Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sans sunk in stature as his thoughts fogged inevitably, unable to form a coherent string through his mind at the moment.

It was a contradictory in-between of daylight and evening, way too late to be keeping himself in limbo like this. On the opposite end of the couch was a particular robot, charging in the gradually sharpening silence that pierced the short skeleton's breaths by the second.

He craved that anything or anyone could pierce that silence as of now, and furthermore,

without him having to let out a word about it.

It had been hours before that they'd finished watching yet another one of the exuberant robot's movies (one he was in, of course, what else would it be).

It was all a silly idea then, but amidst the scenario that was playing out dazedly right now, it was an indivisible comfort to cling to the thought of for distraction's sake. Most notion of what happened in the day before this was clouded together by now.

4:12 A.M.

The small digital clock placed under the TV on the stand it rested wasn't the easier of things to notice, but right now, it was currently the only thing in the room that could be read. Specifically as some way for Sans to remind himself of something comprehensible to him, something in the room he could fully process.

4:13 A.M.

A trembling, hurried sigh escaped the skeleton. He fidgeted with his sleeves in a vaguely frantic manner. It was at the least, extremely close to it if not somewhere in between. His gaze was stuck to the floor beside the couch, vision staggering as he nearly ran out of breath at trying so strongly to keep his own sobs silent. He tried to take in a deep breath, but to nearly no avail, instead stuttering bits of one. His thoughts stood too overwhelmingly blank and static-y to look anywhere but the floor beside him, all as his figure quivered here and there. And even though he was hopelessly trying to quiet his hiccups, he feared the attempt was too desperate to have anything good come of it. That fear was confirmed.

A bit of a shift could be heard staggeringly at the end of the couch, though not heard by Sans.

A particular robot, attempting not to mess with his charging cord in the process, loitered in movement as he propped himself up sleepily and to the best of his abilities. He ran a hand over his right eye gently, his hand running back and through his synthetic hair as he re-gained focus in his vision.

"Sans?"

His robotic voice, despite being low and soft in that moment and a slightly jarring shift from his usual eccentric tone, caused a goofy noise of surprise to be stuttered out by the skeleton as he promptly jumped to look at Mettaton.

"i-i, ah--"

"Oh, I didn't mean to startle you or anything-!"

They both silenced suddenly, unable to form any sort of start to this.

Mettaton gave Sans a somewhat awkward, slightly unreadable look, before glancing to the side momentarily. Although, to Sans's surprise as he gazed at the side glancing robot, there was a very noticeable trace of worry that he could pick up in all that awkwardness.

The robot cleared his throat lightly before speaking again, still unable to make eye contact.

"A-Ah, I'm-- sorry, I-- suppose, I suppose I-- hope that didn't startle you too badly. At all, th-"

In silence for a moment, Mettaton seemed to be trying to gather himself together.

"...Are you--

are you alright, darling?"

Mettaton looked Sans in the eye, this time, albeit still a bit awkward for him to be saying, then continuing, "P-Please, don't feel too bad for waking me up at all, either, dear."

As Sans was still shaken and in a clear state of remaining panic, he struggled to return an answer yet. Though, it was strange to see Mettaton acting like this -- loud and eccentric being switched out for quiet and concerned, even if the robot didn't know how to fully display that concern. It left them  both  a little awestruck, truthfully.

Snapping out of his mixed-up thoughts, Sans stammered a bit as his voice croaked, not sure how to respond.

"i-i-- 's nothing th- u-uh-"

He knew for sure he wasn't doing so great, but suddenly needing to word that out made him swiftly question it.

His fragmented words were jumbled and shaky, hiccups in between them.

"Well... I-It's alright if you're not sure or anything like that," Mettaton managed to respond, his fans whirring a bit from his own non-visible embarrassment. His voice was nevertheless, though, still soft with a low and comforting hum to it, despite him not being wholly sure how to handle this.

"oh, nono, 'm sure, but... i-i'm just not- th-- thank you." 

"You're quite welcome. Take your time."

A hush pined on Sans as he looked directly down. In the instant, it felt like everything he tried to hold back just spilled all at once. A noise escaped him as he faltered, as tears then followed more abruptly than he'd wanted.

"Oh, darling..."

The robot's voice trailed off in worry masked as more awkwardness as Sans broke down in sobs and trembles entirely, everything emotionally contained defeating itself so suddenly.

Mettaton attempted to move his hand toward Sans's briefly, although then halted, instead keeping it near as he then glanced up with a slight look of asking for approval.

Sans took a moment before he did notice. He weakly nodded without making eye contact again, needing to collect himself just to merely accomplish that.

The robot then softly put his hand onto Sans's, making sure it was gentle enough that the smaller skeleton could pull his away if he changed his mind.

But he didn't.

His hand lingered there, he let it without a second of hesitance. Mettaton was slowly managing to handle this, even if he felt a bit silly for not being good at doing so more quickly than this.

"i'm really sorry, metta, this is prob'ly r-really weird, e-especially, from m-- t-th, uhm, i-i'm s--"

"Darling. You're alright. It's alright."

