Tiny Raven

I was awake.

Why the actual fuck was I awake?

I woke before my alarm to calm silence and darkness.

A quick check of the time on my phone informed me that it was too early to call into any of my jobs to do a schedule check – but it was late enough that I’d sleep through the afternoon if I fell back asleep.

Balls.

I stared at my dark ceiling in frustrated resignation, angry and exhausted. My one day to sleep in, my last day to sleep in before the holiday season, and I was awake before dawn.

If there was a god I was going to find him and punch him in his stupid face.

I rubbed at my eyes as I sat up, trying to ignore the sting of overwhelmed tears.

At least I had a couple hours I could do something productive with.

The thought was less comforting than it should have been.

I couldn’t remember the time I’d checked my email.

I pulled my laptop out of my bag and flipped it open, wincing as I was blinded by the bright glow of the screen.

Once my eyes adjusted I logged into my email, wondering how many messages I’d been ignoring.

Surprisingly, the number wasn’t too bad. There were a few hundred unread emails, and most of it was completely pointless.

The bulk of it was promotional junk, sites and stores reminding me that Black Friday was coming up and – like every year – there were going to be all sorts of crazy sales.

     JUST THREE WEEKS AWAY!!

Just in case I needed a reminder about the huge sale I usually worked through that sometimes lead to people being trampled to death.

I deleted all of them without a second thought.

There were a fair number of political emails; calls to action to defend the rights of humans and monsters, local and national.

It was exhausting just looking at them.

I didn’t have the energy for activism. Or the time. Or the money.

I unsubscribed from each mailing list, guilty and too tired to really care.

And then … there was a single email from the City of Ebott Department of Monster Services.

     Regarding Your New Monster

My curiosity shifted to anxiety as I skimmed the message.

     Thank you … registering … monster … Our records … not completed a physical evaluation … required … submit proof … completed health evaluation … by … January 202X . Failure … may result … fine of $150 per day or repossession …

I read it again as panic coiled in my empty stomach.

      Thank you for registering your monster with the Ebott City Department of Monster Services (DMS)! Our records show that UDSK-ST-001S has not completed a physical evaluation in over one (1) year. This evaluation is required in order to monitor the health and wellbeing of the monster, and to provide invaluable information to researchers in the field of monster biology.

      Please submit proof of a completed health evaluation by a licensed Monster Health Practitioner by 4 January 20XX . Failure to do so may result in a penalty fine of $150 per day or repossession of the monster at your expense …

I read it again, swallowing hard against the burn of acid in my throat.

And again.

And again.

My mind kept catching on the last words, understanding but desperately wanting to have read the words wrong.

     … repossession of the monster …

All I could see was Sans’ expression the day we met. When the asshole had ordered him to not move.

When he’d been powerless to avoid being beaten into compliance.

When he’d been ordered to “Stay still and take it.”

If I didn’t take care of this, Sans would be back in that system. He’d be sold off to another jackass who didn’t give a shit about him.

And I hadn’t even known.

It was pure luck that I’d woken up early. Chance that I’d decided to go through my neglected inbox.

What if I had chosen to do laundry?

What if I’d chosen to double check my shopping list?

What if I’d done any of the other tasks in my mental queue that I could have done instead of checking my email?!

     … repossession …

I wouldn’t have known.

I turned toward my door, thoughts unraveling faster than I could keep pace with.

Had Sans known? Had he known this was a thing that needed to be done? Had he known the time limit?

He’d known about the Soul Calibration and hadn’t said anything, but that situation had been different. Sans hadn’t trusted me.

I had hoped he trusted me now.

It was possible he hadn’t known. He said he hadn’t been with any single human long, and the stack of papers in my bag was proof enough of that statement. I wasn’t sure if there were enough to justify Sans never having stayed with a human long enough … but I definitely couldn’t rule it out.

     … repossessed …

… Ten.

A year of freedom after getting out of the Underground, followed by no longer than a year with whoever first owned him, and no longer than three months after that.

Ten.

Over the last three years ten humans had owned Sans.

At least ten.

Nine of those humans had bought him, used him, and threw him out within months.

     REPOSSESSED

I forced myself to breath as the ghost of betrayal vanished under the weight of anger and sympathy. I shook my head in an attempt to pull myself out of the spiral of my thoughts, to think everything through rationally.

There were two months before I’d face any penalty. That was plenty of time to deal with the issue for any normal person.

Unfortunately, my life wasn’t exactly normal.

