#skele!reader

Her sweet voice echoing through the mic as she sung along to the music, she’d tried to drag you into it. Her infectious excitement almost got you on stage.

But when you’d scanned the room just before saying yes to the karaoke contest, you’d clammed up. Instead using the excuse, you still had some of your drink left before she rolled her eyelights and dropped it.

She grinned at Red from her highlighted spot and his fanged maw grinned back.

“You really like her, huh?” Your voice just loud enough to be heard over the music, Red seemed to startle, entranced by your sister.

He looked at you, a friendly smile on his face, small beads of red tinted sweat appeared on his skull. He didn’t know that you knew how desperate he was to impress not only your sister, but you. Confiding in your younger sibling about how important family was to him and as you being the eldest, felt that your ‘approval’ was important.

His clawed fingers clenched around the glass, letting out a small chuckle. You felt your eyebrows pinch and his chuckle died quicker then hot coal dumped into water.

“er- uh! yer, i do, really- i do.” He thumbed at the collar of his shirt, pulling it away from his sternum then smoothing it back down, his jacket was absent; wrapped around the hips of your still singing sister. You could see his eyelights flick over your shoulder to her, incapable of pulling his gaze away for more then a second.

His brothers, cousins- you didn’t know, you’d hardly met them beyond a few encounters with dropping your sister off at Red’s home, all lingered somewhere around the club.

You noticed Noir come up to the bar to converse with Edge, who seemed to realise he’d lost his brothers attention, especially when you caught him scowling down at his elder brother before turning away.

You pulled your gaze away from his and he relaxed a fraction, a flicker of a memory of your sister surfaced.

“Opal- your eye contact is SO intense.”

You hummed, looking over at your sister as your fingers paused the braids you were making with your scarf around your head, your white skull disappearing under the silky gold fabric.

“Y’know monsters and humans get nerves over eye contact, yet you’re pinning them down like a small animal anytime you talk to them.” She leant against your dresser; half dressed for the day out you both had planned. Her phalanges tapped a rhythm against her ilium.

“Well,” guilty you searched for an excuse reason for your intense behaviour and came up short. Instead, you gnawed on your tongue, your fingers resuming the braiding.

She raised her eyebrows, a look of ‘gotcha’ triumphing her expression, “Red especially!” Her white eyelights tracked the movements of your phalanges as you worked on the braid.

That’s where you frowned, pinning your sister with a look, “you know perfectly well why I’m hard on him.” She shot you her own look and you huffed, realising you’d done exactly what she’d just accused you of.

She rolled her eyes, pushing her hip off the dresser to walk behind you, her fingers taking over the work of braiding as you watched her in the mirror. “I know, I know,” she soothed, herself mainly, you guessed, “he is trying! A-and so am I.” She stuttered out.

“Birdy-” you started.

She cut you off, “Opalll.” She near whined out, “give him a chance? He’s so sweet, he got me this necklace I’ve been eyeing the past month.” She shrugged a shoulder, gesturing to the tear drop pearl necklace hanging around her neck, resting beautifully on her sternum.

“Just, the eye contact, its pretty intense.” She added on, you snorted, rolling your eyelights playfully as she finished the first braid.

“I can’t help it.” You replied, your hand curling as you rubbed the underside of your jaw, your hand moving down to adjust the gold chain around your neck. The bright gold glinted in the warm light of your room; the offset of your warm toned jewellery compared by the silver accents your sister wore.

You both enjoyed wearing different coloured scarfs around your heads, styling the long fabric into looks to match your design, you usually chose to braid the fabric. It was trendy, joining in on hairstyling was a tad bit difficult as skeletons.

She hummed as she gathered your scarf into sections, “you don’t have to mask around them, y’know?” Her voice taking a softer tone, one that made your eye twitch uncomfortably.

“Yeah…” You sighed out, looking down at your crossed legs, tucked up and onto your stool.

You’d been shocked, yet comforted, when you’d been diagnosed as autistic. It was weird, out of your teen years and sitting by yourself in the doctor’s office as he went through the diagnoses, what it all meant, what they could do.

Your eye had twitched again when he explained that there wasn’t a ‘cure’ for it.

You weren’t sick. Or ill, or broken or-

“Hey! All done.” Your sisters cheery voice broke through your thoughts, her hands tucking in a few stray flying pieces of fabric as she finished.

You smiled at her in the mirror, fixing your shirt to pull higher up your neck, moving the braids over your shoulders and off your sensitive bones.

“Thanks birdy,” you stood, smiling down at her.

