BEEEE! BEEEE! BEEEE! BEEEE!

The loud, obnoxious beeping of the alarm clock roused Sans from his comfortable slumber. Ever since coming to the surface, Frisk's powers to RESET had been lost, finally granting the skeleton night after night of undisturbed sleep. Now that he finally realized he can now move forward rather than back, nightmares had become a thing of the past.

That being said, the alarm's constant beeping made him more irritable than anything else that he wasn't able to fall back into a blissful rest, one he had craved desperately back Underground. Stupid alarm. Stupid job. Stupid wallet.

Though if he was being honest with himself, Sans was just as stupid for being so forgetful. As an adult, he knew he had to be more responsible, especially considering he was practically the only role model Papyrus had when they were younger. How Papyrus turned out to be what Sans was supposed to be and not the other way around, the older brother still didn't understand.

Blinking his sockets open, still heavy with sleep, Sans looked at the clock to check the time, groaning softly as it read 3:30 AM. Papyrus must have set it way early to ensure the smaller skeleton got up and ready in time to start his first day working off what he owed Muffet. But really, three in the morning? Sans could easily get ready and arrive on time in fifteen minutes!

He knew he shouldn't, he really shouldn't, but that snooze button was looking so tempting. Papyrus made sure to drill into his head not to hit that button under any circumstances. Then again... he will be woken up again after an hour by the alarm, and that'll still give him more than enough time to get ready for work.

Sans had made up his mind. With a tired smile, he pressed the snooze button, and the alarm silenced, not to go off again until 4:30. Content, the skeleton curled back up under his covers and drifted back into sleep.

"Sans! I cannot believe you! Wake up, you lazybones!"

It felt like only a few minutes went by before Sans' sockets fluttered open again, greeted by a new alarm: his brother. That didn't make sense, though. Papyrus didn't get up until six to begin getting ready for training, and he had set the alarm to go off at 4:30. Unless...

Sans' sockets widened in alarm as he rolled over to check the time, and his bones seemed to grow hollow. It was six-fifteen. He had overslept by over an hour!

"Sans, I specifically told you not to hit that snooze button!" Papyrus was scolding. "I just knew something like this would happen. And now you're late!"

"Shoot!" With uncharacteristic speed, Sans threw off the covers and teleported to his closet, scouring for his day clothes. When he found all his hangers void of shirts, shorts, and jackets, he turned on Papyrus. "What the heck happened to my clothes?"

"I told you I was going to wash them yesterday," Papyrus replied, his voice dripping with annoyance. "I told you you'd have to switch them over to the dryer when you woke up. Now they're still soaking wet in the washer."

"Well, why didn't you rotate them?"

"I'm not going to do everything for you, Sans! You have to take some kind of responsibility around here!"

Sans growled under his breath and massaged the bridge of his nasal cavity with his pointer and thumb. He wasn't upset at Papyrus - why would he? The younger skeleton did nothing wrong; if anything, he was still very helpful in the long run. Instead, he was upset at himself. First he forgets his wallet during the outing with Toriel, and now this.

"Alright, I'll just put them in the dryer now," Sans decided.

"Do that and you'll be even later," Papyrus pointed out. "That dryer takes an hour to finish, and by the time it does you'll be two and a half hours late."

"Well, what am I supposed to do," Sans shouted, his voice rising to a shrill yelp in distress, "go to work with soaking-wet clothes?"

"I have two questions for you, deary," Muffet began, her face expressionless. She gestured to Sans' attire. "Firstly, why are your clothes so wet?"

Sans shivered heavily in his clothes, heavy with water and chilled by the cold morning air. Skeletons could only feel a touch of temperature on account they didn't have any nerves, but if something was hot or cold enough they would really begin to feel it, and Sans felt like he was going to catch a cold from the frigidness seeping into his bones. "F-F-Forgot t' put my c-clothes through the d-dryer. I'll be f-fine."

