Chapter Text
Sans bowed out of the ‘convention of rocks’, opting instead to watch little Tommy for the afternoon.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go-well, okay, he really was sick and tired of rocks after all this time-but…
He just didn’t feel entirely himself still just yet.
Grillby offered to stay home, but he waved him on. He had his dad around, and Paps would be home after spending an outing with Undyne again, so it’d be fine.
It’d be so, so, so fine.
Tommy came in wheeling about with a happy squeal, his shoes plunking onto the ground as he ran for the couch. “Baby! Where baby!! Baby!!!!”
Sans chuckled as he leaned away from the door, shaking his head as Natalie sighed, her hair braided behind her and wearing a very pretty red dress with some sweet perfume. “Sorry, he’s been a ball of energy since we told him he’d see Fireside again.”
“Nah, ‘s good for ‘em. Think they’ll be best buddies growing up.”
He looked up, and she was giving him an unreadable look, her painted lips disappearing under her teeth for a moment. “…Sans? Are you…okay? You sound a little off today.”
He shrugged, shaking his head. “I’m fine, just tired, heh. Might nap with the kiddos.”
She chuckled a bit, adjusting her purse on one arm with a sigh. “If you can get that little tornado to nap. …alright. Call me if you need me.” She caught him off-guard by leaning down to hug him, but he hugged back just as tight, something unsettling in his chest when she did so.
Tommy had taken up residence in front of the TV, showing Bubble Guppies to a very nonplussed Fireside who was set up in their little swing, staring at the bright colors in boredom as Tommy kept pointing. “An’ um, that’s! That’s a square! An’! That’s their tee-chur! Hims a good fishy. Hims a good fishy,” he rolled around on the ground, giggling as Sans brought in a box of strawberries from the kitchen, Gaster shaking out of his half-doze in his chair.
“I know more of this bubbles and gupps than I think I do of radioactivity,” he mumbled as Sans coughed on a laugh, passing him the plastic box to take some fruit before setting it on the blanket near Tommy so he could nab as he talked.
“It’s a kids show, Pops. All the rage now,” he teased. “No more dry lectures about atoms an’ the heat of th’ universe.”
“Feh, you boys loved those stories,” he grumbled, the mask of his face spinning in place as Sans hopped onto the couch and stretched out with a low groan. “You alright there? Bones creaking, old man?” he teased, and Sans just snorted, tilting his head onto one of the couch pillows as Fireside warbled at Tommy, patting at his face when the little boy leaned in too far.
“Tommy, lean back, okay? Not too close,” he called out as Tommy squirmed away with a giggle, informing the baby who his faves were in the show. “Eh. Just…tired, guess. Still ain’t used to a baby.”
“No one ever is,” his dad hummed, the mask flicking around quickly, grinning almost mischievously. “Why don’t you go and rest for a little while? The children and I will distract ourselves with a well-hidden chocolate stash~”
“Oh, like you know where that’s at,” Sans laughed, slowly sitting up with a grunt. “But, I might take ya up on it, if ya don’t mind.”
“I’ll call if I need help wrangling the only person in here who can walk faster than I,” he said dryly, and Sans just stuck his tongue out, heading for the stairs after giving the baby a kiss on his little head, and ruffling Tommy’s hair as he passed by.
The stairs…
They were so much harder now than this morning.
His knees creaked as he walked up them, and he felt like he had aged ten thousand years all of a sudden.
Each step was like a pang in his soul, and he counted the seconds ticking by that he could be safe in his and his husband’s warm, comfortable bed, and imagine that things were okay again.
His back hurt so, so much.
He felt agony everywhere.
Finally.
He got to the bathroom, staring blankly into the mirror.
.9/1 HP
“sh*t,” he cursed, and then with a harsh cough, magic bubbled over his jaw, and all he could think of as his head started to swim and forced himself to lay upon the rug they laid down for chilly feet was ‘Grillby’s going to be pissed’.
And then…
Well, he didn’t think about much after that.
