Sans yawned, stretching his body and waking up from his sleep.

With a sigh, he turned to his right, where his wooden walnut colored nightstand stood, to take a look at his clock.

It was exactly 11:28 A.M.

Sans raised his eyebrows, surprised by how 'early' he had woken up on his off day.

After lying in bed for another good ten minutes, Sans finally decided to get up and start his day.

━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦━━━━

"UGH, BROTHER! WOULD YOU LOOK AT THE TIME! IT'S SO LATE IN THE MORNING!" Papyrus lectured, turning off the kitchen stove to face his older brother.

"oh paps, come on. i don't work today, so i might as well just rest up a bit. i am so bone tired." Sans scooted forward on his chair and put his head down on the table.

The tall skeleton groaned with annoyance.

"SANS, NO PUNS. YOU LITERALLY JUST WOKE UP." He forbid, serving two bowls oatmeal.

"okay, hehe." Sans chuckled lightly.

Papyrus headed over to the small breakfast table in the kitchen, a bowl on each hand, and took a seat across from Sans.

He set one bowl in front of Sans and the other in front of himself.

"BUT I DO SUPPOSE I MAY BE BEING A LITTLE INCONSIDERATE WITH YOU, CONSIDERING YOU'VE BEEN WORKING A LOT LATELY." He continued, grabbing an apple from the fruit platter at the center of the table and chopping it up into his bowl with a small knife he had previously set on the table.

Sans sat up and moved the bowl a little closer to himself, mixing it up a little with a spoon to try to get it to cool off a little more.

"ANYWAY, I'VE ARRANGED A MOVIE NIGHT FOR THE TWO OF US AND SOME OF OUR FRIENDS!" Papyrus happily informed, mixing in his apples into the oatmeal.

"huh. cool."

"AND I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, WILL ALLOW YOU TO INVITE ANYONE ELSE, IF YOU'D LIKE." He added, taking a spoonful of oatmeal info his mouth.

"oh, nice." Sans got up, heading over to the fridge and taking out the bottle of ketchup before taking a seat back at the table.

"UGH, DON'T TELL ME YOU ARE ADDING THAT TO YOUR OATMEAL." Papyrus cringed, causing Sans to smile menacingly.

"of course not, bro" he assured before proceeding to dump a load of ketchup into the oatmeal.

At that point, it wasn't oatmeal with ketchup, it was ketchup with oatmeal.

Papyrus grimaced at the sight of Sans' oatmeal.

"I... I JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU, THAT I KIND OF MISS YOU, BROTHER. I BARELY EVER SEE YOU AROUND THE HOUSE ANYMORE." Papyrus frowned, looking down at his oatmeal.

Without a word, Sans got up from his seat again and went over to his little brother to bring him in for a hug.

"i got a surprise for you." Sans smiled tenderly, getting his brother's attention.

"WHAT IS IT?" He asked curiously, letting go of Sans' hug.

"i worked out a new schedule with grillby the other day. he also thinks i've been working too much, so now i don't have to work on tuesday, wednesday, or thursday. this means that we now have more time for some good'ol brotherly bonding."

"OH MY GOD! REALLY!?" Papyrus gasped, his eye sockets bright with excitement.

Sans nodded happily, reassuring his brother of what he'd just been told.

Papyrus squealed and hugged his brother once more, picking him off the floor.

"OH THAT MAKES ME SO HAPPY TO HEAR, SANS! I CANNOT WAIT TO GET TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH YOU AND THE REST OF OUR FRIENDS!" he exclaimed.

"it makes me happy too, paps." Sans laughed, getting out of Papyrus' grip. 

"um, hey, paps. i gotta go do something, but i'll be back like at around four or five in the afternoon. i may bring someone for the movie night. is that fine with you?" Sans asked, worried he might make his brother upset.

"OH! THAT'S OKAY!" Papyrus gave Sans a thumbs up and sat back down to continue eating his oatmeal.

Sans grinned and hugged his brother one more time before going to the restroom and taking a quick shower.

