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"Mom?"
A figure turned towards him, blue flames shimmering in the moonlight that filtered through his bedroom window. "Yes dear?"
The boy pouted, "when will I finally feel my soulmate? Almost everybody else in class has sensed their connection, so why not me?"
"Oh sweetie, it will happen one day. You just have to be patient..."
__________
"Do you ever worry...?"
The flame turned an eye to his second in command, brow raised in question. There was a lot to worry about in these dire times, where their entire race was perched on the edge of extinction.
The other hesitated at first, "worry about the pain we are causing our other half?"
"No."
The flat distant response startled the other, but his eyes seemed to widen as though coming to some sort of understanding. "I'm sorry General..."
"Don't be, I've never felt them and at this rate..." He turned his gaze fully to the reports in front of him. "I doubt they will ever have the chance to be born."
____________
"Fuck!" Grillby stumbled against the kitchen counter, just barely making it through the fire exit before letting the pain wash over his being. He cursed more under his breath as his flames paled and he found himself gripping his chest, over where his soul was housed. It had taken the universe 253 fucking years to grace him with this connection and this was his reward?
The flame found himself slumping to the floor, allowing his head to fall back with a thud against the cool metal behind him. Eyes closing as he rode out the pain, waiting until he could face his customers without giving anything away.
The last thing they needed to see in him was weakness. Not now, not after this long.
It only lasted a few minutes before he was able to get to his feet, schooling his flames into his mask of indifference. Absently he thought, as he strode towards the fire doors, about the fact that pain was being inflicted on an infant.
___________
Ten years. It's been ten fucking years since the pain had started and Grillby had to wonder who the fuck his soulmate was and what the hell had been happening to them almost every day.
It came to the point that the flame would feel guilty whenever he was the cause of pain. That the idea of heaping more upon a soul that seemed to exist in a constant never ending state of agony and torment... It had been almost enough some days, to drive him to look prematurely for his other half.
Until one day, it all stopped.
Grillby had been almost sure they had dusted, but for the constant ache that still lingered in his limbs and soul. All he really knew was that something had changed.
___________
"Never seen you around here before." The flame eyed the newcomer from over his tinted shades, hands absently cleaning the glass in his hands.
The other monster, a very short skeleton, sat down with a weary sigh as though he carried a heavy burden upon his shoulders. And for all Grillby knew he did, what with his ratty clothes and the heavy dark rings under his sockets. He smiled a tired grin, highlighting the rough crack that ran through his left eye and down to his upper jaw where a tooth was missing.
The injury struck him as familiar somehow but he brushed it off.
"yeah... jus moved ta town. me an my bro replacin the old sentries."
That explained it, they were some of Undyne's flunkies. Couldn't cut it in the other sectors and most likely shunted off to the farthest reaches of the underground so the captain wouldn't have to deal with them. So they were Snowdin's, and by extension Grillby's, problem now. "What can I get for ya then Runt?"
The other mearly chuckled, the sound bitter. "whas the hardest shit ya got?"
______________
"come on grillbzzzzzz..." The skeleton slurred, "yous can't cut me off yet."
"I can and I will." Grillby sighed out, fingers pinching the spaces between the eyes. He knew Sans was having a rough week, what with the chaos brought on by Papyrus's promotion to second in command. Monsters with that much power were always targets. But that didn't mean he was going to allow his friend to drink himself into an early grave with worry. "I won't hesitate to call your brother you know."
He pulled his phone from the hidden pocket on ihis coat, waving it once in front of Sans face to get his point across.
"noooooooo." Sans whined, reaching over the wooden bar counter in an attempt to snatch the phone away. "don call boss. jus give me..." The skeleton fumbled with his words, precariously balanced on the bar stool as he was it didn't take much for him to lean just a bit to far...
The stool slid backwards, wood scrapping against wood as the only thing keeping the skeleton upright was no longer there and Sans was quick to follow suite. Despite Grillby's valiant attempt to snatch the poor drunk skeleton, hand reaching out just in time to miss the flailing arms that slide from the countertop to join the rest of Sans on the bars hard wooden floors.
Sans had landed with a thud, head ringing as he groaned out in pain. "fu, kay... so mayb I'ma done fa the night."