~~
“In humans, we call it Septic Shock,” explained the doctor, adjusting the stethoscope around his neck idly, a faint pulse monitor echoing around the room. “We know a fair good about it, but not exactly what the main cause is. For some, a simple splinter can send them into sepsis. For others, it takes breaking a femur. In Monsters, they’ve found that sometimes magic can become infected, which you most likely well know, and it can turn in on the body.”
Sans, who was now happily cleaned up but exhausted beyond belief, sat in the bed, teetering a bit to the side before righting himself. The meds, a combo of magic healing, antibiotics, and fluids, was making him both chilly to the core-heh-and sleepy. “Right, had it wh’n I w’s a kid,” he slurred, Grillby’s warm hand curled against his back.
“Right, you mentioned that,” the doctor nodded. “That explains your 1 HP, you were too young to fight it off, and it was caught too late in time. This time, it seems that it was giving birth that did it. Your magic started to fester a bit, not used to giving itself away, and before you knew it…” He flexed his fingers in a ‘pop’, shrugging.
Grillby’s flames flickered anxiously. “…so is he and Fireside okay…? What should we do…?”
“Nothing to be done. We heal him up, send him home, and you keep an eye on him. The baby should be fine, based on what we know, the magic only attacks the owner. No infants have gotten sick when their magical parents have succumbed to sepsis.” He cleared his throat, shifting in place. “Mostly, rest, fluids, make sure he gets up now and then, the usual. We’ve cleared the infection, so ah, no more scares, hopefully. There’s not really much of a warning sign when this happens, for either humans or monsters, unfortunately. Just have to be proactive.”
Sans mumbled something sleepily as Grillby nodded. “Thank you, doctor. We have a rather large family so I’ll have help ensuring his speedy recovery.”
“Good, good,” he reached over to shake Grillby’s hand, smiling at Sans. “Get better for that baby, you hear? Scared everyone rather good there. You can leave whenever you feel up to it, and when the nurse takes all the fun little leashes off of him.”
Grillby let out a soft laugh as Sans rolled his head, smiling sunnily up at him. “I wanna see our baaaaby,” he groaned, and Grillby bent his head to kiss him gently as the doctor left.
“Soon…Papyrus is home with your father and the children. We’ll be there soon.”
“Mmm…”
Sans didn’t seem to remember anything, but Grillby sure did.
Getting the frantic call from Gaster that he’d heard a loud noise upstairs and couldn’t get Sans to answer him, Papyrus going home to find his brother quite literally Dusting on the floor, a mix of magic and Dust bubbling up around his mouth as he shook and claimed he was freezing.
Driving like a maniac to get him to the ER and making sure to update them every minute on what he could.
He wondered if Sans even knew they’d spent the night here.
Their neighbors asked if they should return to gather up Tommy, since the original plan had been them to go out of town for just the night, but Grillby declined. Since the panic had calmed down once they figured out what was wrong, he didn’t feel it right to snatch Tommy away from playing with the baby as he wanted.
Plus, he heard Papyrus was having a grand old time with someone who actually wanted to play Uno instead of make up words for the number one to see if they could get away with it.
Sans blinked up at him sleepily, nuzzling into the warm hand curling around his cheek. “Mmm…sorry…”
“No sorry. It’s been a time since you were so ill. It struck me…off-guard,” he had to admit. The last time…was probably when they found out about Fireside, and the time before that, when he’d felt so ill that they really did think he’d end up Dusting away from not being able to eat for hours on end. “Try to sleep a little more, dear. I’ll take us home soon.”
Sans mumbled something he couldn’t quite understand, but the skeleton’s sockets closed in moments, back to blissful sleep that let Grillby finally relax.
Well then. Seemed like they’d need extra hands on deck to assist while Sans recovered.
He didn’t lie, they had a very big family and friends who’d be eager to take up shifts to watch both punny skeleton and little infant.
…he just had to figure out if he’d like all the hustle and bustle in his home.
Eh, it’d do well, maybe they’d be so distracted by Gaster’s old stories that there’d be no time for chaos and destruction.
…he could only hope.
