be.
“Heh, well, at least it sounds like he means well. besides if his cooking is as good as you say, I say it’s worth getting bossed around a bit.” Oliver said, offering his own two cents on the subject.
You nodded, not being able to disagree. It was worth getting bossed around. Grillby's cooking, as well as his baking, was incredible. You didn’t know how he did it but somehow he managed to make mediocre foods taste like heaven. It was almost as good as your mom…you sighed…your mind was making a habit of going down this rabbit hole when you thought about his cooking too much.
You shook your head and wiped your eyes “w-well I better get going. Cant keep him waiting, I’m scared he might get so impatient that he’ll try burning the grime away” you and Oliver snickered at that before he bowed to you and gave you a salute “right on ya, but hey mind saving some leftovers for me? I’d love to get a bite of his cooking!”
You barked out a laugh “fat chance! His cooking is mine! MUAHHAHA”
“NOOOOOOO” Oliver cried in faux agony, he fell to his knees in dramatic fashion as you walked away and out of his driveway. He was still making dramatic sounds as you made distance between you both. You laughed like a nut and sighed, Oliver was almost as funny as you. Which was why you two were such good friends.
After a few minutes of walking down the sidewalk you made it to your house and walked up the porch. Opening the screen door that led into the little closed off porch area. You opened the house door to be greeted by the sound of the television and seeing Grillby's head as he focused his attention on the show in front of him. It looked to be some sort of documentary. Goodness he was a character. A neat freak and a lover of documentaries? What was next? Did he like collecting lint or something?
You had to muffle the snort that escaped you. This was ultimately a failure as Grillby paused his Documentary and got up from the couch. He walked around it to reach you at the door and looked very happy to see that you’d gotten what he’d asked for. Flashes of green mixing in beautifully with orange and red.
“Wonderful” he said softly in his slight southern drawl. He gently took the bag out of your hand as you held it up to him. Your fingers brushed against his for a moment and you couldn’t help the blush that spread across your cheeks, what? He was attractive and any kind of physical contact with men tended to make you flustered. He didn’t seem to notice your flushed face as he checked through the bag. However you did catch white very faintly tinting his fingers before it was quickly eaten by red. He had also gotten more tense…weird… come to think of it. Even when he had hugged you three days ago he had been tense then as well. Which was why you hadn’t really been thrilled about the hug. It was a kind gesture but…he clearly hadn’t really wanted to. It had felt more like a action taken out of habit or weakness, not out of genuine concern.
It had been rigid and stiff. But the thought behind it had mattered the most you felt. That’s why his hug reminded you of your father. Your dad was also not the best hugger, but he always tried. Your old man wasn’t big on physical contact unless it was your mom.
Grillby gave you a slight bow while he made his way to the kitchen. You slipped off your emerald green tux jacket and hung it up on the coat hanger. Leaving you in your dull red crop top and high waisted skinny jeans. You curiously followed Grillby into the kitchen.
Grillby really had kinda taken over the house and how things were run. He had brought a level of order and maturity to your life that hadn’t been there before. The events of his first morning here being long since forgotten and you both had seemingly silently agreed to never bring it up again. Of course that didn’t mean you couldn’t think about it.
You had personally done your best to keep your distance while still being friendly. It had only been three days but it felt like he’d been there forever. Like he belonged in that house. You didn’t know how you had survived so long without a roommate, then again you had never thought you’d gain a roommate that was quite so neat and tidy.
You tried and failed to deny that…you were kinda…maybe…enjoying his company? You were still awkward around him and tried not to make conversation but when you had talked, both in the mornings and throughout the day now, it had been nice. He was soft spoken and reserved. The only times he seemed in charge were when he was bossing you around about cleaning or when it came to monsters.
Another thing you’d noticed about Grillby. He had a strong moral compass.
At least that’s from what you could tell. He was also older than you and probably more mature…so…ya…you could just be really immature and not realize.
Either way, while you still weren’t completely sure about all this you didn’t feel as strongly mad at him as you did before. He was a nice guy and he did mean well, like Oliver had said. Also it helped that he was a good cook, anyone could win you over with good food. And looks, Damn he was a looker-
“Ehm, August?”