━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦━━━━

It was 1:06 in the afternoon.

Sans wasn't here yet to no one's surprise.

Grillby constantly threw glances at the front door, anticipating Sans' arrival to be any time soon.

Luckily, Sans' friend didn't seem to be anywhere around either, which did provide Grillby with a great sense of relief.

Unfortunately, that relief was short lived, as that someone just so happened to step into the bar in that very moment, the door bell ringing to further rub in his unwanted presence in the establishment.

Grillby's flame began to slightly fume.

"Get yourself together Grillby, he's just his friend." He reminded himself in a small mutter, regaining composure.

Chris walked up to the bartender with a cocky smile—one which Grillby absolutely hated now after yesterday's events.

"Hey, bartender. Have you seen Sans?" Chris asked almost rudely, putting on some sunglasses.

"What an idiot. Who wears sunglasses in a building?" Grillby thought, rolling his eyes.

"No." He dully answered, his arms crossed in front of him.

Chris hummed nonchalantly and nodded, never making eye contact with Grillby and just looking around.

"Okay."

Just as Grillby was about to work up the courage to ask Chris why he was so interested in Sans, the sound of the bell rang once again, announcing the arrival of another customer.

Sans had finally come.

"There you are, Sansy." Chris greeted with open arms, approaching the skeleton.

"hey, sorry i'm late." Sans apologized, his hands inside the pockets of his iconic blue hoodie.

"You're fine, take a seat. No hard feelings at all." Chris assured, gesturing Sans to seat in the empty booth next to them.

"cool." Sans took a seat on one side of the booth, expecting Chris to sit across from him.

However, to his surprise, he was essentially shoved onto the wall by Chris, who had decided to take a seat on the same side of the booth as Sans, giving him an uncomfortably small amount of space he could move in, even for a monster of his size.

"uh... you don't wanna sit over there, pal?" Sans pointed at the empty seat in front of them.

"No. I'm perfectly comfortable here." Chris replied, manspreading on the seat and stretching comfortably, further giving Sans even less room than before.

"okay then."

"So tell me. What are some of your deepest secrets?" Chris inquired, wrapping his arm around Sans' shoulders, who quickly guided Chris' hand away from his personal space.

"number one, you're terrible at conversation starters with people you're trying to befriend. number two, could you give me some space, dude?" Sans remarked, feeling a little irritated and annoyed at the lack of space he'd been given and the intrusive question.

Chris sat up straighter, and looked down at Sans, his expression being devoid of any remorse for his impoliteness and lack of respect for the personal space of others.

He took a deep breath, and cleared his throat, leaning closer to Sans, who was at a loss of what was going on.

"You know, I'm tired of pretending. What if I just cut to the chase and asked you to let me into your life?" Chris began.

"What if I did this?"

Suddenly, something neither Sans nor Grillby had seen coming began unraveling.

Thinking that his actions would be sufficient to make the monster next to him swoon over him, Chris leaned in for a kiss.

Sans' face quickly turned blue, swiftly turning his face away from Chris' and putting his hand in between the two, creating a barrier.

....the fuck?

Grillby, who had essentially been eavesdropping throughout the entire exchange, was furious.

So furious in fact, that he felt himself lose his cool, and his bright, burning flames reached the tall ceiling, lighting the whole bar and passing a heat wave throughout the establishment.

Everyone stared.

Embarrassed, the flaming monster cleared his throat politely.

"Pardon me, I had sneeze." he lied without even realizing what he'd just said, and then went inside the kitchen to cool down.

━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦━━━━

An hour had passed since both Christopher and Sans arrived, and the bar was calm as the effects of the lunch hour wore off completely.

To Grillby's annoyance, while nearly everyone in the bar had ate and moved on with their day in other locations, Sans and Chris were still there, actively talking to each other.

It seemed that Sans had forgiven Chris' actions, but had given him an ultimatum that if he ever tried to kiss him again, there would no longer be any chance for the two to become friends.

