Panic At The Heart-Throbbing Christmas Party

(Ab)normal Days

This party was a mistake.

Sans had told himself that a lot over the past few hours, but he sincerely meant it now. The skeleton rubbed his temples in annoyance, trying desperately to drown out Fell and Geno's offkey drunken rendition of Sense, Sensibility. The karaoke had begun an hour ago, and it was a nightmare. He thought things wouldn't get any worse after Swap had smuggled in weed donuts, but oh no. Clearly it would get worse. That's just how this party rolled.

"AN' I'VE BEEN THINKING AWKWARDLY ABOUT THINGS THAT'RE HOLY LIKE-"

Fell and Geno had gotten to the third verse when Sans decided he couldn't take any more of this. It was a miracle he didn't just send everyone home, but he didn't really trust them to get home safely with alcohol, weed, sugar, and any other fluids exchanged during this party in their systems without hurting themselves. So he just kept them here. It was like a sanctuary.

A sanctuary full of weed, eggnog, and endless suffering, but a sanctuary nonetheless.

He shook his head, shakily making his way upstairs. With a half-eaten glazed donut in one hand, a can of eggnog in the other, and a very annoyed expression on his face, Sans was quite the sight to see stumbling up the stairs. Not like any of the party's guests looked any better, but still.

He had to support himself going up the stairs. Was he really /that/ wasted? He hadn't even drank that much, but if he was feeling this dizzy he could only imagine Geno's experience walking.

Swaying more than Underswap Papyrus on New Year's Eve, Sans had to stop about three quarters up the stairs to rest against the railing. He was going to hurt like hell in the morning, that was for sure. Cursing his headache (or just general body ache), he continued walking up the stairs. He didn't think in his life he'd have enough trouble walking for a writer to spend four paragraphs on, but here he was. What a mess.

Yawning as the music downstairs still boomed in time with his throbbing head, Sans finally got to his room. He creaked the door open, blinking wearily. He finally understood the meaning of 'sleeping it off', and by great King Asgore above he wanted nothing more than to do just that.

He shut his eyes tight on instinct when flicking the light on, looking over his room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, except...

Ex...cept...

E...x....c...ep..t...

Oh no. Oh /Asgore/ no.

They were slumped in bed, but were anything but peacefully asleep. Their eyes were as bloodshot as a skeleton's eyes could get, lifelessly fixated on some point in the ceiling. The ends of their mouth looked badly cracked, which would be very painful if they were still alive.
The blankets they were propped on looked wrinkled and even a little torn. They looked damp, and the awful smell of fluid paired with that of death gave the room a generally disgusting scent.

The pillow held under their arms was damp as well, and the slackjawed look on their face gave the impression they would start drooling on it any minute. Their hands were neatly positioned to hold the pillow, but the faint traces of blood on their knuckles gave away the fact that they weren't just dozed off clutching a pillow.

As much as Sans didn't want to admit it to himself, he had to.

Swap was dead.

Sans paled as much as a skeleton could, instantly dropping everything in his hands. He rushed over to the dead skeleton's side, pawing desperately to feel any signs of life. The only response he got was a comedic slump to the side. Now is not the time, Swap.

Sans began to tremble, pulling his hand away from Swap's body. He let out a scream, but it would probably be drowned out by the music and general shenanigans going on downstairs. Speaking of, the line being sang was "I'll see you in Hell when we die", so that certainly did not help matters.
Fell and Geno appeared to be moving on to Who Are You, having worked their way through most of the Can't Maintain album, and Sans was genuinely surprised they got this far. Getting through this Christmas party, one offkey drunken karaoke rendition of an AJJ song at a time.