Hiccups and small sobs broke the silence, still, but they almost seemed to calm by just a little after that.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"i-i dunno. i've never really done  that,  e-eith-"

"I've got as little of an idea of how to handle this as you, sweetie." Although his gaze still couldn't meet with Mettaton's, his eyes closed tightly as if to block out anything except for tears until they went away.

Sans's grip increased a tiny bit on Mettaton's hand, and less than a second or so later, he hesitantly stuttered his movements. With nervousness, he took each of Mettaton's arms and wrapped them around himself clumsily.

"you don't need to worry about that. you manage jus' fine to be a comfort to some extent even if you're not saying anything, so you're doin' something right."

He halted breaths for a moment in embarrassment, as his downset glance shielded him from catching sight of the slight surprise that painted itself to Mettaton's features. He looked up, his face flushing a bit, something unexpected to come from Sans of all people. With no words, Mettaton calmed himself and gradually let the smaller mess of hoodie and tears settle into his arms the moment he saw the other's gaze. Sans seemed to melt a little with relief and eventually wrapped his own arms around Mettaton, as well.

"...i-i dunno how to describe it, metta. 'm not quite depressed, i don't feel empty. i know that's not it."

Mettaton listened while Sans continued, his gaze averted again.

"it feels m-more like everything overflowed a while ago. with there s-sorta being a change between going along my days with papyrus and mostly goofing off and being jus' fine, with it feeling like there's a container i've got that's full of repressed sad filling up, and it feels like now every day that container is overflowing slowly without me batting 'n eye at it o-or something, and everything is t-- t-t-- t-tiring, a-- and--"

"...So just deeply sad, almost the opposite of empty?"

"...m-mm-hm. so, prob'ly depressed, sure. with a lot of repressed sadness. but not empty, t-the polar opposite of that."

"O- Oh. Well, that makes enough sense, ah-"

Mettaton's movements were slow as he ran a hand over Sans's, unable to find good words as he then switched his arm back to wrap around the skeleton.

His breaths hitched a moment, the robot taking a moment to collect his thoughts, as he then let out a sigh.

"Sans."

"huh?"

The taller of the two grew more concentrated, as he spoke with his voice switching to a somewhat serious tone.

"You know that if you told me absolutely everything in the world that was upsetting you, right now, I wouldn't feel one bit of annoyance with you? I don't mean if you told me the less ugly parts of things or if you decided to tell me what was showable, I mean anything. You are not expected to only share the things that make you sad that are showable." Mettaton continued, not a hint of sarcasm in his voice as he directly made eye contact with Sans, both worry and care visible in his expression. "If you only shared what was showable, then you would barely be half as happy with things as they are, and you'd only be surviving and pulling through. That's not happiness to only share what's showable."

The two's gazes were primarily a mix of the taller robot's concern and the shorter skeleton's shock. Sans attempted to hide the fluster and surprise that had hit him like a train, but his lack of words proved that difficult as blue-tinted blush showed on his face.

"...woah, uh, metta."

Mettaton lost some of the seriousness on his face as a small smile caught his features, followed with one of his usual enthusiastic laughs catching his vocals.

"Well, I wasn't going to leave you upset and follow that with an awkward look and going back to sleep."

"i mean, sure, but jeez. you spend your time acting like you couldn't revive someone from the  dead  with that kinda stuff?"

Sans grinned warmly at the robot, their glances locked for a moment. There was almost a comfortable silence. A sleepy one, though.

Earlier, Sans had assumed there to be desperation for anything that  wasn't  silence.

Suddenly this felt like the warmest feeling in the world, and he wasn't alone, and he wasn't alone, and good  god , he wasn't alone.

He realized without it being said to himself, or aloud, that he just didn't want that to be in that silence alone.

"...Oh, goodness, I'm sorry, I just realized that I-"

"o-oh, nono, 's okay, uh-"

They both swiftly processed that they were still holding on with their arms wrapped around each other, and Sans fumbled a bit as Mettaton less clumsily went to remove themselves from each other.

"--wait,"

Sans's voice cracked weakly, causing them both to stop as his heart flipped itself down in its chest.

Their gazes kept at each other again, Mettaton getting vaguely nervous, though attempt to collect himself.

"i-i know this is gonna sound really weird, and s'kay if y-you'd-- uh, i-i, can, th--"

Sans was taken aback by his stutters as he tried to keep himself calm.

"would you be a'right to stay like this a little while-?"

It definitely was not what the robot expected, but.

Well.

"...Ah, well, alright. If you'd like."

"y-you sure?"

"Mm-hm."

As he smiled, the robot's tone was back to warm and confident like Sans was accustomed to. Although, he could admit that it was indefinitely flustering for that tone to come back around now. Or rather, not admit.

The short dork settled himself back into Mettaton's arms and without hesitance the robot went along, pulling him closely enough that things were comfortable.

"mm, metta, d'you know what time it is...? 's been a little while," Sans yawned near the end of said sentence, his voice notably a bit lower due to dozing off slightly.

Mettaton glanced at the digital clock over by the TV, "Five in the morning, it looks like."

Sans was still awake, but already visibly tired enough that he just gave a slow nod, his form easily resting onto Metta's.

Mettaton had already been charging for quite a while, now, but he felt comfy enough like this that he could happily fall asleep right then, as well.