The man that sold the house to Sans was a broad-bodied type with an awkward, pinched smile and the overanxious accidental racism he'd come to dread. Most humans weren't inherently racist against monsters, much to their discovered delight after government negotiations were made once the Underground was escaped. But if there was one thing worse than outright misery, it was little inconveniences.

Sans somehow wished it was just the typical grade of racism he had been taught to expect on the surface, with pitchforks and belittled reasoning. Something he could latch onto, like a soured leech, and justify his own awkwardness with the race. Alas, the boy was just nervous, and Sans was just an ass.

The same stutter like Alph, the awkward hunched shoulders, and the constant "Uh, not because you're a skeleton or anything!" was what defined the fresh adult when Sans saw him. And Sans knows it's not because he was a skeleton or anything. It wasn't a conversation where he felt insulted; it was more so the conversation where he just wanted the guy to consider breathing for a change.

Clearly, this retail man had never interacted with a monster before. Which is understandable. Sans was born underground; just seeing the sky alone was still jarring to him, a month and a half after they'd all escaped to the surface. 'This,' being them together in a room on the surface, was still new. Interactions were going to be stilted and all over the place. Tiptoeing around to figure out cultures and differences. This man was just too heavy on caution—too afraid of becoming a dick— that the prophecy fulfilled itself. The type of person who goes so far the opposite way that they just loop right back around to where they shouldn't be. Honest at heart, anxiously terrible in practice.

So Sans mostly tuned out the squeaks of overcompensation as he glanced up at the old-style building hovering above the two of them. Radio station, to be specific. One of the classics, with vintage poured into every brick of its architecture. Each one was spoken with age, with walls that saw the chattering of the 1900s right when radios were in their prime. Sans wasn't really a radio person—he'd fixed a few of them in his college years but didn't go out of his way to pop in for a listen. Sans would fancy a radio during a nice game of poker, feet kicked up on Grillby's bar with the sweet tantalizing taste of the bartender's family legacy on the rocks.

New Orleans, Louisiana, wasn't the best place to settle down, but prices were cheap and it was a few hours away from Mount Ebott. The building showed that. The amazing thing about older things, as Toriel—the vintage queen—would attest to, was that personality dripped from every relic of the past. On the downside, so did time.

The place was rotten with age, half of the right side completely caked in vines and overgrowth. The windows were embroidered with dust, and Sans swore there was some sort of animal stench he couldn't place. While looking a bit sad and miserable, it was functional and didn't have spores or mold. Old, but styled. Sans was fine with anything that had four walls and a roof, frankly. Anything that kept him away from Papyrus' house.

His brother really had gotten lucky. Whole empty bar for him and his boyfriend, with a second-story apartment and a small patio for a garden if he felt like it. The only downside for their living arrangement had been thin walls, which hadn't been a concern for either of them.

The concern came from Sans, the resident of the guest bedroom, who sat just next to their wall with the bed pressed up against it. And while Sans was most certainly glad that Papyrus and Grillby were compatible in all ways, he himself was not compatible with living near such ruckus.

"... functional water, heat, and electricity!" The man to his left had continued, "I, um, don't know if you really need heat—not that you don't deserve it, of course, or that I'm in the right for making any assumptions! I, uh, sorry, um—"

Probably fresh out of training or whatever real estate realtors had to endure to sell property. The worst of timing to be thrown into the business: right when monsters trampled out of the Underground in masses to demand instant surface housing. Humans had homes, but they didn't have that many free buildings for the sudden uptick of need. A rough combination.

"Kid."

The human paused, looking at Sans nervously.

"Take a breath, alright. Yer fine. As long as you don't tell me to go back Underground, I can guarantee I will not give a shit. Things go right through me, after all."

The pun didn't remove the tension from their shoulders, but it did give way to the kid awkwardly stuffing a key into the door and allowing Sans to enter. Which Sans did, easily, his slippers dragging across the checkered floor of dust and soot.

Sans felt a peak of interest climbing up within him as he was given a tour of the old, stuffy interior. The building was in oddly good shape, despite being abandoned since the 1940s. None of the walls were corroded in any way, and even with the lack of human presence for so many years, not much evidence of wildlife carried on. Almost as if, minus the nature that reclaimed lost territory, the animals kept clear of it for some unspecified reason. No bird poop, no deer shit, just an old, abandoned radio station.

The first floor came and went, with the boy awkwardly trudging up to the second with every third step missed and a stutter to his pace. If Sans wanted to scare the boy half to death, he would've teleported in front of the human to spook him. The silly desire to ease his own nerves had Sans recalling, bitterly, that the kid would tumble down the crooked flight of cantilever stairs and that Sans would have spooked him to a true death.