In addition to that, Sans had managed to at least get Chris to scoot down all the way to the edge of the seat, which made a big difference given that each seat at the booth could fit up to 4 people.

Things at the moment were going well, despite the constant compliments Chris kept giving Sans, who would simply shoot them down or completely ignore them.

The two talked briefly about their interests in science, hobbies, and other surface level topics.

Surprisingly, Sans was starting to enjoy himself.

Chris was far from perfect, but over all, he seemed to be a very knowledgeable guy when it came down to many types of sciences, such as chemistry and biology.

It was rare to find someone he could talk to in scientific terms, but Chris was pretty capable of understanding, which left Sans impressed and honestly quite intrigued.

While Sans himself specialized the much more mathematical sciences, such as physics, he had always found biology to be fascinating.

Unfortunately, growing up he was never fully able to get the level of knowledge he wanted back in the underground, as information about the biology of the surface was scarce.

Scientific textbooks were a rarity, and the very few times they fell into the underground, they would become water damaged after sitting in the Waterfalls for a couple days and pages would be lost, leaving monsters with big chunks of missing information.

As a result, salvaged pieces of information were left up in the air for interpretation, and most of the time, these interpretations were never actually scientifically accurate.

Alas, in the midst of their enjoyable conversations, Sans kept being reminded of Chris' huge cons—his persistence in trying to 'win' him over and lack of consideration for his personal space.

"So, tell me. How are you so handsome?" Chris asked, slightly inebriated after drinking a couple beers.

"um.... genetics?" Sans shrugged before awkwardly shoving some fries into his mouth.

The fries were cold at this point, and many were mushy after having been left soaking in ketchup for the past hour.

Despite that, Sans found the mushiness oddly comforting, as it did remind him of Papyrus' spaghetti.

There was a minute of silence.

The two just sat there, calmly pondering to themselves.

Suddenly, that silence was broken when Chris turned his entire upper body towards Sans.

"Why are you playing hard to get?" He asked, taking Sans aback.

"what are you talking about? i thought we went over this already." Sans frowned, feeling disappointed by Chris' comment.

"Don't play stupid. I've got it all, money, knowledge, my good looks... I mean, why wouldn't you be interested? It's clear you find me interesting." Chris rambled, inching closer to Sans once again.

Sans sighed, defeated upon the realization that Chris couldn't take the hint that he wasn't interested in him like that.

"i think imma go now. excuse me." He said, waiting for Chris to move out of the way for him to be able to leave the table.

However, Chris did not budge.

His face was twisted up into a scowl, and he seemed a bit agitated.

"I'm not moving, and you're not going anywhere just yet." He firmly spoke, his voice as cold as ice.

In that moment,  Chris made another attempt to force Sans into a kiss, this time holding him down and pinning him against the wall.

Sans thrashed around under Chris' grip in an attempt to get him to let go.

His strength was terrifying, and the more he would try to get him off of him, the harder the grip became.

Sans turned away, desperate to escape from this situation that had so rapidly escalated.

This was a cruel reminder of the lack of physical strength Sans possessed.

Without free hand movement or focus, Sans was unable to use his magic, and his magical strength was the one thing that usually allowed for him to hold off a fight against his opponents.

"get off of me!" Sans exclaimed, whimpering in pain as his HP went down by a tenth.

He regretted everything in that moment.

Part of him felt ashamed—ashamed that he had essentially let this happen.

There were many red flags, and being the Royal Judge, you would think he would have been quick to make a judgement of the guy and check his stats. 

However, to Sans, that was a habit of the past he wanted to let go of, and no longer saw it necessary to judge everyone around him.

He wanted to make unbiased assumptions and believe in forgiveness, and he wanted to make new friendly connections on the surface to indulge in the fresh start he had longed for for so long.

If Frisk and Papyrus could befriend just about anyone, why couldn't he?

Why did it hurt so much to trust?

In his moments of feeling hopeless and in a state of disassociation, a bright light illuminated Sans' way back to reality.

It was something really warm, and to him, felt like a familiar embrace.