You were sharply bought out of your thoughts at the mention of your name.
“Wha?! Huh?” You blubbered out, Grillby giggled softly as he shook his head.
“You were starin’ at me, didn’t know if ya needed somethin’” he said. He was half way through putting the rubber gloves on. Had you been staring at him? You felt your cheeks heat up and you grinned awkwardly at him “oh uh, ya sorry, I got lost in my thoughts” you said nervously. How embarrassing.
He just nodded before turning a very faint blueish white across his cheeks. Was that his version of blush? You didn’t know, so many colors flashed through him as it was that it was impossible to tell what they all ment. You’d have to ask him about that sometime. As much as you loved guessing what his colors met you would actually appreciate some clarity on that front.
“Uhh d-do you need..help?” You asked not wanting him to accidentally become your voluntary slave.
He gave you a weird look before he slowly started to nod he gestured to the kitchen island. He didn’t say anything but you figured he wanted you to clean it while he worked at the sink “you want me to clean that?” He nodded and gave you a little bow. Silently saying ‘yes please.’
You shrugged and got to work. You went over to the bag Grillby had sat beside him near the sink and took out the soup you would need to clean the counter.
It was deathly quiet as you both cleaned. Aside from the noises that cleaning a counter and a sink usually made there was the gentle crackle of Grillbys flames.
You could feel his heat on your back. Your clothes and skin starting to get warmer the more time you spent turned from him. You quickly moved around the island so you weren’t so close to him. As much as you liked being warm, you didn’t wanna fall asleep on the counter. You wondered what it would be like to sleep with him…you already slept with like five blankets….it would probably be soooo cozy.
Your head went to the weirdest places.
After a few minutes you decided that you had done a pretty good job. You moved to cleaning the dining table while you noticed Grillby was working on the kitchen counter.
Still, you both said nothing. It was still taking you a bit to get it into your head that Grillby wasn’t a talkative person. That first day, he had only talked because he had to. Now, he barely said anything unless he needed to clarify something or needed to ask you something.
Should you try talking to him? You didn’t know, you were trying to keep your distance, yes, but…
IT JUST SEEMED SO WEIRD TO NOT AT LEAST TRY TO GET TO KNOW HIM!
You were such an extrovert, damn yourself.
Once you were done with the dinner table you saw that Grillby was also wrapping up.
He looked over to you and gazed over your work. He nodded. You grinned like an insane person and nodded back. Something about seeing him turn a pleased greenish blue really inflated your ego. Considerably.
He tilted his head at you. A gentle crackle escaping him. His mouth still unseeable and undefined. He shifted from a grass green to a light neon green with blue being more prominent about his features. He stayed like that for a while even as he began to put the cleaning supplies away into the under sink cabinet.
You took in a deep breath. It was now or never. You had to ask him something.
But…what? There were so many possible questions you could ask but there was no guarantee that he would answer or even respond to you. Even though you had your doubts about the success of this endeavor you decided that there was only really one question that was safe to ask. Especially considering you both ‘were’ strangers.
“Uh Grillby?” You asked in a much softer voice than you meant to use.
He completely turned Blue. Well that wasn’t really accurate. He turned multiple shades of blue. each shade being prettier than the last.
He also looked as though he had shuddered? You couldn’t stop yourself from snickering at that thought. Ya, sure he did.
“M-Mhm…?” He made a humming sound that sounded much shakier then you were used to. He also looked slightly smaller, dimmer?…Weird.
You sauntered over to him and put on your best charming grin. Walking around and leaning your elbows back on the island as you faced him “oh it’s nothing i just have a question. I mean we are roommates now so I should probably get to know the guy i'll be living with, right?” You enquired.
Very slowly…Grillby nodded. Turning back to his stoic orange-red as he did.
You waited for him to say something. but when he just stared blankly at you you gulped and felt a little more nervous under his gaze. You preferred it when he was blue. You then decided that it would be weird to just right out ask what was on your mind-so- you decided to take a more indirect approach.