Sans doesn't follow the desire for a prank, and the kid pressed on to the second floor. Three rooms were neatly packed up inside, with one far down the hall in its own secluded section.

A radio room

A full broadcasting station swept the entire room in a heavy array of equipment and old technological wonders. Every other inch of this place had been wiped clean of gadgets and gizmos before being abandoned, but not this room. The only artifact left that told of this building's tale, of what had been before.

The human lingered just out the door—on the cusp of where blank tiles met colored tiles. To not tread, unwelcome, into territory he was trying to sell. Sans paid no mind to it and crept into the room as the intruder any monster was on the surface. Toward the shiny metal that beckoned him, full of all sorts of neat historical engineering his own engineering degree itched to consume.

A static made itself aware, no more than a second. A cold and wet sort of jitter that crawled up his spine in wretched pulses, up to his skull, and swept up within it like a parasite seeking warmth for the winter. It cut through him and disappeared just as fast, enough to leave Sans wavering for a moment, caught up in the wind of confusion.

Sans blinked. The human continued, and he tried to swallow the sudden bile that had built while he tuned back in. Shook off the whisper of a dizzy spell and focused on what he came there to do.

"... of course, because of the assumptions of this room being haunted, no one was willing to come in here. It's why the place eventually shut down."

"Why did they think this place was haunted?" Sans asked, because he would never be the dick of a purchaser who tuned out of the guy's speech. Never.

The human gave a forced look toward Sans. "T-The, um... it's old."

"Uh-huh." He thought back to Mettaton and Napstablook and tried not to roll his eye lights.

Sans observed the broadcast desk with one last, lazy look over his shoulder before he followed the human out of the room. A low hum of interest continuously ached at him while he was shown the roof and finished up the tour with a nice agreement neatly stapled up onto a clipboard.

Even if he felt a little bit jittery from that room, that's the extent of it. A moment of being off-putting. So there was no reason not to sign, really, when the building was a hell of a financial steal that he'd be stupid not to. It's the kind of purchase that you have to do a double take at looking at to make sure they didn't forget a zero or two at the end. The humans were all but trying to pawn this off, and Sans was ever so happy to take their garbage.

It's either that or continue to take the guest bed offer at Papyrus and Grillby's house. And he'd rather not. Sans doubted his asexual self could last another month in there.

So, Comic Sans, at thirty-one years old, signed away his name in a crooked font of his birthright to become the owner of the property about three hours after he'd seen it. There were more advantages than disadvantages, and even if the work was a bit rough, he had a solution to it to solve the filth and his desire to not have to clean.

That solution is Papyrus.

He swore, if he and Grillby weren't opening up a diner together, Papyrus would become some interior decorator or maid. Papyrus was the type of person to look at a mess and go, I can fix that. Thankfully, he doesn't have that for dating options. Sans had seen Alphys' phase in high school after Daddy issues fucked with her, and he was quite thoroughly unimpressed by the people she had gone through.

Grillby, though, Sans was satisfied with. A tall, silent wallflower who knew when to talk and how to get along with everyone. A protector and provider who'll have Papyrus as his number one priority until the end of time. And, simply put, Grillby was fun. Always got along with Sans and never overstepped boundaries. After he heard of Sans' aversion to romance or sex, he made sure to shoo away people who tried to hit on him at the bar. Tried every single plate of Papyrus' spaghetti, being the only one besides Sans to do so. That, right there, is love. If he ever proposed, fuck, Sans would be helping him sneak out ring sizes.

Either way, he wasn't surprised the two of them arrived joined at the hip to help Sans move, followed shortly by Undyne and Alphys. All of them had been warned about the type of building Sans was moving into, situated up a hill past a dirt road and a quaint little farm owned by his neighbor. An elderly woman he'd bumped into once, who became so happy to have a neighbor and immediately offered him her famous gumbo and crawfish food if he felt an urge to stop on by. And he very well might. He would have then, actually, if Papyrus wasn't privy to Sans' schemes and had an eye out for any brothers trying to sneak away from chore duty.

Papyrus looked up at the radio station-turned-home with a determined, thoughtful look. A challenge for him to pick at. Papyrus tapped his fingers against his elbows, rolled up his sleeves, and stole forward. The air was rich with mildew from a recent drizzle, and the ground was squishy, surrounding the parking lot the group had been settled within. Minus one Asgore and one Toriel. The former with kingdom duties to deal with, the latter with interpersonal issues she was chipping at. Something about a school regulation she hated, or whatever. Sans tried to follow along, but school politics were too removed from his frame of reference to even comprehend. That left a solid group of four to Sans' beck and call, who swept up into his home with brooms and mops to begin chipping away at the dust and grime that settled upon all surfaces.

