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“Hey, you still up?”
A shift of sheets and a soft crackling, almost staticky. It served as a nod in the dimly-lit bedroom. The just-warm flames were little more than a flickering orange glow under the duvet on the other side of the bed. Sans could tell Grillby was awake, so he knew any question he asked would be useless, but he liked the feeling of someone else being there with him in the bedroom. It felt too big for Sans at that moment.
“Can’t sleep either?”
“Mm,” Grillby hummed, his voice sparking to life and his natural glow radiating out to touch the walls, painting them orange. He didn’t turn to face Sans.
“Glad it isn’t just me, then.”
Sans sighed quietly, lying over the covers in one of Grillby’s too-big tee shirts. He wondered what time it was. They didn’t have a clock in their bedroom yet, it had only been a month and a half since they moved into the apartment, and only a little less than a year since monsters were freed. Humans were significantly kinder towards Monsterkind than anyone had been expecting, and an apartment complex was opened to house monsters so they could get their footing.
Sans had decided to move in with Grillby, having dated him since he was a teenager, but their relationship had remained oddly anonymous with the rest of Monsterkind. They preferred to keep potential drama quieted. Sans supposed now that secret was out, now that they shared a one-bedroom apartment with each other.
And a bed. And a life.
Damn.
Sans stared up at the ceiling and heard Grillby shift to do the same. Neither of them slept well above ground, despite their many attempts to get things to feel like home again. It had been a rough transition for both, but they were learning. Everyone was, really. It wasn’t something exclusive to Sans himself, and he briefly wondered if he was selfish for thinking that. He shrugged off the thought.
“Did you have a bad dream?” Grillby finally asked, after the heavy pause. His voice was soft with concern. Sans thought about that for a moment before answering, tiredness quieting his response.
“Not really, don’t think.”
“You don’t know?” Grillby shifted again, probably to look at Sans. Sans couldn’t tell.
“It was less of a ‘freaky-outy-everything’s-gone-to-flaming-garbage’ nightmare, and more of a realizational one, I guess.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Another pregnant pause. The sun would come up soon, the stars were beginning to fade, and the sky was a dark navy blue from outside their bedroom window. The nighttime summer breeze was cold and it rustled the spare papers scattered across the messy room. Sans guessed it was about four in the morning, but the thought was dismissed lazily from his sleep-deprived mind.
He could practically feel Grillby’s eyes boring into his skull.
“I think I was just thinking too hard or something. I don’t know.” Hearing himself say that made his soul ache a bit, just a little pulse of something it was too early to feel.
“About life?”
“Sort of,” Sans mumbled, the honesty behind his words something he’d been meaning to improve on since the start of the year. “You ever wonder what the hell you’re doing?”
Sans heard him nod.
“I get that feeling all the time. Like I’m just sorta wandering around and letting life drag me around and do whatever it wants to me, just so I’ll kinda slip through life and not really care what happens in it. But whenever I think about that, I get into stupid depression stuff, like what if I’m not actually good at anything, or what if I got all this way out of sheer dumb luck, or what if I’m just the latest failure in this universe full of failures and disappointments, and—”
He paused to breathe, and he blushed.
“…I’m just rambling about my issues again, sorry.” Sans ducked his head down a bit, glancing back at the wall opposite Grillby. “You can feel free to stop me at any time, you’ve got work today anyway.”
Another pause. The wind rustled the leaves on an olive tree near the window.
Just as Sans was about to once again break the awkward tension-filled silence, he felt Grillby reach over and take his hand. It filled his bones with warmth, and it was then that he finally turned to meet his partner’s eyes, and then that Grillby spoke with a newfound compassion and heart-tuggingly gentle demeanor.
“I don’t have work for another few hours. And I like hearing you talk, Sans.”
And he smiled, his eyes crinkling up around the edges. Damn that honesty of his. Sans had to swallow down a lump in his nonexistent throat twice over before even thinking of how to respond. His mind drew a blank, so he did what his gut told him to do instead.
And so Sans leaned in, shut his eyes, and kissed him.
“I just really love you,” Sans whispered through a cracked voice. Grillby’s smile widened just a bit, and before they could separate, he carefully pulled Sans up against his chest, arms wrapping all the way around his little body, cradling him as close as he could.
Sans could’ve drowned in that hug, then and there, but he did his best to return it and nuzzled his face in closer to hear the faint thrum of Grillby’s soul. And the night went on like that – sleepless, but soothed by nothing but each other.