“Uhh so uhm how about a Game of 20 questions? It’s basically where-“
“I know.”
You jumped when he suddenly spoke. Rubbing the back of your neck you laughed nervously “y-ya ya of course. So uh…do you wanna play?” You asked, your voice becoming higher pitched as you did.
He tilted his head from side to side and you could feel his eyes on you. Sizing you up, determining whether this was a trick or not. Once Grillby had thoroughly examined you under pure white slits, that you really couldn’t gauge what on earth they were looking at, he nodded and gestured with his hand for you to start.
****
Grillby was already quite amused by how nervous and worried you looked. It took you a solid minute to get out what you wanted to say and even then it took another minute for you to re-word what you were asking him. Grillby found it very funny by how easiy it was to intimidate you. All he had to do was stare at you for long periods of time and you collapsed like an unsteady beam.
“I-i what i mean t-to say is- your colors- what do they mean?” You finally got out. But Grillby wasn’t sure he had heard you right. Had you just asked what his colors ment?
Most humans had just assumed that its colors didn’t mean anything. Because well, he guessed that was easier to believe and kept their guilt smaller. That line of thought reduced him to a pretty lava lamp rather than a living being.
So he was understandably surprised when you asked him that. You hadn’t exactly been nice to him but you hadn’t been mean either. And he had to admit to himself that he had been trying to get in your good graces despite being…well…somewhat free. He had been a slave for seven years.
He rubbed his arm as he realized that he'd been trained very well.
“Hay! Grill earth to fire hazard?” You yelped a little annoyed and he jumped slightly. You had your hands on your hips and he took in a deep breath before letting it out. Smoke escaping from ware his nose would be if he was human. Deep breaths. You weren’t a threat. He kept needing to remind himself of that.
“Pardon. My colors ya said?” He asked cooly. You stood up straight and didn’t look so annoyed anymore and once again looked very scared of him.
It felt good.
Grillby felt like a million spiders were crawling on his insides when he thought that and tried to move his thoughts away from that disgusting idea.
“My colors relate to my emotions. Kinda like what you humans would call a mood ring” he shifted uncomfortably at the comparison but it was the best he could do to explain.
“Oh! That…explains a lot. So I’m guessing that means that when those colors combine they mean more complicated emotions?” You asked. And he nodded. He didn’t want to explain to much to you in order to keep his privacy but he still wanted to give an example. But what would be a safe one to explain?
Anger.
He didn’t like how much he wanted to let you know that specific color. He wasn’t the type of person that liked installing fear in people…but…every time you shrunk under his gaze…it felt so good. He felt powerful. In control.
“For intense anger, tha’s violet. And then…yellow is disgust. Together they mean I’m horrified. Which isn’t quite angry but isn’t quite disgusted either. Make sense?” He asked. And agian you looked a little concerned. Smaller, more worried.
Scared.
If all his owners had been like you…no.
No he wouldn’t go down that road. He wouldn’t let what happened to him take away his empathy. He needed to stop being so threatening towards you. A little bit was fine but too much and then he was being a jerk. He shook himself and pushed his less than pleasant thoughts to the back of his mind.
“U-uh y-your turn?” You asked wearily. Grillby nodded and again he thought about how refreshing it was to make someone so brash and loud so…quiet, submissive. He cleared his throat “I believe so, letme think…”
Grillby thought about what he wanted to ask, however, not a lot came to mind. He wasn’t typically a conversational person so this was a bit of a challenge.
You asking about his colors were a given. Being human it made sense why you were curious about that sort of thing. But Grillby didn’t have the same fascination with humans. Most were the same or similar with only a few exceptions, you being one of them.
But there wasn’t much about you that really intrigued him. When it came to your appearance he didn’t have many questions of his own. And if he did they could be easily answered by simply analyzing you. You looked like any other human. Of course you had features unique to yourself but even these features didn’t stand out to him. Your hair was dyed purple and faded into your long black locks. You had harsher highlights in your bangs of the same hue and your straight, yet still messy, hair had hair that was tufted up to look like horns. However he didn’t know if that was on purpose or not.
