You knew him first.
That shouldn't matter so many years later, but it sticks in your mind every single goddamn time they do this. She's your friend and you love her and support her, but sometimes you selfishly wish you had never introduced them. Of all the people in the world to get hung up on.
And they're good for each other,
usually.
But once every other year or so, they get into a big fight and break up, and she tells you this time, it's for good.
The third time's supposed to be the charm, right?
You let her cry on you and buy her comfort foods and rosé and stay over when you can, and when she's ready, she tells you the details about this last fight. And god, you wish you were a better liar, because she can see your hesitation. She gets it out of you: this time, despite being her supportive, loving, caring friend for years and years, you are maybe just a teensy tiny bit on his side. This time.
It's far from your best moment. Maybe you should never have admitted it. She certainly seems to think so, though if she had her drunken druthers, you never would have felt that way at all. Wailing, she shows you the door.
She doesn't respond to your texts for the next week.
You run into Sans at the neighborhood grocery store where you first met him, and he's looked better. When he first sees you he tries to run away in case you haven't seen him, but you call out to him and he stops. And he slumps.
He's already trying to do damage control before you've even said another word.
"listen, i'm real sorry, ok, i thought… this time, i'd just give her a little space and then i'd apologize, ok? uh, how is she? you seen her lately?"
Now it's your turn to look guilty.
"I haven't actually talked to her in a few days? I don't know how she is, we also... kind of got into a fight."
He finally looks you square in the eye.
"what? no, you can't- she needs you right now! y'can't go gettin' in fights with her at a time like this!"
It kills you, just a tiny bit, how much he cares about her even now when she's shut him and everyone else out. Maybe that makes you the worst friend, if you weren't already, but there it is.
"what'd you even fight about? jesus christ..." he finishes softly, a hand clamped to the back of his skull.
"I kinda... accidentally took your side?"
"accidentally?"
"I'm a terrible liar, is what happened."
He crosses his arms, shuffles and sighs.
"well, i can't fault you for that."
"Better not, after I stuck my neck out for you."
"heh…" he chuckles, looking askance at a shelf of laundry detergent.
You bite your lip. The items currently in his cart are as follows:
4 packages of Oreos (assorted flavors)
1 package of thinly sliced honey ham
1 loaf of bread (wheat- that's something at least, you suppose)
3 six-packs of Yuengling
2 barbecue chicken California Pizza Kitchen frozen pizzas
5 Stouffer's microwavable frozen lasagnas…
(4 calling birds 3 french hens 2 turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.)
It's a contender for the saddest thing you've ever seen.
"Hey. I'm sure she just needs space. Like you said. Things'll go back to normal in a week or two, I bet."
He looks up, again, so hopeful and lost it breaks your heart.
"think so?"
"Hell yeah! 50 bucks says she's gonna miss you at Christmas next week, if she even lasts that long, and you'll be back together by New Year's Eve, doing, y'know, whatever couples who just made up do on New Year's Eve."
He rolls his eyes, but colors deeply, then gives a start, as if remembering something, and pulls out his wallet.
"you just reminded me, my boss was givin' out these tickets to this swanky new year's eve party at a restaurant downtown, so i snagged a couple. thought i'd surprise her with 'em. she likes that kinda stuff, gettin' all pretty and drinkin' champagne. only, i don't think we'll be usin' 'em, so uh, you hang on to those and… if things don't work out like you said, you keep 'em, ok?"
He holds out two cardstock tickets, bent from being in his wallet, and you gingerly take them from him.
"Sans," you pout.
"ah, c'mon, i know you love that kinda stuff, too, even if you like to pretend you're too pragmatic for it or whatever."
"You're gonna need these back, though."
"i... i dunno."
"Plus, the only other person besides you I can think of to invite is…" You grimace. "currently not on speaking terms with me, either."
He shrugs.
"heh- how 'bout this: if i'm right and we're still not back together, you'll owe me 50 bucks and you and i'll go to this thing together and inflict our sad sackness on all the people there tryin' to have a good time. and if you're right, i'll relieve you of those tickets."
You grin in spite of yourself.
"I'm not really seeing how I come out of this bet a winner either way, but you're so pitiful right now that I think I have to take it?"
"right you are. well, i gotta get goin', booked myself a full evening of wallowing in misery."
