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Sans, for better or worse, couldn’t speak to exactly how long this had been going on. It snuck up on him, like most frightening emotions tended to do. He supposed if anybones were the type to just go for it, his bones should have bitten the bullet months ago, but something about this was different. Grillby was different.
Too intimate.
Not that the two of them were close. Not exactly, anyway, but there was a distinct shift somewhere within these last few months. Suddenly Sans found it difficult to consider Grillby a nuisance or a means to an end. This place he once frequented out of necessity had become comfortable, its patron elemental a beacon always steadfast at its head. It radiated peace. Vaguely, Sans wished for a time when he could antagonize Grillby.
Grillby whose soft light illuminated the faces of world-weary travelers, whose warmth filled the room with an unyielding feeling of home. Dexterous hands quick to fix a remedy for monsters with dripping eyes and tired bones. Sans watched this stuffy old cabin turn into something special right before his eyes. It had always been that way, of course, but Sans didn’t notice it immediately. Grillby’s wasn’t like his dingy old hotdog stand. Grillby’s was a place that could provide healing to monsters who needed it most. Grillby himself perfected the art.
Sans lifted his head at the thought, eyes crossing the empty bar to see him there polishing a set of glasses in the low light. He did this with such care that Sans rounded on his thoughts. Grillby was a healer. That much was certain.
But even if he wasn’t the traditional sort of healer, Grillby’s mission was nobler than some. His compassion seemed to have no bias. The kind of guy who allowed his light to cast over every monster who entered. Even the ones who had nobody. Every monster who was welcome at Grillby’s was safe at Grillby’s. Perhaps even ones who didn’t quite deserve to be, thought Sans bitterly, wondering for his own admittance. Maybe he also came for healing. That’d be pretty rich. A fitting plot twist for a tragic story.
He sat up fully as Grillby finished his polishing, coming near his spot at the bar to start work at the counter. Sans couldn’t help appreciating all the ways he must look like shit right now. He forced a weak smile. How many cycles had he spent pushing his luck? And how close had he come to a new outcome? He wasn't sure, yet somehow in a flurry of events so familiar, something felt pointedly different.
This was no longer a cat and mouse game of stealing condiments and napping in booths. He wasn’t running from an authority figure anymore. So why, then, did he feel chased? And what thrill did he get from doing this to himself? Sans wasn’t the sort to tempt the bee for his honey, too averse to the sting, but more and more he felt inclined to risk it. His bony fingers inched longingly over the smooth finished counter top, Grillby’s wispy hands at work on the other side.
This engagement had caught him off guard the first time. Plenty of resets had gone by without Grillby ever offering him a kind word much less to let him stay after close. Nowadays it had become commonplace between them. Why? For what? Sans couldn’t say. It wasn’t like Grillby ever asked for help cleaning up–outright refused it in fact–but for whatever reason he wanted Sans there. Sans obliged, wanting to be there, even if it was only for 40 minutes of comfortable silence. He tapped his finger bones on the table, halting their forward motion. The flames across from him seemed to still, too. Grillby was watching him.
Sans noted a dull ache in his bones as his soul began to flutter around his rib cage, illuminating his chest. He inched his fingers forward again, not daring to look into the bartender’s face. The warmth that filled the room seemed to grow stronger as he drew near. Wispy flames lapped at the edges of finger bones and he stopped his forward motion. They didn’t burn, not too much anyway, but something deep inside him warned not to play with fire. The flickering hand noted this, seeming to grow at his hesitation, engulfing segments of his fingers and searing soothing heat into the gaps between his bones. Sans would never have thought to describe flame as soft, but somehow that was the only word he could summon, his gaze transfixed upon the tendrils that swirled around his fingertips. Instinctively his eyes shot upward and he flinched at the sudden recollection of being watched.
What the fuck are we doing? his own face seemed to ask, feeling suddenly exposed under Grillby’s gaze. The bartender’s glasses reflected a glint of firelight. He remained wordless, but Sans supposed his expression was a reply. You started it, dipshit.
Did Grillby swear? Sans wasn’t sure, but he allowed it for this particular imagining. He felt deserving of it, standing at once unsteadily on the bar stool. His sense felt thick and sluggish in a sea of racing thoughts, overcome with something dipshit-adjacent. There were perhaps months of stolen glances and whispered words that might justify him in this case, but to recall them would shatter the illusion of this moment being the one where he’d stumbled in too deep. Truthfully, he’d been in too deep for a while now. Entrenched. Drowning, even. But to admit that would mean to admit his own bottomless shortcomings. Instead he took this loss and whatever insult might come with it, pawing helplessly for Grillby’s other hand to steady himself as he leaned fully over the bar.
“Grill-”
His words shattered against his teeth as Grillby crashed into him, tendrils of fire curling around his jaw and vertebrae. Grillby’s hands seemed to flicker between solid and wispy, bony fingers holding on before all at once waving through them. He latched onto Grillby’s lapels instead, as though letting go might cause him to slip back to reality, somewhere at the end of the bar dozing idly, waiting for Grillby to kick him out, waiting for–
Sans pulled away, waiting for reality to crash down upon him, but the moment didn’t fade. Instead he shuddered, vertebrae clattering, swooning hot and dazed like some lost baby bones who forgot his feet. Somehow he was still standing there atop the bar stool as his soul careened wildly around his ribs, struggling to settle. It had been real.
Oh god, it was real. Fuck.
He searched Grillby’s face, wondering how that happened. Wondering if it was okay. Wondering, against his better judgement, if he might get away with trying it again. All at once he couldn’t shake the sensation that he’d gone against himself. He fucked up. Made a choice he wouldn’t be able to go back on. He made it real this time–if not for Grillby, then for himself. Sans froze at this, stifling a horrified sound.
Even if the world started over, there was no resetting this.