Chapter Text
Grillby looks at his calendar again. A month. It has been a whole month since Sans has visited his bar. This isn’t right. Something is very, very wrong. Every day he has visited his bar, it’s been like that for years. What’s changed? Well… everyone knows what’s changed. Papyrus is gone. Dead. Dusted.
Grillby raps his fingers on the counter. So where is he? Grillby has been becoming increasingly worried every day since he last visited. He had ordered a round of something heavy… and was gone. Gone… where? He isn’t.. dead… no. He can’t be. He wouldn’t… kill himself… would he?
“Hey, uh- you okay there man?” The voice breaks his thought process. Right… the bar. He has customers to cater for. He nods once and the worried customer fidgets and looks away. He sighs. This anxiety is ripping him apart. Maybe it’s time to go find Sans himself. He adjusts the cuffs on his sleeves nervously. With the loudest voice he can muster, which isn’t all that loud, even on a good day, he calls out to the bar.
“I need to close early today.”
The entire bar turns towards him, all the chatter goes silent at once. Grillby never closes early. Not for anything. Why would he now? Everyone knows. He’s worried. He’s scared. The entire bar has felt it. They nod. He watches them quickly wolf down their food and make their way out the door, some quicker than others. In a few minutes the bar is cleared, aside from the mess left behind. He can deal with that later. Right now, he needs to find Sans. He steps out of the bar.
A chilling breeze meanders through his flames, causing a bit of steam to rise and drift through the air. He looks from side to side. No sign of him. Maybe he’s just at home… he flips the ‘open’ light off and walks down the sidewalk, getting a few side-glances from the passerby. He elects to ignore them. They know why he’s out here. They just didn’t expect him out so late. He had waited, waited as long as he possibly could.
“Maybe he is just mourning.”
“He’ll be back tomorrow. He always comes back…”
“I will wait for him. He will come. He just needs some time to adjust, I am sure.”
But he didn’t. Not this time. Grillby finally reaches his house. The lights are off. It’s silent. Eerily silent. Dead silent. He shudders. That is not what he wanted at all. He knocks on the door. Silence. Not even the vaguest movement from anywhere.
But where else would he possibly be? [Dead.] Oh how he hates that small voice in the back of his mind… Grillby knows Sans has never been all that emotionally stable, but he wouldn’t… he wouldn’t off himself like that. Grillby is sure of it.
It still leaves his question unanswered… Grillby sighs and folds his arms over his chest, the flames atop his head flickering with emotion. Frustration, perhaps. He feels hopeless. He should have gone looking sooner, should have sent out a search party… he was just so scared. There is no way he can return to the bar without an answer now. He had set out, so he might as well at least get a lead before calling it a good hunt. Determination sparks in his soul, and he turns to pace through town.
He’s more than aware of the side-looks he’s receiving, most of them are a combination of pity and astonishment. He can’t think straight here.
Grillby ends up walking out of town, right into the woods. Or, at least, the path that goes through the middle of the woods. He’ll walk down the path until he thinks of something… somewhere to look. Then he’ll turn back. He nods to himself to confirm this plan and picks up the pace to a brisque, almost panicked looking stride. His head is angled downwards and his flames cast off a constant flurry of smoke and wispy warm air behind him, an experience that he’s used to now from living in the coldest place underground for several years.
He’ll admit that it isn’t very pleasant having the heat scooped right out of his body from the chilling wind, but it sure beats the cluttered cities of New Home, or the constant dripping water of Waterfall. He shudders a little at the memory of trudging through there. It had taken just about all of his Determination not to fall down in those dreaded caverns, but coming here was worth it. Meeting Sans was worth it.
Naturally, it isn’t long before Grillby comes across one of Papyrus’s puzzles. It looks worn down; it hasn’t been used for many weeks, after all. Grillby can’t help but wonder if it even does its job properly anymore. It’s… sad. Papyrus made a big deal out of calibrating these things every day, and now they’re practically just rubble in the snow. Forcing himself to look away, he continues down the path.
He has more pressing things to worry about than the certainly dead. He needs to worry about the uncertain dead.
Through more barren puzzles, a few misshapen microwaves, and many painful memories, Grillby ponders Sans’ disappearance. No answer comes to the fire elemental, even as he comes across a strangely shaped lamp and a wooden sentry post. His legs are aching a little and he’s a bit winded, but he can’t find the mental peace to sit down and rest. He needs answers. Now. Maybe five paces ahead is a barred bridge, another Papyrus design if Grillby had to guess. The bars are comically far apart.
Instead of amusing him, the bridge makes his soul sink like a rock in his chest. As much as the memory of Papyrus hurts Grillby, he hardly knew the energetic skeleton. He knew from Sans’s banter that Papyrus isn’t a fan of his wares, which is fair enough, as not everyone enjoys heavily greasy foods and booze, so they didn’t talk much… but Sans… Sans LIVED with him.
Through the gate is a long, bare path with nothing but a few sticks littering it. The trees on either side are covered in powdery snow, their stiff pine branches blowing a little in the barren air. Grillby’s black shoes crunch in the snow as he plods on, his flames now low and dwindling a little from being constantly attacked from the breeze. It won’t take much to kindle them back to their usual snapping energy, Grillby knows, but it seems a little pointless. Why bother nursing himself back to health…? He has a business with customers that expect him to be there, sure… but if Sans is really gone…
Grillby has never been this far out past the town. He had never found the reason to. He doesn’t know what he was expecting, but a large stone door against a cave wall certainly wasn’t it. So this is the edge of the forest. Grillby finds himself just standing there, taking in the view. The stone is old and worn, but still sturdy, and the remnants of carvings can be seen. He traces a finger across one of the faded designs, feeling the frigid stone against his warm hand. He takes a few steps back, letting it tower over him, humbling him slightly. Then he looks down… the bottom of the door is piled up with large snow poffs, the largest being right at his feet.
Exhaustion settles in on him like a rock falling on his head. He feels light-headed, and the need to sit down is more than apparent. Maybe he should rest for a few minutes… he would be useless in his searching if he could hardly stand. He experimentally reaches a hand down into the snow, wondering if it had pooled around a rock or something else stable enough to sit on. He finds that his hand hardly goes down at all, and that the snow is melting around it.
Something smooth and hard has come in contact with it, and Grillby puffs a sigh of relief. But then it moves. Startled, Grillby removes his hand, clutching it back to his chest. His hand had burned a hole in the poff, though there was a rather odd looking spot that was white.. But it wasn’t melting. Grillby stares at it for a few long moments before using his hand to melt off more of the snow around it. It’s… round. How odd. He’d never seen anything like it.
Curiosity sparked, he wonders if he could pick it up. He reaches his hands down a bit further to see if he could find the bottom.. And is met with a second curve coming out from the side. His soul pace quickens. The shape is oddly familiar. Has he truly gone insane, or- could it be?
He brushes and melts off more snow, until he comes across an upside-down heart shaped cavity. “Oh my god-!” He breathes. After all this time… He begins to desperately claw snow from the poff, uncovering more and more. It is. It really is.
Blue jacket, dead looking smile- his clothes are soaked and he’s unconscious- but it’s him.
Grillby had found him.