You let him pass you in the aisle.
"Text me when you need those tickets back, ok?" you demand of his retreating form, hunched over, elbows on the handle of his shopping cart.
"oh, sure. and you pick out somethin' nice to wear, can't have you embarrassing me," he says with a wave.
December 26th, you receive a text:
Sans: do u think changing the netflix password is meant to be a "pls come home i miss u" kinda gesture or no
You: Oh my god I'm so sorry
Sans: yeah yeah lets hear how well 50 bucks says it. see ya monday.
New Year's Eve arrives, as it tends to do once a year, and yet somehow it always takes you by surprise whether you're still clinging to the previous year or whether you're vainly racing to get out of it before everyone else.
Sans was right, for what it's worth. You do enjoy this kind of thing. Who doesn't love too much glitter and champagne?
Well, Sans, probably. Which begs the question of why he's going to this at all, without her there to be his… his rock. As you finish getting ready, you feebly attempt to quash the trepidation stirring in your gut. You don't have to be her, tonight. All the better you're not, you tell yourself. If he were yours instead, he would never have had the opportunity to be sad tonight.
Wait, no- that's not the point.
Try again.
All the better you're not her, because- because…
You'll think of something on the cab ride over.
(Except that you don't.)
He's sitting on a bench just inside the outer doors, elbows resting on his knees, chin in one hand, phone in the other. The pièce de résistance, under his thick winter coat and scarf, he's wearing, unmistakably, his trusty tuxedo t-shirt. He doesn't notice you at first, which strikes you as odd- too busy frowning at the screen.
"Hey, sorry I'm late."
He looks up, and you squeeze your fingernails into your palms at the way he takes in your festive outfit. He grins, no trace of the worry lines from only seconds ago.
"ah, see? i told you so."
"Told me what?" you ask, humoring him.
"you love this stuff."
You rub the back of your neck, bashful all of a sudden.
"c'mon, you know ya look good. might even get to kiss one of the younger millionaires at midnight. like, middle-aged, even."
You laugh.
"Oh, maybe, but you know I only put out for billionaires."
He laughs a little louder than usual, and then as you push into the lobby through the second set of doors, heavy slabs of wood and old brass, the door catches him on the shoulder as it swings back into place, and he staggers and stumbles.
"Had yourself a liquid lunch or something?" you ask as he rubs the joint, hissing curses under his breath.
"or somethin'," he mutters. "yeah, i've had a few. can ya really blame me? i mean, you can if you really wanna, but… please don't. not tonight."
You backtrack quickly:
"No, you're right. Sorry."
The hostess examines your IDs, takes your tickets and stamps your hands, and the two of you veer off together toward the velvet-roped bar area, which has a fair crowd in it, already. No sooner have you taken seats at the bar than you're offered complimentary champagne.
Well, more likely prosecco or something along those lines, but neither of you seems to care much either way. You clink glasses and toast:
"To friends."
"to free booze."
"To finding me a suitable sugar daddy tonight."
"to my ex, who… whomst i love terribly; may i soon improve."
You suppress a grimace.
"Cheers."
"cheers."
For the next three hours, you both get drunk off of the complimentary sparkling wine promised on your tickets, and he vacillates between forgetting his troubles, almost happy for the first time in weeks (and he's kind of a flirty drunk, you realize, it's just that he's always had another outlet for it), and succumbing to dread and despondency.
It's a struggle to keep up with him. One minute he's cracking jokes, the next, mumbling almost inaudibly into his shirtsleeves, chin on the bar, about how last year, she made him go out to watch the fireworks even though he didn't really want to, and it was so worth it, but it was cold, and then they both got sick and stayed on the couch watching old movies for the next week, and he was so, so happy then, even though he was miserable.
It's during one of the low points that he breaks down and tells you what she's done, this time:
She mailed all his stuff to him
She changed the locks
She blocked his number
She cropped him out of every picture online of the two of them together, which must have taken a substantial amount of time.
They've broken up a few times before, so he knows how it usually goes, and this isn't it. She's really, finally done with him.
He's got nothing.
He built all his dreams around her.
It's midnight in New York: the ball drops, the bar cheers. There's still some time left to ring in the new year, here.
He has his face totally buried in his arms on the tabletop and you rub circles on his back. You think he's fallen asleep.