"I'm not worried about you, but I am worried about the shop. With you dripping water everywhere, you may make someone slip, and when you go to serve pastries and coffee that detergent-contaminated water will act as a contaminant. You could get someone sick. Not to mention having someone soaked and dripping won't look well on my business."

Sans shuffled on the spot and averted his eyes, ashamed. He had never took any of those into consideration, and now by not doing something as simple as putting his clothes through the dryer he could just put Muffet's business in jeopardy. Some first impression he made.

"Worry not, I have extra clothes in the back you can wear," Muffet assured him, not sounding angry, but not sounding sympathetic either. "Secondly, why have you arrived nearly two hours late? I thought I had made it perfectly clear you were to arrive at 5 o' clock sharp to start working."

"I, uh... overslept," Sans confessed shamefully.

The spider monster let out a soft sigh, shaking her head. "If you wish to work off the food you ate here yesterday you're going to have to be more punctual and professional. I know you're not used to getting up early to work, so I'll let this slide. But if this happens again I'm afraid you're going to have to expect consequences."

Sans nodded in understanding, unable to look Muffet in the eye, yet still feeling entirely grateful for her kindness. After this fiasco, he was going to be sure to do things right tomorrow morning.

"Now, let's get you changed out." Muffet gestured with an arm for Sans to follow into a small office connected to the kitchen, wincing as his dripping socks squelched under each footstep, further soaking his sneakers.

The spider monster opened a file cabinet and pulled out a dark purple set of work clothes, which sported lavender web markings on the chest and ends of the sleeves. Sans gratefully took the formal attire and made his way into the men's bathroom to change out. Moments later, he stepped out sporting the work clothes, and he couldn't help a burst of confidence upon feeling so professional.

"Oh, how charming!" Muffet smiled, clapping her hands together in delight. "Purple looks just as good on you as blue does. Now, we must finish getting ready to open at seven - only ten minutes from now. I'll need you to sweep the spider webs away from the walls and furniture, as well as sanitize the tables and chairs."

Sans blinked in surprise. "But aren't spider webs, like, your thing?"

"Alas," Muffet sighed, "webs are but another physical contaminant, and we wouldn't want customers to get caught in them."

Sans nodded with a grin. "Don't worry, I'll get right on it. I'll spin up a Sans-ational dining room for ya."

Muffet cupped a hand over her mouth to giggle into it. "Very well. I await your completion."

The spider monster left Sans to work on the dining room, but not before giving him a feather duster and a red sanitation bucket and rag. The skeleton made his way back into the dining room and went straight to work. However, after dusting away cobwebs and wiping down tables and chairs for about five minutes his desire to go back to sleep manifested into fatigue. He decided to take a quick break - after all, they are legally required - before resuming his work.

Before long, Muffet walked back into the dining room, heading for the front door to flip the sign from closed to open and unlock it, and she stopped and looked around with a gasp of disbelief. She spotted Sans reclined in one of the chairs on the far end of the room, and she narrowed her eyes as she approached him. "What, pray tell, are you doing?"

"Takin' a break," the skeleton replied causally.

"You do know you're here to work and then sleep, right?"

"Of course. But I know for a fact that work has legally required breaks."

Muffet rolled her eyes. "Perhaps Underground your job was more flexible, but as a culinary employee you rarely have opportunity for breaks other than an hour for lunch."

"Wait, what?" Sans' sockets widened and he sat up in his seat. "Are you telling me aside from lunch we get no breaks?"

"I'm afraid not. Now get up and finish cleaning up out here so I can open."

Sans drew out a long sigh before reluctantly climbing to his feet and resuming his task. He just couldn't believe what he'd heard. No breaks! What kind of job doesn't have constant breaks? Sentry duty back in Snowdin, Hotland, and Waterfall had plenty of room for breaks, but it seemed jobs up here on the surface weren't as flexible. It seemed like working off those 5G would be a lot harder than he initially thought. How else is this job going to become even more difficult and intolerable?