She smiled back, but the little twinkle in her eyelights had you pausing. Her smile morphed into a gremlin smirk, her arms wrapping around your torso before you could dodge her.

“Ugh, okay,” you groaned, your arms awkwardly lifting into the air as she poked her tongue up at you. You tolerated it, for the period she deemed she must ‘hug’ you, showing her love, or whatever, ugh.

Your bones prickled as she let go, “thanks,” she whispered, smoothing down your rumpled clothes as she stepped back out of your bubble.

“Hrm,” you grunted, giving her a side eye as you pulled on your shoes, “you needed it,” was all you said before you ushered her to go and get ready.

Your hand clenched around the sweating glass you were drinking from, you didn’t really like it, whatever it was. Your sister had hailed down the bartender and ordered two of the same, the music rumbling too loudly for you to catch it before he was sauntering off.

Your flat look was met by a giggle from your sister.

The same flat look that now graced your face as Red sweat beside you, looking for words to fill the gap you’d dug.

“she’s real sweet, tha kindest- an’ I mean it, girl i ‘eva met.” He surprised you by placing a hand on your forearm, your bones prickled. But for the sake of your sister, you didn’t flick his hand off.

You glanced at him out the corner of your eye, he wasn’t looking at you, his eyelights fuzzy as he gazed at your sister. “she’s ain’t scared o’ much, darin’ fer someone so small.” You hummed at that, your finger wiping away some of the condensation on the side of the glass. “her laugh is infectious, she cracks jokes better then me! even boss laughs.”

Your lips twitched up as you listened, your soul softening. You didn’t notice how he’d looked back at you, catching something you didn’t hear.

“she’s helpin’ us branch out, discover new things, explorin’ and all that. i ain’t neva met someone so bright as ‘er, she’s like a damn star.” His hand moved to your shoulder, your eyelights flicked to it as he continued, “and i’m real grateful yer given me a chance with ‘er. yer sister, she’s near everythin’ to me.”

Something ached within you, the love that poured freely from his mouth, so openly enthralled with Birdy that you could feel it.

“Red! Opal!” Your sisters voice cut into the lull of silence between you both as you absorbed his words.

She easily hopped into Red’s open arms, his hand leaving your shoulder to catch her much smaller body. His sharp teeth pressed against the top of her head, nuzzling softly.

She smiled up at him, her skull flushed from singing and the alcohol she was slamming down. She’d already made it through a handful of drinks as you nursed your first.

You looked at your sister, her head tilted to glance at you, a silent question present. You softened and slowly nodded.

She squeaked and grappled you into a hug, Red startled as did you, but he was quick to recover, his large arm wrapping around you to pull you in. The two of them embraced you as you froze, an awkward grimace of a smile on your face as you half stood half sat during their hug.

“Ohhh! You big goober!” Birdy’s voice cut over the music, she squeezed her face into yours, having pulled you down to do so. Red pressed another nuzzling kiss to her skull, his fuzzy eyelights looked to you.

You nearly jumped when his hand landed on your head, affectionately rubbing your scarf-wrapped head as Birdy continued to coo into your shared hug.

“BROTHER, WHY ARE YOU SMOTHERING YOUR DATEMATE AND HER SKELETON SIBLING?” Edge’s voice was your ticket out, squawking with embarrassment you prise yourself out of their arms.

Hopping back up onto your stool as you smooth yourself out, the shared loud laughter of Birdy and Red making your embarrassment grow. You shot her a withering glare, causing her to choke on her laugh and look away.

Even Red cowed at the look on your face, Edge merely blinked before his loud voice started again, “WELL, NOIR FOUND A BOOTH FOR AS ALL TO SIT IN, THEY EXPANDED IT SO THE REST OF US COULD ALL JOIN IN THE SAME ONE.”

Birdy clapped her hands, “perfect! Are we able to order from the table?”

Red stood from his stool, his hand loosely placed on her hip as Edge answered, “YES, THEY HAVE THIS WEIRD APP THINGY,” his voice disappeared under the music as he led your sister and Red away, all of them disappearing quickly into the sea of humans and monsters.

Without their voices or the distraction of you watching your sister, the heavy beat of the music filled your ears. The deep bass felt like it was attempting to vibrate the bones of your body away from you.

Your hands clenched around the glass, some small part of you wanted to go after them, but they didn’t ask you to come.

You were left with your dilemma, do you follow? Do you stay? Isn’t it too awkward now, trailing after them like a lost puppy, hanging onto the shirt of your sister like a lifeline in the club?