Your skin was golden brown with three darker brown dotted birthmarks under each of your eyes. Your eyes were a simple green and that was about it. He supposed that your body was what most humans would call “desirable” seeing as you seemed to have the popular female body type that he had spotted in human magazines. This didn’t really interest him though.
It wasn’t because he didn’t think you were pretty. You were. It just didn’t really matter. He had no interest in courting you, he shuttered that the thought had even crossed his mind, and he certainly wasn’t impressed with your personality. You were nice, but to such a shallow degree that he couldn’t really say much. Monsters just weren’t wired the same way that humans were. When it came to the physical appearance, monsters could see and identify that someone was beautiful or gorgeous but that wasn’t what mattered.
The inside really did count more then the outside in monster society.
And so far, he was not at all interested in your inside. He wouldn’t ignore your kindness or the pain that you had clearly gone through in your past. But he also couldn’t ignore your shallow soul and how little morality you had. You were good, but even that was a loose description. After all, the only reason you were letting him stay here was because he reminded you of your father. It wasn’t due to sympathy.
That's when a question hit him. Your soul, upside down and green. It being upside down was what intrigued him. Currently that was the only thing he could think of. And the only thing that was of interest to him.
“Your soul, why’s it upside down?” He asked calmly.
He watched your entire body go even more rigid than it already was. You looked mortified. And curiously of all? Not confused…Grillby had been sure he would have to explain himself and further educate you on the differences between monsters and humans. But it seemed no explanation was needed.
“I-i my soul? Well uhm…” you trailed off and looked very deep in thought.
You also looked like you were trying to come up with a lie.
Grillby stayed quiet as you attempted to gather your thoughts. To come up with a believable story that would sway him over to believe every word you said. But Grillby had gotten very skilled at reading human faces. It was harder then reading the emotions of fellow fire monsters since Grillby had grown up with the habit of communicating in the language of flames. Regconizing color changes and temperature as well as dimness was the way his people used to communicate…with Heats being very young during the war and Fuku being born in the underground that old language had been lost.
Sans had been the first monster he had met in the underground that had wanted to learn his language. It had been strange, Grillby up until then had always seen Sans as lazy and unreliable. That moment at the bar, when he had told Sans the
nature of his color changing body. That moment had been the first time Sans had asked someone to teach him something.
And from then on, Sans had become the only monster in the entire underground ware he didn’t need to write in a notepad to talk to.
Speaking of which Grillby really wished he had one of those right then. He really only ever spoke when he needed to and honestly. He really did hate talking. It wasn’t a skill that flame elementals naturally had. He had needed to be taught how in school. Mostly how to use magic to translate their thoughts into verbal speech.
It tended to take up a lot of magic to do so and personally left Grillby tired and drained while it seemed to only energize his younger brother. Heats was strange like that. Loud rather than quiet like the rest of their species.
Returning his attention to your scheming, getting-ready-to-lie face, he noted that like heats you were also odd. You too had one thing that set you apart from the rest of your race. Your soul.
You finally looked ready and confident in the lie you were preparing to tell him. Grillby decided that there wasn’t any harm in humoring you, besides, he was curious to see just how good of a liar you were. It would be good data for the future.
“Well you see, some humans have upside down souls which means that pretty much we can’t have baby’s. Or uh produce them if your a guy. Well maybe produce isn’t the right word cuz I mean that’s the girls job but the guy, ya know, fertilizes the egg so- ya hehe I’ve had a lot of miscarges cuz of…my soul…” you sounded sader towards the end of your ramble. Odd, Grillby had been preparing for a fully bold faced lie.
Instead he had gotten a half truth. He just wasn’t sure what was true or false. The thing about being infertile had seemed to be true. But how much of that was connected to your soul? Also…you had said it as if all humans knew about souls.
They didn’t. Grillby had never heard a human even mention that crucial difference between monsters and humans. And if they had? It had been worded as “they have different hearts then us, which is how we sealed them underground before.”
Humans didn’t know that Hearts and souls were two very different things.
So how on earth did you know that? And why hadn’t you referred to your soul as a heart?
