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Grillby’s eyes opened slowly as the sound of quiet crying reached him and pulled him from sleep. It took a few moments for the fire monster to truly wake up and register that it was their young daughter, Tempus, who was the source of the crying. Even when she was truly distressed, his little ember wasn’t turning out to be a very loud crier.
He felt Sans groan next to him as he started to wake up as well, starting to get up to see what she needed, and gently pushed him back down. “Go back to sleep, I got her.” He murmured, smiling as his husband let his arms fold back under him and give a sleepy ‘thanks’, already back asleep before Grillby could completely get out of the bed. Despite Tempus having been born two months ago, Sans was slow to recover from the ordeal of both carrying her those last few months and the subsequent birth. He needed all the rest he could get.
Despite being tired, Grillby wasted no time in walking over to the nursery, the cries having slowly picked up in volume the closer he got but still being relatively quiet compared to other very young infants he’d been around. He still got a funny tickle in his Soul whenever he saw the blue light coming from the crib, coming from her. Her light, her flame, was the visual evidence, the undeniable proof, that little Tempus was his just as much as she was Sans’s.
“Hey…” He murmured, once he reached the crib. “What’s all the fuss about tonight, hmm?” The fire monster kept his voice soft, smiling once more when she quieted at little at the sound of his voice. He didn’t think he’d ever get tired of that.
“Did you just want to make daddy get up?” Grillby joked quietly as he bent down, hands gently scooping her up. She was still so small she could practically fit into both of his hands, tiny white pin pricks of light in her eye sockets staring up at him, two tiny liquidy soot tracks lining down her skull from her crying. Thumbing away the soot, another marker that showed she was his, he cradled her and went to sit in the rocking chair in the room. His touch gentle, Grillby began to check her tiny body to find the reason she’d woken up. Her diaper wasn’t soiled, her cry hadn’t been her hungry cry, she didn’t seem afraid and yet… She seemed to press into the warmth of his hands. Tiny hands balled up into fists and tucked close to her body, her legs making small kicking motions in patterns that Grillby could vaguely recall feeling from within Sans when he’d still been pregnant with her.
Her cries settled completely into silence as he pressed her close to his chest where he was his warmest, letting his hands warm up a bit as well instead of keeping the lower, more room temperature, he usually did. Tempus gave a small sigh as she relaxed into his hold and her eye lids drooping, and Grillby chuckled softly as his Soul felt near full to bursting with love for his daughter. “You only wanted to be held, hm my little ember? Well… daddy can manage that. Let’s let mommy get some rest, shall we?”
Grillby didn’t think he’d ever get tired of watching Tempus.