Nerves crept up on you like a shadow, keeping your rooted to the bar as if your drink was the anchor keeping you there. Watching the figure of your sister disappear into the crowd like the beam of the lighthouse fading in sea fog.

You pulled your gaze from the crowd, the prickle of anxiety dancing over your skin as you stared wide-eyed at your still not finished drink.

No one seemed to bother you for a bit, monsters and humans alike giving you a small berth of space.

Not until a figure shadowed you from the strobing lights of the club, you hadn’t noticed for a moment. Not until you tilted the glass, half considering downing it to get it over with so you could order something else, and the sweat that had gathered on the glass was hardly noticeable.

The bright lights didn’t reach you; something was blocking them. You looked over your shoulder.

Someone.

Probably one of the largest monsters you’d ever seen was standing behind you, you blinked as you recognised him, Copper. Red’s eldest cousin, you’d caught his disappearing form a few times when you’d gone to Red’s huge home. But he’d never stuck around, seemingly just walking around a corner whenever you were there.

You’d summed it up to him maybe not liking humans, or maybe you made him nervous? Your sister had reassured you that maybe he was busy, sharing a secretive look with her boyfriend as you mentioned it.

You’d dropped it after the handful of times happening, really just summing it up that he didn’t like you. His cousins, Edge, Noir, Rus had all been friendly, happy to meet you as the sister of Red’s girlfriend.

Copper stared down at you his one dark red eyelight looked to small as he did, his empty socket half lidded. It gave him a mixed expression, yet it was the first time you’d seen him so up close. The crack that trailed up from his open socket was, to put it plain, nasty. The jagged, aggressive looking hole in the top of his skull was hard to notice from your seated position, but even then, this skeleton towered over everyone in the club.

What mostly caught your gaze was the golden false jaw he had; the pointed shark-like teeth that lined it glinted almost threateningly in the shadowed light he casted.

Both large wounds made you feel sick, but you swallowed passed it, your eyelights dragging away to look him over. His large, huge, maroon jacket was unzipped, revealing the cream sweater underneath. What fascinated you was the black fur lined hoodie that framed his head like a lion’s mane. The dark fabric of his jeans stretched around the swell of his thighs.

Dear stars.

His thigh was mid-level with the bar top. You gulped silently, if you lifted your arms, you could rest your elbows against the bar top whilst you stood. Even with your tad extra height.  

He shifted, eyelight breaking away from yours as he sat down in the stool. From the panicked expressions of the bartenders, you all thought the same thing, would that hold him??

The stool creaked as he sat, sinking pathetically under his weight. He blinked, at least he looked a tad embarrassed as he avoided the now grumpy looks of the staff. His arm rested up on the tabletop, his presence added to the berth everyone already gave you, this side of the bar now basically empty.

You didn’t notice, to busy staring and blinking owlishly up at the giant skeleton.

“don’t… like your… drink?”

You flushed, his voice was sinfully deep, a baritone so many octaves below your own that he easily rivalled the bass of the music. It felt inferior to even consider the bass deep now that you had heard Coppers voice.

He quirked an eyebrow and you bit back a squeak when you realised, you’d just been staring at him and letting him watch your face grow hotter and hotter by the moment.

“Not really,” your lips pulled, an awkward smile on your face.

His shoulders seemed to relax a smidge, a tightness you hadn’t noticed in the corners of his sockets reducing slightly as you replied. “so, what… do… you like?” Each of his words seemed carefully picked, as if he was plucking each of them from a book to cut out and glue together.

It was an effort you realised, for him to talk. Something eased in you, there wasn’t a sense of overwhelming dread as you responded, you didn’t realise that the fear of saying something wrong had disappeared.

“Sweeter drinks, this one’s- ehh, a bit to hard for my taste.” He snorted at your response, his huge, clawed hand lifting to gesture the bartender over.

You blinked, “um! Do you-” fuck, you internally thought, attempting to grapple yourself enough to spit out your sentence, “Elderflower and apple!”

The bartender gave you an odd look.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Do you have anything with Elderflower and apple? V-vodka, by chance?”

She perked up as she finally caught what you were poorly attempting to pass along, “yep! Want me to mix that up for you now?”

“Yes- yes please.” You grinded out, your phalanges squeezing the glass you currently had tight.

The bartender turned to Copper, “anything for you, sir?”

He half glanced at her, “same thing.” She nodded, disappearing down the bar to start mixing them for you both.

“Oh- you don’t have to get the same thing as me!” you jumped in, fuck, you hated feeling like this. Swimming into these interactions, unknown monsters, even worse, he was a hot and unknown monster!