Still, Sans couldn’t have known how busy I was about to become. It wasn’t like I’d had a chance to tell him. My own schedule left me little time at home to relax that wasn’t spent sleeping, and Sans had been avoiding me for the last two weeks.

Since Chloe’s visit.

He’d helped me take down the blanket fort, dispelling the bones in bursts of glitter and starlight that left Chloe wide-eyed in awe. She’d demanded snuggles and movie time, so Sans had cuddled with her while I folded blankets.

While I made us all box mac and cheese I watched Sans entertain her with (mundane) magic tricks.

He was scary good at sleight of hand.

Chloe had been enamored, eagerly naming him “Magisans!” after she mispronounced “magician.”

She insisted that Sans was obviously a wizard, and had demanded to know if Sans had gone to Hogwarts and what Harry Potter was like in person.

And when Sans admitted he didn’t know what those were, she ran into the office to grab my old copy of The Philospher’s Stone and forced him to read it to her.

She had some of the most compelling puppy-dog eyes.

It was nice to see that someone else couldn’t say “no” to her.

And that was the last time I’d seen Sans for longer than ten minutes.

I fell back onto my bed with a heavy sigh.

He was avoiding me, and I had no idea why.

I picked up my phone, glad to see it was finally late enough that I could call into my jobs to make sure I had work for the week.

Once I did that I could figure out if there were any clinics we could go to, or if I’d need to find somewhere and make an appointment.

I sighed.

It was going to be a long day.

---

By the time I made myself into the living room my stomach had tied itself into anxious knots. I’d spent the better part of the  last hour rehearsing a script of what I wanted to say, hoping it would ease some of my uncertainty.

It hadn’t.

I felt like I was about to back Sans into a corner, something I hated doing. I wanted to ignore the issue entirely, push the responsibility onto Future Me like I had done so often in the past.

But then I’d looked at my schedule and remembered that today was the best – and nearly only – day I had to deal with this.

I hated The Holidays.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself and pushing my emotions into their box in the back of my mind. I could deal with them later, when things weren’t urgent.

“Hey, Sans?” I said as I entered the living room, the cheerfulness in my voice strained and false. “Got a question.”

Sans was tense, wide-socketed and bones stiff.

“ ‘Sup, buddy?”

The strain in his voice was palpable.

Glad to know we were both on edge. That didn’t bode badly at all.

“Got an email,” I said as I sat on the opposite end of the sectional, as far from him as I could get. “I’m apparently supposed to take you in for some physical evaluation or something? You know what that is?”

He stared at me for a moment as he processed my words, whatever he had for a brain apparently glitching in the attempt.

Then all the tension drained from him and he chuckled.

“Yep. What about it?”

“I didn’t know about it until this morning,” I said, annoyed at the petulance in my voice. “I didn’t know that there were penalties – legal penalties. At best I get a fine – a fine I can’t pay. At  worst you get repossessed.”

Sans nodded, his brow bone furrowed in confusion.

“There’s a time limit,” I continued, feeling my words begin  to fray as my anxiety rattled at its box. “Three months.”

Another nod.

Another confirmation that he had known.

That he understood what was at stake.

I dropped my head into m y hands  with a soft groan.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I knew I shouldn’t blame him. It was my responsibility to know what was going on. My responsibility to make sure Sans’ needs were met. I couldn’t rely on him to keep me informed on the terms of my ownership over him.

It wasn’t fair.

But …

But I was struggling, barely keeping my head above water. I had assumed he knew – he had to! I’d forced him to follow me around for weeks before getting him on the lease.

It wasn’t like I’d magically managed to get my shit together in the last two weeks.

“… Didn’t think I’d be here long enough for it to matter.”

The soft words stabbed through my core and betrayal, drowning my anxiety under a wave of heartache.

At least ten.

“That makes sense,” I said softly as I leaned back into the couch with a sigh.

There was no victory in knowing I was right.

“Wish I’d known sooner,” I continued quietly. “It’s … well … ”

… it’s November, my budget is off, and I’m not sure how to deal with this on top of everything else.

“… I’m gonna be super busy over the next couple months. Today … well, Today is … ”

… the last day I can get this done. The last day before I start working nonstop.

He couldn’t have known.

But my anxiety had finally broken free and was quickly overwhelming the detached calm I’d cultivated.

“ …T-Today … ”

I shouldn’t put this on him. It was my problem to deal with, not his. I just needed to …

Deal with it.

“Today’s the last day I can afford to take care of this.”

I was already planning on not seeing Abby and her family for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

When else would I have time to take Sans in to see a doctor?