Over the following four days, the group would work till their hands were sore and eyebrows were soaked with sweat. They all shacked up in a nearby bed and breakfast that had a weird fascination with serving, without fail every time, this shrimp and grits he'd never heard of in his life. For breakfast. Everyone but Papyrus loved it, who insisted up and down that no breakfast should ever be that heavy.

And on that fourth day, when the sun shimmered across the sky and the forest croaked with evening buzz, they carried the last of the furniture inside. Such a momentous occasion, it felt like. Sans, there, on the surface with his own home and life ahead of him.

The group celebrated by all going out to this fancy restaurant half an hour away, and then they dropped off Sans at his new home. Papyrus lingered, a bird now with its own nest away from the other who raised him for so long. Sans had to practically shoo Papyrus out with a broom to go finally live his own independent life he deserved. On the surface, with a loving boyfriend and brother who was always one call away.

Admittedly, getting some time to himself also sounded nice. Being able to just lay back in his own little sanctuary without the frantic events of the old lab he used to work at or having to balance three jobs. With a plush savings account, an emptier schedule, and the quiet humming of cicadas up around the forest.

Sans wanted to sit back, eat good food, nap away his days, and go stargazing. Sans wanted the break the surface promised to him, an escape from his previous existence.

There wasn't much they could do to the building itself, but the outside has been hacked mostly free of vines, and the windows were wiped clean of dust and fog. Inside was a different story, with mopped floors and organized furniture according to Papyrus' will. The architecture forced a more merged kitchen and living room for the downstairs floor, but the upstairs was more lenient with two rooms and a bathroom. A colored bathroom, according to the near-decrepit sign Undyne was all too happy to tear down.

Sans never really did get humans.

Either way, the bathroom was his now, and he threw his sock into the corner to mark his territory. Spent his first night alone on the roof, afterwards, with a can of soda balanced against his knee and a soft humming from his throat. Basking in the silence of the forest, buzzing with insects that kept a respectful distance from his home.

Somewhere below him, in another room, static bristled.

The days that followed his move-in were slow but pleasant. The country life suited him, something that had certainly caught Sans off guard.

It was a nice repetition—the kinder repetition, where Sans could mull on through his days without a single ounce of busywork in sight. He'd wake up, on his own terms, with a crooked ray of sunshine caught just between his curtains to warm his cheeks. Clambering down to the kitchen would allow for a nice cup of coffee, two if he was feeling it. Then Sans would pass the untouched radio room, climb up the ladder he bolted to the wall, and enjoy bliss. Sometimes Sans would steal his laptop up to the roof for work. Other times he'd settle onto his classic green couch and type away jokes or calculations until his bones ached.

If there was a need for groceries or a desire to dine in on one of their local restaurants, Sans traveled on across the hill through the trees, down the narrow dirt road, and into town. He usually gave a wave to Maurie—his elderly neighbor who had a chicken coop—on the way there. She was sweet, the type of overindulgent that'd ramble for two hours if you let her. There's never a shortage of baked goods in his cabinets anymore, not when his neighbor always waved him over whenever he passed and practically forced him to accept them. From what Sans can tell, she had the classic empty nest situation, so he accepted her offerings and let her ramble on about her chickens or gardens.

And if she looked at him with such tenderness and babied him in ways Sans was never babied before, he ignored the fond little feeling that had him smiling wider than he was used to.

Living there was a hell of a culture shock. Sans was more used to cars stressing their wheels against easily pampered roads, not tractors that barreled down through dirt and gravel alike. People walked around in overalls or frilly dresses or suits or even scuba gear on one occasion. Some carried thick accents with their voices and dead gators on their backs if they stopped by the swamp thirty minutes down south and loved gumbo. Sans went to a local diner, and when he mentioned he'd never had it before, over half of the staff practically swarmed his table and demanded he order it. Got it on the house, too, because he needed to know what "actual food" tasted like.

New Orleans came with this sticky sort of air that seemed to cling on the worst of days. Sans was a skeleton with natural immunities other species lacked. Yet he still had to become very familiar with humans shirtless and sunburnt while they rode on down to the local pool. One time, on his way to go buy some ketchup, he saw a woman in her bra and shorts, lying across her lawn as her sprinklers drenched her. He just waved and told her a pun about irrigating, which she cackled at and cracked open a beer in his direction.