Grillby was tempted to push the issue. Clearly you were hiding something. Either that or Grillby didn’t know as much about humans as he thought he did. But he was sure, even in just seven years, that he knew everything he needed to know about your race.
Even so, he decided to remain suspicious but not insist on the matter.
“M-my turn!” You yelped hurriedly, trying to change the topic.
***
That had been SUCH A good save. And a believable one too, there had been absolutely no holes in what you had just told the man in front of you.
You were quick to change the topic anyway. Deciding to pull his attention away from your strange, and very obviously human-monster hybrid, soul.
“Soooo” you started trying desperately to not cower so much underneath his gaze “how were uh the other people that-“
“Bad.” Grillby stated. A flash of yellow made you tilt your head. And that was soon followed by white as his head drifted off to the side and away from you. Something about him changed in that moment. You couldn’t quite place it but he didn’t seem as big or tough anymore. He looked waaaayyyy less scary.
But…you weren’t sure how happy you should be about that. He looked like he was sick and wanted to hurle. Yellow gathered in his face as most of his body became a dim white. He leaned back and his posture slumped as he closed his eyes tightly and dig his claws into the counter behind him.
“G-Grillby?” You asked gently, reaching out a hand to touch his arm. You hadn’t expected such a simple question to get such a reaction out of him. If Yellow ment he was disgusted then…white, well it obviously meant fear-
He flinched.
His arm flinched away from your hand as he stared down at you with a look of pure terror. It made you flinch your hand away from him. Your eyes went wide as his body was completely covered in white flames. You could just barely make out his eyes. now they blended in with the rest of his body.
“Hay, I’m sorry I, I didn’t mean to…” your voice was quiet and you kinda felt like you were talking to an injured animal now. You weren’t sure…but you were pretty sure he was staring you down. You had subconsciously gone to touch him again he, very harshly, grabed your wrist. Violet tiping his fingers. Despite this, his hand was shaking.
“I’m done.” He said, his voice quivering a little. you fearfully shrinked away from him.
“I-I’m sorry….” You whispered this time. Grillby was begging to turn Orange and red again but the white and violet never quite left his body. He stared at you with an unreadable expression before he loosened his grip. He let out a sigh and shook his head “don’t bring it up again.” He ordered and you noded obediently.
That’s when you notice the time displayed on the oven. You needed to leave for work soon. But you had yet to have lunch. You very quietly went to start making yourself some lunch, figuring Grillby wasn’t up for it. You just had to try and play 20 questions- the hell. That was a game to get to know people better anyway and that wasn’t your intention. You had just wanted to fill the scilence and at least become acquaintances.
You could feel him staring at you while you made two grilled cheese sandwiches. It was simple but it would get you through the day. You handed one of the plates with the sandwich on it over to him. Grillby hesitated before taking it. He bowed and then pardoned himself from the kitchen.
This would be your fourth day with the fire man. That is if you counted the first day you brought him to your house.
Four days now since the auction.
Two days since your new job.
It was such a short frame of time. But it felt like centuries had passed. You decided to finish your sandwich in the car and just get some take out. Grillby could feed himself.
Stars, you were such an idiot.
You hoped he was ok.
Notes:
HA YALL THOUGHT I WAS DEAD, YOU FOOLS I NEVER DIE! I’m just a junior in Highschool so ya know GOTTA LIKE LIVE LIFE AND STUFF- also been listening to a lot of DND lately sooooooooooo that might start to pop up in my writing- ANYWAY
THA K YOU ALL FOR THE SUPPORT AND THE KUDOS AND THE HITS. I literally can’t believe that ppl like this. Hopefully this means that if I write different stuff YIU guys will like it as well. Just a heads up- I’ll probably only write one other Undertale fanfiction after this one is done or on its way to being done- this other one will be you (or August) in the normal OG AU, and how you meet GRILLBY will be VERY different. It’s also gonna be very Slice of life so if y’all want I could honestly start on that after a few chapters of this are out- cuz like ya the OG AU fanfic won’t really have a plotttt it’s just gonna be adults adulting with ROMANCE mix in. I have no life. LOVE YOU ALL AND I HOPE YOU ENJOY LOL
Chapter 6: Finding Blackmail
Summary:
Grillby is getting impatient. He wants results and he wants them now, he needs to find those he loves. His friends and his family, maybe even just familiar faces. Anyone. It’s only been a few days, one week or so, but he’s sick of waiting. And your conversation yesterday left a bad taste in his mouth. Grillby considers himself a gentleman but when it’s comes to you, a human…you are a human, right?