“I’m being stupid,” I said. I angrily wiped at my stinging eyes, frustrated by tears in them. “I don’t know why I’m crying … ”

Shame. Worry. Concern.

Fear.

And that was it – I was scared. Terrified by how easily I could have not noticed the email. How easy it would have been to continue on, ignorant of the ticking time bomb and the looming deadline.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I wasn’t responsible enough to be in control of someone’s life.

I was barely able to take care of my own life!

And even if I took care of this issue, I didn’t know if there were others that Sans was aware of and wasn’t mentioning, Other things I was neglecting because I didn’t have the time to make sure I knew what was going on.

It was so simple to miss something. 

So easy to fuck everything up.

Failure was effortless.

All I needed to do was fail to get Sans to a clinic. Fail to pay the fine.

Fail to keep him safe, like I had promised.

     Repossessed.

“I – ”

My voice cracked on the word and I choked on the feelings lodged in my throat. My thoughts kept catching on that word, dragging me back into a whirlpool that I couldn’t escape.

“I … You … You want to be here, right?”

The words were out of my mouth before I could think them through, and the regret was immediate.

Of course he didn’t.

He avoided me. He went out of his way to not interact with me. Leaving rooms when I entered, not entering rooms I was in …

And that wasn’t a huge surprise – it actually made a lot of sense.

Most days I didn’t want to be around myself either.

And now that I had started I could stop thinking (“Terra?”) of all the ways everything could have gone wrong.

If I hadn’t woken up before my alarm I wouldn’t have had the extra time to go through my email. I hadn’t really been fully awake when I’d gone through it, either –  what if I had deleted the message with all the political stuff, or the promotional spam?

What if I hadn’t realized how important the email was? (“Terra.”) What if I hadn’t read it.

What if I hadn’t found out until it was too late?

This was important, and the only reason I knew about it was a series of coincidences.

I’d been leaving Sans’ safety up to luck.

My luck.

And Sans hadn’t said a word about it. (“Terra!”) He hadn’t mentioned anything at all.

He didn’t like me, which was fair. I wouldn’t really like someone who presumed they could own me like a piece of property, even if they treated me well. He was always tense when I was around, surrounded by an aura of hostility and wariness.

Like he was always ready to defend himself.

And I got it – I did the same thing.

So why did my soul  feel like it was being torn apart?

“THERESA!”

I jolted, whipping my head up to meet Sans’ eyelights.

He was half on the couch a foot from me, hands hovering over my shoulders like he’d been about to shake me but was afraid that touching would make me spiral further. His eyesockets were wide, the lights dilated with concern.

… Concern?

He’d been worried? About me?

Why?

“You with me?” he asked.

For a moment I couldn’t think of an answer, couldn’t remember how to talk.

“Breathe,” he said softly. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

He sat back and exaggerated the motions for me to follow, and the tight pain in my chest eased. He shifted away from me slowly, relocating to the curve of the couch – closer than he’d been, far enough to give me space.

“I’m okay,” I said, blushing with embarrassment. “Sorry … I’m not entirely sure what that was.”

Sans shrugged, waving off the apology.

“You’re fine,” he said. He beckoned with his hand, and the TV remote floated over to him. “I’ve been through this before, you know? They send out a bunch of reminders, and if it got too close to the deadline, I’d’ve let ya know.”

“You have telekinesis?” I asked before shaking my head. “Not important.” I closed my eyes, shutting out excess stimuli so I could focus and not freak out for no reason. Again. “If I don’t do what I’m supposed to, they’ll take you away. I won’t be able to stop them.”

I took a deep breath, willing myself to remain calm.

“I don’t know how much you know about human holidays and traditions. This time of year – November and December, ‘The Holidays’ – is really busy for most people. Especially for me, and especially this year.”

I didn’t go into specifics. Sans didn’t need to be concerned over my finances. It wouldn’t affect him, outside of me not being around.

I wouldn’t let it.

“I don’t know when I would’ve been able to find to take you before the deadline if I hadn’t found out about this today. I’m about to start working basically whenever I’m not asleep. No breaks. You probably won’t see much of me until after New Year’s.”

I would have found time, of course, but it would mean missing work.

Losing wages.

“I just … ” I swallowed hard, clenching my fists and focusing on the pain of my nails biting into my palms.

I was being stupid.

I was being selfish.

I was stuck on a question that didn’t matter.

But I needed to know.

“Do you want to be here?”

My voice cracked on the words, the question broken and desperate.

Sans was quiet for a moment before he unmuted the TV and Sir David Attenborough filled the empty air with his gentle enthusiasm about the mating habits of some kind of bird.