The waiter comes to collect your empty champagne flutes and ask if you want more. You turn him down, but Sans's arm shoots up, finger raised to snag himself another. You take it from the tray for him, and place it next to his elbow.
You know he'd likely be getting drunk just the same on his own if you hadn't agreed to come with him. But this way he's here, surrounded by everything he's not having with her. Maybe he saw himself in the young couple at the end of the bar, trying to toss peanuts into each other's mouths. And now he's trying to block it all out. You can't fault him for that.
You'd hoped so much to give him something to enjoy, to make tonight somehow, impossibly, worth having to put on real clothes and get out of bed, but you know that must be going through his mind. You're not her. It still stings, even as you hurt for him, even as you wish she was here, too.
You know he's not looking, but you raise your glass to him anyway, and wish him health. The countdown's starting.
Surely he's unconscious by now? He hasn't touched his drink in at least ten minutes- he's hardly moved at all. You think about shaking him for the new year's arrival, but surely, that would just make this all so much worse-
He's up. He blearily looks around, remembering where he is and what's happening.
"wassat?"
You lean onto the bar to get closer to him and murmur as the crowd shouts it.
"Happy New Year."
He looks back, holding eye contact for so long you have to stop holding your breath. He's hunched over, crumpled, he wanted to do this with someone special to him, and instead he has you. You're here with him, alone, isn't that what you wanted? And he's miserable.
That, if nothing else, is evidence enough to not do anything stupid.
Because when you get what you want, it means this.
You bite your cheek. Right now, he wouldn't stop you.
"ha ha," Sans slurs. "new year? i hardly know 'er."
You laugh at the way it makes no sense. He smirks at you, although strained. You reach out and squeeze his shoulder.
"I think it'd behoove us to get your drunk ass home."
"damn, you're right. that'd be real hoo of us. 'nother round, then?"
"No, I meant- I think we should go home."
"then why didn't ya say so? not very hoo of ya to play tricks on a guy, just to get him to come home with you. but i- i'll forgive you cuz i think you're a hoot."
There's no tab to close out- the only thing you actually ordered off the menu was a plate of hummus and veggies to share, of which you ate the entirety. You both end up in the back of a cab. He's drunk, and sleepy, and you're sober, and so anxious for reasons you can't quite pin down that it's giving you a headache.
"k, so i got my resolutions… all lined up. a single guy's gotta have resovolutions, y'know?"
"Uh, sure."
"so, one," he says, counting it off on his fingers, "i'm gonna get just, just absolutely swole."
In spite of your headache, you laugh.
"just shredded, you know? ripped as fuck. just absolutely, uh, goddamn, large."
He flexes his arm, waggling his eyebrows.
"feel that."
You pinch his arm through his coat. It certainly is a bone.
"yeah. think that's good, wait till you see me then. 's gonna be, like... so... yeah. yeah."
He clears his throat and counts off his second resolution.
"b," he says, "once i'm a big n' buff dude, everyone's gonna want a piece of this. so b is, well, b part a is findin' a way to keep 'em off me so i can live my life, but b part two is where i gotta be choosy about who i let come with me to stuff. never gonna not have a date to somethin'. so, y'know, get in line now while the gettin's good. now, part four is gonna be-"
"-You mean three?"
He shakes his head, plucking an errant piece of foil confetti off your coat.
"no, b part two is part three. please, you- you gotta keep up. so part four is- and this's the part i'm still figurin' out- is where i make her want me back."
You look away, out the window.
His voice shakes.
"i dunno how to do that."
He's folded the piece of confetti into a tiny silver heart.
"...if it was just the fight… but it's not. hasn't been for a while."
He hangs his head.
"an' i'm not gonna get all muscle-y, either. you know how many oreos i ate? today?"
"Sans, I'm so sorry," you say, possibly for the millionth time. "You deserve better."
His skull thunks against the headrest, and he rolls it over to look at you, cheek squished against the leather.
"better'n what?"
You flush and quickly correct yourself: "Better than… being unhappy, I guess. I don't know, it just seemed like the thing to say."
He stares at you, fuzzy-eyed in the dark, storefronts and signs and windows, street lamps, and the odd late firework washing over you, strobing soft yellow in the relative privacy of the backseat. It briefly occurs to you to wonder what the driver thinks of all this, but you doubt she cares much.