Notes:
IM SO SORRY FOR BEING SO LATE TO UPDATE, I’m also sorry for the short chapter!!! I feel terrible for keeping you guys waiting. It’s just that schools was hard and stuff, it’s summer break now (I mean it’s almost over but whatever) AGIAN IM SO SORRY, I promise I’ll be working harder to update, and if you have any suggestions let me know. Agian sorry and I’ll try to do better! Enjoy this chapter.
Chapter Text
Grillby was not ok.
Your question had opened up the floodgates of his memories. Specifically memories he had been trying to suppress. He had humored you because he had appreciated the attempt to get to know him but…he should have known better.
He sat. Quiet and shaking, in the guest bedroom located in the basement. He was sitting on the bed. Hunched over with his elbows on his knees as he pressed his hands to his forehead. He was white. Dim and low.
His body crackled weakly as his body refused to still. He was terrified. But at least you weren’t here to see that.
Intrusive thoughts clouded his mind in quick lighting strikes.
He could feel it. Hands on him. Around his throat. His hands, his arms. He couldn’t say no because fighting this. Fighting what his master wanted was not allowed. He was a tool, a plaything. Something that could be used. He wasn’t a person. He wasn’t anything except what his master wanted him to be.
Grillby gasped as he grabbed at his throat. He shook his head “no..please…” he whimpered quitely.
He felt the damned collar round his neck. He pulled at it subconsciously which resulted in an electric zap that made Grillby seeth with pain. He curled over further and shook his head, trying to bite back against the pain he felt. He needed to get out, he needed fresh air. Something. But…he knew he couldn’t. He was stolen goods which ment his movement was limited if not restrained.
No. What he needed to do was try to find Fuku or Heats, and…maybe even the Skeleton brothers. Oh Sans, Grilbby hoped he was ok. He also hoped that him and Papyrus hadn’t been separated but there was no telling what weird sickos were out there. And…what they would do to precious Pappy. Sans could handle it..maybe…but even Grillby knew that Sans wasn’t all he was cracked up to be.
He needed to start looking for leads. This was the entire reason he had argued with you to let him stay. To look for those he cared for. But the only way to do that was if he played nice with you. He needed to earn your trust and then use it.
Grillby admitted that the idea didn’t sit right with him but…on one hand humans used him to betray other monsters all the time. So really, what did it matter? It's not like you were loyal to your race or anything. That fact had been made abundantly clear.
Finally coming to a decision Grillby went back upstairs to do some more cleaning so he could think. Deciding that the garage still needed some sprucing up. he walked across the living room threshold and to the door that led into the garage. This would also be a good time to do some snooping. And if you had anything to hide it would either be in the garage or your bedroom.
However, Grillby was a gentleman no matter his circumstances. He would start with the garage and then do some light snooping in your bedroom later. You would be out for work for a couple of hours. That was plenty of time to find ways to win you over. After that, he could get you to help him find leads to where his family and friends were. Even if it was just one monster…at least it would be something to look for.
As he stepped into the garage his eyes scanned over the space. Dawn shone through the windows in the garage door. Lighting everything up in an orange hue. Grillby, stepping into the light, looked around. Going from cabinet to cabinet. Everything was outlined in a slight fuzz that made it only a little harder to see things far away. Reading was fine and he could still make things out but that TV static lightly draped itself over everything his eyes landed on. He knew his papers said something about him needing glasses, which he could have told you himself. But he was an animal in the eyes of the human government, and it wasn’t like he was gonna be driving anywhere anytime soon. He did miss being able to actually see the edges of things. He also missed that sharp crisp look that everything gained when he put his glasses on but…well there was nothing that could be done.