“Right,” I said.

Of course he wasn’t going to answer.

Or maybe that was his answer. Silence and dismissal.

Really, I’d been an idiot to expect anything else.

I already knew what I needed to know, anyway.

Sans hadn’t been keeping information from me out of spite. He hadn’t expected to stay long enough for any of this to matter. I didn’t know if he realized how busy winter was in general, but he certainly had no way of realizing how busy it was for me.

Really, it was the best I could ask for.

I opened my laptop, looking up the clinic I’d found earlier. I needed to know how far it was from my job, and the best way to get from one to the other.

“Yeah.”

I looked up at Sans, wide-eyed and confused.

“I do,” he continued, refusing to meet my stare. His eyelights were focused on the TV. “I wanna be here.”

The words eased something in my chest, making me feel light headed.

He wanted to be here.

He was going to continue to accept my help.

Maybe … Maybe I hadn’t fucked everything up.

The segment of whatever nature documentary Sans was watching ended, and he turned off the TV. He stretched and then grinned at me.

“Lemme know when it’s time to go.”

---

The waiting room of the walk-in clinic was crowded with both humans and monsters. It was sparsely furnished, plain chairs sat in groups of twos and threes beside low tables that held outdated magazines.

The chairs were taken by humans, nearly all of them focused on their phones. The monsters, in contrast, stood or sat on the floor, heads down.

The smell of lemon and bleach made my stomach turn, and I grit my teeth against the instinct to gag.

The receptionist was on the phone when I approached the counter. She gave me an apologetic smile, holding up a hand to indicate I should wait.

I nodded with a smile, silently indicating that I wasn’t in a rush.

“Yes, sir. I am certain there are no appointments available at that time. We can set you up for early Decem- Yes. Yes, I’m listening … ”

I winced sympathetically as whoever was on the other end of the line began screaming, loud enough that I could nearly make out the words.

“Sir. Sir. SIR. If you cannot – SIR. I am transferring you to my manager. They will take the matter from here. Thank you for your time, have a nice day.”

She tapped a few buttons before hanging up with a weary sigh, taking a moment to gather herself.

Then, like the phone call had never happened, she turned to me with a cheery smile.

“Hello! Do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t,” I admitted, apologetic.

Her smile twitched, but only barely.

“Um, I need to do the monster registration … checkup … thing?” I said as I fumbled my phone from my pocket to show her the email. “I can wait, but … how likely are we gonna be able to get in by five?”

“Currently the wait is around three hours,” she said, looking cautiously relieved. She glanced at her computer, checking the time. “ … So, fairly likely – assuming no emergencies between now and then. The actual examination itself is simple enough – it rarely takes longer than half an hour. … Although I don’t know the exact time for a skeleton.”

I did some quick math in my head, giving myself a four hour wait and an hour for the exam, I’d still have two hours to get to work. I needed less than half that.

“Sounds great,” I said, genuinely relieved. “What do you need from me?”

The receptionist relaxed, her customer-service smile becoming something more natural.

“I’ll need your name, phone number, home address, and the monster’s name and ID.”

She turned to her computer and began typing away while I dug through my bag for my wallet.

I glanced at Sans as I pulled my driver’s license from its slot, noting that he looked … uncomfortable. His eyelights were gone, his smile tense, and he was holding himself in a slouch that was awkward and stiff.

“You okay?” I signed quickly, not wanting to draw attention to either of us.

“Fine,” he signed back, curt and sharp.

“Your information?” the receptionist asked, pulling my attention back to her.

“Right! Sorry,” I said, holding my license out for her. I glanced back at Sans, but he wasn’t looking toward me anymore.

The rest of the interaction went smoothly. I gave my phone number – having to repeat it twice when she transposed two of the numbers. Sans gave his own name and ID, voice monotone and devoid of emotion. I raised an eyebrow at him, but he’d immediately gone back to staring at the wall, avoiding my eyes.

“You’ll need to fill out a few forms,” the receptionist said as the printer beside her whirred to life. “As I said before, the wait is around three hours, but it could be longer if there’s an emergency. Or shorter, if someone decides the wait isn’t worth it. If there’s no space in the waiting room you can wait outside. The technicians check out there as well as in here.

“If you want to go elsewhere please be aware that you’ll lose your place in line if you are not back in time.”

I nodded, understanding. It was what I had expected. I’d brought my phone, an extra battery, and a book I’d been meaning to read for a while now. I was prepared to wait.