Even in the unnaturally quiet of the bar, Grillby had barely heard Sans, focused as he was on the pain in his own jaw and the ringing in his head. He'd stumbled back in surprise, not really prepared for it or the implications that it brought with it.
He'd felt Sans pain.
"hey grillbz, a little help..." Sans voice startled the flame out of his stunned silence, willing away questions that rattled noisily within his soul. Later, he'd deal with all that later. For now he had a skeleton to help off his bar floor and brother to call.
_______
Grillby paced restlessly around his second floor apartment, mind and soul in disarray as he tried to work through the revelation of the day. It had finally happened, he'd met his soulmate in person and it turned out he had been staring him in the face the whole time. Okay really for only the past 10 years, BUT STILL! How come they'd never realized this sooner?
How come he'd never realized it sooner?
The flame should have picked up from day one, from the pain he'd once felt in his face. That feeling of his head literally splitting open. But to be fair to him, after the sheer amount of pain his soulmate, no that Sans, had been through it was easy for specifics to get a little muddled.
Nevertheless. The revelation that his best friend was actually his soulmate shouldn't really be a surprise. It had taken them such a short amount of time to hit it off and Grillby knew he wasn't the easiest monster to get along with.
The Fact Sans was able to weasel his way into his life and become so important to him... really all the signs were there. He's just a dense old man who didn't notice.
Now, how was he gonna breach the topic with Sans?
_______
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT A SOULMATE IS!" Grillby yelled out in exasperation, hand running down his face.
"jus as I said grillbz, I'v no clue what yer talkin about. I didn't exactly get a primo education when I was a babybones." Sans just shrugged, face just as confused as when Grillby had started the conversation.
It had taken the flame nearly a week to get Sans alone in the bar so he could tell him the news. The news that he didn't take with shock or even delight but with confusion and a hell of a lot of questions. Questions that should have been answered by a certain skeletons parents when he was a child. Though now that he thought about it and what he'd felt that first time...
"Fuck that's right, judging from the pain you had some sort of fucked up parents..."
Sans sockets went wide, eye-lights like little red pinpricks. "wha... how? i mean, yer not technically wrong but..."
Grillby watched the skeleton struggle to articulate his words, realizing he pry shouldn't have been so careless with his words before explaining. "Shit. Okay. So while it seems really fucked up now, back when I was a kid it was a different story. That every person is destined to have a soulmate, two monsters whose souls sync perfectly with each other and form a connection."
The fire monster placed a hand over where his soul was housed. "Those two souls are forever tied together and by extension you can feel each others pain..."
Sans jaw dropped, eye-lights uncertain as he tried to process all this new information. "so all that shit that happened to me?"
"I felt it all." Grillby confirmed. Left unsaid were questions, about what the fuck happened and why a child had been forced to endure such pain and more importantly who had caused that pain. They better be dead or Grillby might just have to correct that little oversight.
The small skeleton sighed out, form slumping against the bar counter as though all the energy had been sucked from him. "so, what do we do now?"
"I've already waited 263 years, what's a few more to figure things out."
_______
"Sans, wake up you lazy asshole." Grillby groaned out from his side of the bed as he shoved his head under his pillow. "It's 4am and your fuckin brother has been blowing up your phone for the past half hour, the least you could do is humor him for five minutes."
The lump next to him barely moved as the phone started ringing for what had to be the 50th time.
"I said wake up." Grillby threw out his leg, knocking the small skeleton from the bed with a yelp and a thud. Really the pain he felt would be worth it in the end, when he was allowed to go back to fucking sleep.
"wha the hell was dat fer?"
"That's for not telling your brother your plans and causing me to loose sleep on the one fucking day I have off."
The small skeleton grumbled but didn't protest as he picked up the phone and sent a quick (and poorly written) text, before switching it to vibrate and tossing it back onto the nightstand. "happy now?"
"Very, now get you bony ass back in bed. I don't want to see the outside world for at least another six hours."
"heh. whateva you say Grillbae."
Grillby could only groan louder at the skeletons snicker, barely able to hold back a grin as the other crawled back into bed and snuggled up to his flames. Really in the end, those 263 years had been worth the wait.