His hand finds yours, splayed on the seat next to your thigh, and he lifts it to his mouth, then gently returns it.
"you're so fuckin' nice, dude," he says.
You exhale.
He slumps a bit lower in his seat, head back, trying to get comfortable as he closes his eyes.
"you're a really good friend."
"Thanks," you reply, and he's snoring within seconds.
A few minutes later, when the cab pulls up at the crummy hotel he's been living out of, you gently shake him awake. The traffic in the lane next to his side of the cab is too fast for him to open his door and get out, so you have to scoot over to let him get out on your side. It's kind of awkward, there's a sewer grate and your fancy clothes are a bit constricting and you're hunched over a bit, coming out of the cab.
And then you feel it.
There's a hand. On your ass.
"Sans?"
He giggles. Gurgles, almost.
"Sans, your hand is on my ass."
He gives it a soft pat.
"s'good."
You sigh, then turn around and pull him out of the cab onto the sidewalk.
"You're drunk, you don't know what you're doing," you say as you help steady him on his feet.
"ehh."
"Can you make it to your room okay?"
He nods and trips on his own foot three steps away from you. You ask the driver to wait for you while you help him up to his room. He clings to you in the elevator even though there's a handrail and you resume rubbing his back. It takes him twice as long as it should to fish out the room key and three tries to get the door to unlock.
He pauses halfway inside.
"don' go."
What do you even say to that? You don't, you just breathe instead. He scrubs his palms in his eye sockets.
"you're the only friend i got left in this fuckin' town."
You ponder your decision as he slumps further down the wall.
Finally, you turn to go.
"Okay, I'll be-"
"-no, please-"
"-I'll be right back, I'm just going to go pay the cab."
He's right there where you left him when you return, so you usher him off to bed. It's a queen sized mattress, and he pats the other side until you sit.
He snuggles under the covers and closes his eyes, but lies underneath them stiff. Finally, he sits up.
"actually, could ya get up for a sec?"
You stand, and he grabs the edge of the comforter, underneath where you'd been sitting, and folds it down. You raise your eyebrows at him, but he won't make eye contact with you, now.
"I don't know if it's a good-"
"-no, yeah, that's fair. sorry, you can- sorry if i- you can go, if you want."
He rolls over, facing away from you, and you glance to the ceiling, as if you'll find the right choice there, or perhaps the word 'gullible'. Like you aren't fooling yourself enough.
You climb in bed with him, and he finally turns out the light.
When you wake up, it's still dark. A quick survey of your surroundings tells you that it's 3 in the morning and Sans is staring up at the ceiling.
"sorry," he says when he feels you stirring next to him, no longer slurring his words. "shouldn't have made ya stay. gotta admit, though. havin' someone else in the bed helped me sleep."
"l think the bottomless champagne might have had something to do with that, as well."
"heh. now that you mention it, i do feel like i musta done somethin' embarrassing, though i can't remember what."
"You grabbed my ass, for one thing."
He blinks, shocked.
"oh."
"Yeah."
"...i remember midnight, almost. did we, uh…"
"No. You did make a joke that didn't really make sense, though. Was cute."
"hah. sounds like me. just, uh, thanks for doin' this."
"Of course."
"nah. not of course. i dunno, i guess i figured you wouldn't want anything to do with me after the breakup."
"You were my friend before you were hers."
He scratches his head.
"well, yeah, but she was your friend before you were mine. uh. my friend."
You pull the covers up to your chin as you turn on your side to face him.
"Not by much. I met both of you the same year. Did I ever tell you that?"
"nope."
You shrug as best as you can, horizontally laid out as you are.
"i dunno what to do, now," he admits, finally.
"You'll figure it out."
"ok."
"You don't sound convinced."
He laughs, nearly silent, and it shakes the bed.
"Sorry, I've never been much good at this beyond providing junk food and a shoulder to cry on. Uplifting isn't really a thing I know how to do."
"you 'n me, both. could use the shoulder, though."
"Then it's yours."
He scoots closer and you wrap an arm around the back of his ribcage. He sighs, breath shaking, and you know he doesn't mean to, he wouldn't mean to, but it tickles your neck and you have to suppress a shiver.