Besides, it didn’t matter. Not unless he was going to be driving. It didn’t matter. He could still see, just not as well. He would be fine. Besides, that’s was one less thing that you needed to know about him. His physical issues were of no concern to you. He would get on just fine as he was.
Running his fingers over the labeled Cabinets he came to one that read “Family junk” that seemed like a good and fair bet. He opened it and just as he suspected there was a photo album, some photos by themselves and...a diary.
Grillby frowned. He did go for the Diary first but found that the cover and the inside…Were all written in French. He sighed. Of course. It couldn’t be that easy, could it? It just had to be complicated. Grillby flipped through the little book anyway to see if you got lazy at one point…but to no avail. Of course not. French was your first language so why would you get lazy. Shaking his head and letting out an annoyed huff he placed the diary back in the cabinet.
Eyes trailing onto the photo album Grillby reached over and grabbed it. Even if it was only pictures. It would tell him something. Really, even if it was just your favorite food, that would be fine. He just wanted to find something of value among your belongings.
Anything he could use really that would get you on his side. That’s all he wanted, even just small info like that would help greatly in convincing you to risk a little more.
He opened the album and inspected the first page. Anything written down was done so in cursive French. Which meant all the info he would get would be from looking at pictures.
Grillby focused on the first polaroid that he saw. It was a picture of a woman with brown skin much like yours. Her hair was short and dark brown rather than black but she had the same green eyes as you, they seemed to twinkle at him from the picture. She was clearly in Paris. The Eiffel Tower lit up like a Christmas tree behind her. The golden lights from the city below illuminateing her in a golden glow.
The woman wore a black and white striped shirt with the sleeves stopping in the middle of her forearm. She seemed to be wearing a puffy pink skirt to go with it as well along with a Matching pink scarf around her neck.
Looking to the next page he saw the same human woman. This time she was in the middle of drinking some tea. She was looking up over her cup at the photographer and looked like a deer caught in headlights. A light red dusted her brown cheeks while her elbows were propped up on the white table. Next to her there was a large window ware Grillby could see other patrons ordering food. But thats not what caught his eye.
In the reflection of the window next to the women, he swore that the photographer looked…monstrous. As in, he looked like a monster. The photographer was wearing a suit that reminded Grillby of his old bartender uniform. Come to think of it, Grillby squinted trying to make out more details regarding the monster. He looked specificity for the coller that he wore now. But…
There was no green light that reflected, no red light either. Nothing. Not even a silver shine.
Grillby flipped to the next page but it was just that same human woman again. In various settings and poses. Some she was purposely poseing for while others looked like she had been caught by surprise.
Finally one picture caught his eye. It was of the same woman. She was crying now with a smile on her face as she looked down to ware her hand was being held. A gold band was on her finger. But that wasn’t what made Grillby do a double take.
The hand that was holding hers.
Was literally pitch black. Like a shadow.
Like Augusts hair…
Grillby was stunned for a minute. And, very slowly he started flipping through the pages. His eyes started to see that same familiar pitch black hand a lot more. But there was only one photo ware he saw the man- no- monsters face.
The monster's wife, Grillby could only assume that's what she was, had clearly stolen his camera and taken a picture of him without him knowing. The picture wasn’t nearly as good or professional as the others but it was enough to see the monster fully.
Now he wore a long green coat rather then a suit. He was holding a little bundle in his arms. Cradling it gently, like a child. The monster in question was a Shadow monster. His skin was pitch black all over except for two bright violet eyes that were peering down at the bundle in his arms. And he looked awfully similar to himself.
You remind me of my Dad, ok?!
His child. Grillby thought with surprise. Their child. Grillbys mind immediately went back to when he had confronted you about your soul. It couldn’t be. That wasn’t possible.
No. There was no way. If you were…what Grillby thought you were…then why did you act so…Human? So disconnected from monsters? Grillby refused to believe it. It disgusted him down to his soul at even the thought. He didn’t want to accept it. It would just make him even more annoyed at you then he already was.
Grillby decided that he was done snooping for the day, maybe he would come back to that album later. But for right now? It was too much.