It's very much to get used to at first. The infrastructure was shit, with crooked, weird roads and not a single building with a lick of new to it. Insistent buzzing mosquitoes crowded the air, and sometimes parts of town will be closed down because some idiot managed to lead a gator up there again. Drunk driving was more normalized here, but thankfully the people aren't stupid enough to speed and drive drunk, so most accidents Sans passes by didn't involve any dents in the car. The worst he'd seen was a broken headlight. He thinks it's a bit stupid, but Sans was never in a position to convince them otherwise, so he let them go on their merry way.

And the people? Oh, the people are brutally honest.

They'd spit in the face of public decency in favor of public truth. More often than not, when a line got crowded or a tourist got a little too tacky for their preference, they'd bitch and moan. Wouldn't sit on their hands, either—would stand up and make change their own way. Sans found himself respecting it, even if the public quarrels always made him inch away. Shoulders tensed and feet hiked, ready to vanish if need be. Needbe never came, but almost always did.

That honesty never came with insults. They'd bitch about the heat or the flooding, or how there never were any basements, but it never got personal. When it got personal, it was often deserved. Some man cut in line, or a lady spit on another's shoe, or someone had made an ass of themself to the waitress. Odd to watch, admittedly. Sans was ever so used to monsters tiptoeing around one another that seeing someone easily get their shit kicked in for a slur near instantaneously was...

Refreshing, frankly. Unsettling for sure, Sans didn't have fond memories of humans with busted knuckles. He had to remind himself that the broken nose and sneered shit talk were earned through the use of vocabulary he never would touch, not solely because they were humans.

Sans learned to deal with it, much like the gators, heat, and wasps that always seemed to hunt him down.

For the most part, Sans didn't throw himself into any of the heavy lifestyles the other residents had. He mostly stuck to his house, enjoying the humming silence, and only ventured out if he needed to be near some people or needed something for his home. The solitude was nice. He worked on equations and calculations for his part-time job as a remote quantum physicist and wrote jokes and silly puns for his other part-time job of being a stand-up comedian writer. It was nice, but both gave leeway to free time. Free time that Sans didn't want to fill with binge-watching and naps alone.

Inevitably, boredom and a desire for more led him to the very room everyone else had avoided. The radio room.

Sans, for the most part, ignored it up until that point. Papyrus and Grillby seemed antsy trying to clean it, and Sans didn't have enough things to even justify using it, so he left it untouched. A little snapshot of a time before Sans, a memory he didn't want to intrude in just yet. Eventually, though, curiosity piqued, and Sans found himself sneaking away into the room to tinker around with the outdated electronics.

Other than the caked dust that's collected from the passing of time, the room seemed entirely untouched. Left to be quietly forgotten.

A quiet weight settled in the air when Sans walked in. He couldn't quite put his finger on what, but the room seemed to nearly squirm and twisted with an uncomfortable shudder. The same sort of feeling Sans got, prickling at the inside of his skull, whenever he thought about Gaster. Yet different, all at once. A different flavor of wrong.

The best way to describe it is that, when Sans opened his mouth to take in a breath, he somehow tasted lingering static.

Floorboards creaked as Sans walked forward, his hands stiff inside of his hoodie pockets as he glanced around the room. One wall was coated from head to toe in old station machines that had no chance of functioning. From what Sans knew, those were the machines that helped process the audio waves and then sent them out to be broadcast over the air. Trying to resurrect them would be a lost cause; the bulbs shattered and the boards consumed by wilt. Not that Sans minded.

No, Sans was interested in the recording part itself.

The long, filled desk at the end of the room before a vast array of windows was where Sans pivoted his attention to. The technology was old, by all accounts, with ridged edges and bulky, snapped wires. There were enough dials and switches on the board to give Sans a headache, but he tugged up the old, creaky chair anyway and took the throne of his new hobby.

In no way, shape, or form was Sans anywhere near familiar with this old type of equipment. He knew bits and pieces from modern day that he was able to plug into the older models with guesstimations, but for the most part this would all be somewhat new to him. A fun challenge. Something that Sans could fiddle with until something came of it, and pat his back for a job well done.

Might as well. It was his own home now; he did own it. If Sans wanted to gut out a historical piece and try and see if he could spurge it into something new, that was his right.

So Sans cozied down onto the peppered floor, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work.

_

Thank you to GLGlem on discord for making the scene break image!

Discord server is linked in my profile, and remember that the physical copy contest is now live on there! Or feel free to pop in and chat about it!