"thanks," he says to the air conditioner unit over your shoulder.
"You don't have to keep thanking me. I wouldn't do this if I didn't want to."
There's more truth to that than you have any right to hint at, particularly now. One of his own arms flops onto your side and his palm rests on the small of your back.
"So, you thought we kissed at midnight, huh?" You're just teasing him. Just a gentle jab.
Ha ha.
He snorts, again, the puff of air on your neck making you so aware of his closeness.
"wouldn't have put it past me, is all. had a bit of a thing for you when you introduced me to, uh..."
You tense up.
"guess i shouldn't've said that."
Your breathing quickens, you can't control your heartbeat. It's ridiculous, it's not like he's just admitted to still having a thing for you, but after all his flirty drunkenness and now this bombshell, you can't think.
"you okay?"
You nod.
"sorry."
"N-no? Uh, don't be, it's fine. I'm fine."
Every word he says, now, makes you want to hold him even tighter, sling your leg over his pelvis and grind. Instead, you are still.
"okay."
"It's just me. I'm just- No, forget it. Ha, ha."
You lay in each other's arms in silence for the longest moment, until he presses the flats of his teeth into your neck, hesitant.
You grip fistfuls of the back of his tuxedo shirt for dear life with jittering hands. His laugh is just as unsteady.
You move together, a tangled, writhing, bound up mess of sheets and hands under clothes on top of ribs, bone and skin. You kick off the covers foot by foot when it gets too hot to stay underneath them, you panting almost to hyperventilation and him looking at you like he must have lost his goddamn mind. And he probably has, you think. There's no solution for this, no excuse. He's just been dumped by your own best friend and here you are, dry humping him on New Year's Day.
He and the ancient alarm clock are the only sources of light in the room, and it's no competition. His hands find your ass again and he pulls your hips to his, that way. You gasp into his ear that no, this is wrong, you shouldn't be- (like you aren't getting off on it all the more for it) and he whispers back to you please, he needs this, he needs this so bad. That's it, for you, that's all you ever needed to hear.
Clothes are unceremoniously shoved aside, or come off, at hardly noticed intervals and finally, finally he pushes himself into you and your body finds that you are so ready, and he is so welcome there, all moral objections aside.
You let loose all of the quiet lovely things you've noticed about him over the years, or you try to; you abandoned sense some hours ago when you got in bed with him, and your hushed sentiments are now paying for it, halted and resumed between moans and every hitched breath. You cry out, sing his incoherent praises as your muscles clamp down on him, trying to keep him as close as possible even as he's goddamn railing you, and you swear you can feel him grow impossibly harder.
"You do. You do deserve so much better," you say, breathless.
"better than what?" he groans.
He's a mess and so are you. Flushed, sweating, his face in agony if you didn't know better.
You kiss him, instead of the answer you foolishly want to give, cupping his face in your hands.
He comes so suddenly it seems to take even him by surprise and you follow after him, tumbling through the dizzying surrealism of the moment when you hear what that actually sounds like when it's loud and right in your ear.
He collapses, breathing hard, almost wheezing, and you hold his hand as you both fall back in bed without even bothering to pull the covers back up.
"st- please stay with me," he says for the final time. You know he only means until the sun comes up and illuminates the awful truth of this thing you've just done to each other, but you drift off back to sleep, rubbing your thumb over his knuckles and imagining a much longer timeline.
The next morning, he isn't in bed with you. He's on the phone, speaking in quiet, somber monosyllables. He sees that you're now awake and turns back around.
"no, yeah. yeah, i gotta go. uh-huh. i'll see you at the house? k, i'll be there in, uh, twenty minutes, -ish? mhmm, bye."
His phone beeps the disconnection.
"she wants to talk, she said."
There were only a few brief hours, when the new year was still gasping for its first breaths and change and disruption seemed possible, when you might have convinced him to let himself need what you had to give him, and maybe eventually, one day- but he turns to you after that phone call and it's clear, all-encompassing regret.
He only said twenty minutes, but he's still just standing there.
"Don't go," you mumble, still only able to read from last night's playbook.
He shuffles over.
"i have to, but, you know. thanks."
He can't even meet your eyes for more than a second. You don't give him your response this time as he starts gathering his things.
It's going to be a long, long year.