Taking in a deep breath the fire monster placed the album right where he had found it. But he didn’t take his hand away, if someone came into your house snooping around like he had just done…
If he was right then you were in just as much danger as he was of being found out. He didn’t know how you had managed to fool everyone else for so long being so careless.
He took the album and made his way out of the garage and back into the house. He took this as an excuse to go into your room and lay the book on your bedsheets. Which were green, fitting. He looked around your room briefly as he backed away from your bed, he noticed a few of your clothes on the floor and decided there was no harm in doing some laundry. As he knelt down to pick up your clothes he spotted a black feather underneath your bed.
He froze.
Grillby slowly looked around your room. Eyeing every corner and space that could possibly hold a bird cage. There was none. Your window seat was clear of any bird cages as well and the window itself was closed. Slowly, the fire monster leaned forward on his knees and reached under your bed to grab the black feather.
It was as real and soft to the touch as a plush carpet.
Immediately, a thousand ideas came to his mind. He knew what this meant, he had dirt on you. Dirt he could use.
But…was he really going to go that far?
Heats…Fuku…Sans…Papyrus…and so many others.
If it meant he would get even just a bit closer to freeing any of them then…yes, he would go that far.
Now he would just have to wait. But Grillby was good at that, he'd make you a nice dinner, butter you up and then casually tell you he knew your secret. After that? Make a deal and start making progress.
——————————————————————————
You groaned as you made it to the door. Your body ached. Your legs hurt, you wanted to just die and get reincarnated as a…well you didn’t know what but something that would get you out of this absolute pain you were feeling. The clients today had been…rough, you prayed this wouldn’t be a habit.
There had been one guy though, not Robin. Someone else. He was around your same height and somehow he was still stronger than you. And so far…he was proving to be your most popular client. Or rather, you took his fancy. Personally, you didn’t mind. When it came to pleasing you he was fine. Just a bit rougher than You would have liked. But hay, sex was sex and money was money. You were getting two things that you needed. So who were you to complain?
As you made it to the front door you sighed and pressed your forehead to the door before you inevitability opened it. You just needed a breather, some good food, and to sit down. You rubbed your thighs together as the door swung open. Not careing at all to hide your discomfort. You didn’t even pause when you smelled the delicious aroma coming from the kitchen, just barely seeing Grillby from ware he was at the island.
You walked past the kitchen and to your room. You closed the door behind you and flopped onto the bed. The Mattress bounced a bit as your body settled and you were just gonna pass out there and then-
Thump
You immediately sat up when you heard something fall to the ground. You sat up on the bed and looked over to see…your family photo album. But, how did it get-
Your heart sank.
Grillby.
Markiza (Guest) on Chapter 2 Tue 01 Mar 2022 05:19PM UTC
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NelCore on Chapter 2 Tue 01 Mar 2022 11:05PM UTC
Last Edited Wed 02 Mar 2022 04:15AM UTC
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Klahoma (Guest) on Chapter 2 Wed 02 Mar 2022 04:13AM UTC
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NelCore on Chapter 2 Wed 02 Mar 2022 04:14AM UTC
Last Edited Wed 02 Mar 2022 04:15AM UTC
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Markiza (Guest) on Chapter 3 Fri 04 Mar 2022 06:46AM UTC
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NelCore on Chapter 3 Fri 04 Mar 2022 05:12PM UTC
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Markiza (Guest) on Chapter 4 Fri 04 Mar 2022 07:20PM UTC
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NelCore on Chapter 4 Sat 05 Mar 2022 12:26AM UTC
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CoudyPancakec on Chapter 4 Tue 15 Mar 2022 11:04AM UTC
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NelCore on Chapter 4 Fri 18 Mar 2022 09:30PM UTC
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Klahoma (Guest) on Chapter 5 Mon 28 Mar 2022 06:06PM UTC
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NelCore on Chapter 5 Mon 28 Mar 2022 08:50PM UTC
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Markiza (Guest) on Chapter 6 Sat 16 Jul 2022 08:18AM UTC
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NelCore on Chapter 6 Sat 16 Jul 2022 11:58AM UTC
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