I was just relieved that we were likely to get in at all today.

“Great. There’s a couple things I need to get for you from the back. More paperwork. I’ll be back in a moment.”

She stood and vanished through the doorway behind her.

I turned to Sans with a frown.

“Seriously, are you okay?” I asked softly. “You’re acting … weird.”

Not that I really knew what was “weird” for the skeleton, but he was obviously stressing out. Good enough for me to be concerned.

“I’m fine,” he responded, spitting the words out harshly. “It’s got nothin’ t’do with you.”

“Okay,” I said, holding my hands up in surrender. “Just … let me know if there’s anything I can do, yeah?”

I turned away, back to the receptionist desk.

And then it dawned on me.

Sans was scared.

I was an idiot for no realizing it sooner.

I didn’t know what he was afraid of, but he was acting the same way I did when I had to see a doctor. Tense, lashing out, avoidant …wanting to be anywhere else on the goddamn planet but in that office.

He was right – it didn’t have anything to do with me. There wasn’t much I could do to help.

Except …

I pulled my phone from my pocket and held it out to him.

“You can wait outside,” I said as I jerked my head toward the doors. “If that’d make you more comfortable.”

Sans glanced down at my phone and then back to me. The lights in his sockets flickered, reigniting as a dim glow.

“Seriously,” I said with a wave of my hand. “If you’d feel more comfortable out there, go. Just don’t, you know, wander into traffic or do anything stupid.”

“No pets?” Sans asked with a chuckle.

“Definitely not,” I agreed. “Remember the rules – ”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sans said with a wink. “You get to name it.”

He took my phone and started to head out of the clinic.

Only for the receptionist to return.

“Alright! I assume this is your first time doing this, so I grabbed some informational brochures.”

She took the papers from the printer tray as she spoke, tapping them into a neat pile before holding it out for me.

“They explain some of the terminology in the paperwork you might be unfamiliar with. There are also some handouts explaining the common procedures done during this sort of examination, although I don’t know how many of them would apply to a skeleton.”

“Why not?” I asked as I leafed through the papers, surprised at how many forms there were.

“Yours is the first I’ve seen – and I’ve worked here since the clinic opened, when monsters were still free! I thought I’d seen it all. The tests are for things like bloodwork and heart rate – things I assume skeletons don’t have.” She shrugged. “But I don’t want to assume. Anyway, you’re good to go. You should expect at least a three hour wait. If you’re not ready to go when the techs are, you’ll have to wait longer.”

“Thank you,” I said as I turned away, still flipping through the stack.

It was honestly the thickest set of intake forms I’d ever seen – including when I was an inpatient after … well, after.

I was only half paying attention to Sans falling into step a little behind me as I left the clinic, frowning at the paperwork.

They wanted a lot of personal information.

Like … a lot.

I stopped when a handwritten note caught my eye.

     I made a note to call when your appointment is thirty minutes out. There’s a shopping area about ten minutes north of here. It has lots of places to wait. I recommend the Roost. It’s a café above The Feather Quill bookstore. The coffee is to die for. The sandwiches are sublime.

“She must be having a terrible day,” I muttered, earning a raised brow from Sans. I shrugged and held out my hand for my phone so I could look up the bookstore in my gps app. “It’s a customer service thing. Assholes treat employees like shit. They yell and demean and demand to see the manager, while the employee is just trying to do their job.”

“Sure, happened in the Underground, too,” Sans said. “We called ‘em ‘Jerrys’.”

I snorted, “We call them ‘Karens’. Fittingly.”

“How?”

“It’s my mom’s name,” I said, distracted with trying to figure out the best route. “She’s the Queen of Karens, probably of Jerrys, too. The Empress of Asslandia, hope of the Asshats.”

Sans snorted a quiet little not-quite-laugh before frowning at me.

“How do you know her day was terrible?”

I waved at the note.

“I doubt she tells everyone she’ll give them a call before their appointment. Most people probably have to wait there or risk missing theirs. Apparently that interaction was pleasant enough to stand out. I know we’re both rays of sunshine – farting rainbows and making the world better by our very  existences – but that interaction wasn’t … special in any way. She must be having a bad day. Did that sorta thing not happen in the Underground?”

“Nah, it did,” Sans said. “I just wasn’t thinkin’.”

I smiled at him, noting that his eyelights were back. The sight settled something in my chest, and I let go of a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding on to.

We walked in silence for a bit before he laughed softly, his grin widening just a little.

He pointed at the paperwork in my hands.

“Guess you could say the interaction was noteworthy.”