It was fire magic.

"I will not standby and tolerate this behavior in my establishment. Get away from my employee, and don't you dare to come back. You're not welcome here." Grillby hissed, looking down at Chris, who lied on the floor after receiving an attack from the enraged bartender.

"You dare use your repugnant monster magic against me?! Don't fucking do it again or you'll regret it!" Chris slowly got up, holding his burnt arm to his chest.

"Y'all disgust me." Chris growled, proceeding to spit at Grillby before leaving the bar and slamming the door shut.

Grillby's flames quickly lowered, and his menacing expression turned to worry as he hurried over to his friend.

Sans was curled up against the wall, his feet to his chest and his expression somber.

"Sans..."

Grillby slowly put a hand out to Sans, his body language asking for permission to make contact.

Sans looked up, not aware that he was trembling with adrenaline, and leaned a little closer to Grillby, who quickly brought him in for a hug.

Grillby's embrace was warm and gentle, like the feeling you get from sitting next to a fireplace wrapped around a soft, cozy blanket.

It was calming.

The bar was empty, so for a while, the two monsters just sat there in silence.

Grillby was rubbing Sans' back, further soothing him.

Sans wasn't crying, but it was clear that at some point he was struggling to hold it in due to his erratic breathing.

He did have the horrible habit of masking his emotions, and even in moments like these, his body struggled to release the tears.

He just sat there, his face flat down on the table.

━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦━━━━

A couple more minutes passed, and not a word had been spoken.

Grillby had flipped the open sign to closed, and locked the door despite it only being afternoon.

In his mind, he wanted to prioritize being there for his friend and comfort him after such a horrible experience. 

In the couple minutes of silence, Grillby had also brought a new order of fries for Sans, accompanied with a bottle of ketchup on the side.

However, the skeleton hadn't touched either of the two.

He looked thoughtful, as he still was processing what had happened over the last hour.

"Sans? Do you want me to take you home?" Grillby offered, breaking the silence.

Sans nodded, giving Grillby a small, tired smile.

"uh, grillby?" He spoke up, getting the bartender's attention.

"thanks. i really appreciate it." He said, his words of gratitude coming straight from the heart.

"No problem, Sans. Eat, please." Grillby returned a smile, gently pushing the basket of fries closer to Sans.

For a while, Sans took a few small bites on the fries, just enough to restore his HP back to normal.

"i know this question might appear out of nowhere and inappropriate to ask under these conditions, but papyrus is hosting a little movie night with some friends. wanna come?" Sans asked, wiping off his hands clean with a napkin.

"Sure, that'd be great." Grillby accepted the invitation.

"we do have to leave now though, so you might wanna change to something more comfortable." Sans suggested. 

"Oh, I'll be right back then."

Sans nodded as Grillby stood up and made his way to the back of the establishment.

Wasting no time, he took out his phone out of his pocket and notified his bother that he was on his way home.

A few minutes later, Grillby was back, fully dressed in loungewear.

He was wearing black sweatpants, a solid maroon T-shirt, and some white sneakers.

This was the first time Sans ever saw Grillby outside of formal wear.

"now that's more like my style." Sans chuckled as he got up to follow Grillby to the exit.

Grillby rolled his eyes contently, and opened the door for Sans, before closing it behind him and locking it.

The two made their way to the car and hopped in, securing a their seatbelts in place.

"y'know, in the half of a year we've been on the surface, i still haven't gotten used to the whole idea of cars and the rules that come with driving them." Sans rambled on as Grillby fixed his mirror and started the car.

"Perhaps you should give cars a try, you never know when you'll need them in the future."

"nah, who needs a car when i know my shortcuts around town."

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Edit of April 22, 2018:
I love my babies :')

Edit of July 4, 2018:
Done editing.

Edit of August 15, 2022:
Such a long chapter. It took me forever to edit it. 😭

Edit of October 19th, 2024:
Whew, this chapter had a makeover, especially with the way I had Chris interact with others. I think I'm pretty satisfied with it for now.

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