Chapter Text
Sometimes, Dick thought, he doesn't quite live up to his previous namesake. For one thing, he couldn't consider himself as a morning bird; years in the circus with his parents taught him to get used to late night practices and circus shows, his stint as the Robin—a Robin?—notwithstanding. He's more than used to waking up to the moonlight, thrived in the whispers of the city as crime lurked in the shadows, and he would then follow the rhythm of only falling asleep when the dawn came up.
It hadn't been an ideal circumstance. Back when Bruce was still grappling with the idea of taking care of child, he tried to enroll Dick into the Gotham Primary school. Then, after way too many missed exams and mafia attacks later, Bruce learned his lessons and chose to put Dick into homeschooling instead.
Dick certainly wouldn't consider himself an academic person, but the system worked for him, so much so that he carried some of the knowledge he learned into adulthood. He certainly needed to give a nod to his Chemistry tutor now, because who would have thought that the AP Chemistry class he took for high school would help him solve a strings of murder in Gotham?
As Dick blinked his eyes open, he observed the trickle of light entering the bedroom, bathing the bed in warm rays of sunlight. The windows hadn't properly clicked shut, letting the cold breeze of spring, the curtain completely opened enough for him to oversee the workings in Blüdhaven—
Dick tensed up under the covers. He tried to squirm out of the bedcover, only to be stopped by a shockingly solid yet bony weight on his right thigh.
His back leaned against the headboard, he tentatively lifted the bedcover, revealing a familiar skeleton clad in his signature blue hoodie and shorts. Sans slumbered peacefully on Dick's bare thigh, releasing floating cartoon "ZZZs" to the air.
"Sans?" Dick poked the skeleton's skull, which incited the latter to wake up, the cartoon "ZZZs" replaced with a sudden exclamation mark. "You're kind of killing my thigh here. I've been awake for the past ten minutes—"
"sorry, pal." Sans apologized, though he made no move to get up. He did turn his face up toward Dick above him, his blue lights standing for his eyes flickering for a moment before steadying onto Dick's face. "you know me. getting lost in the sauce."
Dick let out a rumbling laughter, careful enough to not jostle the lying skeleton too much. Most people don't see it, but Sans' dorky ketchup puns combined with the perpetual grin are funny. They just don't see the potential like he does.
"I have no idea what you meant by that, but I'm saying that window is open and my leg is falling asleep," Dick huffed out as he tried to wriggle his leg out of Sans' grasp, to no avail. Despite being made out of only bones (and maybe something else? Sans' timeline shenanigans and physiology is not something that he tend to dwell on too much), the skeleton had a pretty good weight on him.
"heh." Finally, Sans got up from using Dick's thigh as a cushion to peer at the slightly opened window. Clearly, there could only be one culprit. "a lil' circulation won't kill anyone. and buddy? i think you need that sleep."
"It's 10 AM."
"good nap can come anytime," Sans replied. "and i'm pretty tired to the bone." he added with a visible wink.
"Working at that late night hotdog place again?" Dick asked, which is met with a shrug from the skeleton. Sometimes he wondered if the "hotdog place" is a cover for something else, though he decided against asking about it directly; he worked with Batman long enough to know that some things are not meant to be pried on, though that didn't stop him from a being nosy person all around.
"you did some night patrols too," Sans commented flatly. His expression is perpetually grinning, so the best bet Dick can get is to guess from his tone. "for three days straight even."
"Alright, alright," Dick rolled his eyes playfully, shifting his aching leg to let them down by the side of the bed. "I'm making breakfast, are you coming or not?"
"'course. i'm not against doing some... ketchup." Sans said, an odd drumming noise following the punchline.
"Hah. You're so humerus," Dick yawned out as he got up from bed, Sans following close behind with an uncannily quiet yet swift steps.
Dick has had many experiences dating literal alien women, but Sans by far is the most strange out of all of them. Not just because of his looks—no, Jason, the skeleton is not ugly, he has his own charms—but also because of his origins. Kory would talk about her planet in a sort of nostalgic way, however painful and tragic the memories be, and Dick respected that. In the end, they had different visions; Starfire belonged to the skies, and most importantly, her duty to her people, while Dick was more than content to continue lurking in the urban jungle he called home.
Sans was a far more difficult nut to crack. He expertly avoided uncomfortable conversation, not in a gruff sort of way like Dick was used to, but buried under many bone puns and whopee cushion pranks so that Dick forgot what he was asking about in the first place.
Even then, Dick was still a detective at his heart. He could gather some things from simple jokes and quips: Sans is far more intelligent than other people give him credit for; for one thing, he liked puzzles as much as he liked puns and he had a pretty good grasp of advanced physics. He had loved ones back in his home dimension, a younger brother and many other friends, but Dick never got the answers to the actually important things like where he exactly came from, why Sans always get so transfixed by sunsets, and why Sans held so much distrust against humans at first.
Dick yawned as he flipped the pancake on the pan near perfectly. His eyes flickered to his periphery to catch Sans drinking ketchup straight from the bottle, his gaze fixed on the window as the sun peeked through from the cloudy skies. For what it's worth, at least Sans is as low maintenance as he is.
After finishing his meal and washing the dishes, Dick opted to take a shower, if only to take in the few reserve hot water left. As expected out, the water heater was dead yet again. Dick had to hold in shivers as he got out of the bathroom.
"Brr. Man, I have got to tell the landlord again—" Dick paused his fretting as he caught Sans' expression, who had somehow gone pale as sheet—as much as a skeleton can be pale—and his perpetual grin had became downturned to a concerned frown. He was also holding the communicator to his (nonexistent) ear. "What's wrong?"
"it's—" Sans paused, putting on his comical grin back as he pocketed one free hand on his hoodie pocket, the other one handing the communicator off for Dick to take it. "your dad called."
Dick resisted the temptation to roll his eyes playfully. While Sans isn't a huge fan of Batman in general and vice versa, whatever it is must be serious if it got Sans to stop joking around.
"Bruce?" Dick pulled the phone away as Batman growled to the phone. It's not… an uncommon occurence, especially when Bruce is currently in the Batman suit, but this one just sounded exhausted rather than annoyed. "Okay, what's going on?"
"Bring your skeleton friend to the Watchtower," he demanded, in lieu of an explanation. "He's got a lot to explain here."
"Hold on, hold on. I think we're cutting things a bit too quickly. What do you need him for?" Dick protested.
"A child has been dropped off in the Watchtower and demolished the whole pantry in just under 2 hours," Bruce explained, which incited a furrow from Dick. Weird, maybe a cause for concern, but certainly not that urgent. "Flash and I have looked into the CPS registry and found nothing in the dabatase."
"…And what does this, uh, 'human child' have to do with Sans?" Dick asked, because alien disguising themselves as a human in the Justice League Watchtower is, unsurprisingly, a terribly common occurence.
"We were running some tests on them and found them to have traces of your friend's universe ," Bruce gritted out. "I figured he might explain some things or two."
"Right, right," Dick replied, throwing a quick glance to Sans, who is currently standing with two hands in his hoodie pockets. "We'll be there quick,Bats, promise."
Then, as the communicator turned off, Sans laid off the nonchalant grin as his eyes turned into pinpricks of lights. "they got frisk,"
"Who is Frisk?"
Sans shook his head. "you'll find out later. but it might the only chance i get to go home."