There's a saying Underground, about a breakup. When someone went around fast, dating and dropping others like flies, they weren't in the relationships for love. No, for their own desires. Sex, money, or perhaps the simple idea of dating another, without bothering to put the needed effort in. The saying went "A five course costumer with leftovers about". Sometimes monsters would whisper about people, pointing to the customer in the relationship. The one who would go around, taking small bites of a monsters personality and life during a relationship, and discard them like leftover food. Leftovers was what the other monsters were called.

Sans never did imagine he would ever be the leftover, in any situation. He loved Toriel. And by loved, he meant it. Sans adored her. Put the woman up on a pedestal. One too high, he realized far late after nights of being pushed aside in favor of anything else Toriel wanted to do. Many times he'd leave dates alone, because she never showed. Papyrus was often viewed as innocent, naive, but he noticed the signs earlier than anyone else. "She's a customer, Sans, you might become a leftover," Papyrus warned him one day. Sans didn't listen.

After the screaming ended did Sans finally realize it was over. Toriel cheated on him. With multiple men, Sans had been told. She decided to tell him that before the breakup, revealing she was going to date one of those men instead.

Sans was a leftover. Her leftover. Someone she played with, then cast aside once she felt full of his flavor.

People in the monster population often pointed the fingers to Asgore for the faults of the relationship. When the drama of Toriel cheating on Sans spread, people quickly dropped those fingers. The common factor in the two terrible relationships was Toriel, after all. It didn't take much thought to know that she likely screwed up her previous relationship as well.

"Are you okay?" Grillby would ask every time Sans visited the bar.

"Yeah," Sans lied like clockwork, soul humming in pain.

Being a leftover boyfriend was never really a good feeling for anyone. He was just used, she didn't really want him for real. She did love him, she had claimed on their break up night, but not anymore. And instead of breaking the ties when the love died, she strung him along for show, so she wouldn't be seen as single. Gee, that sure made up for it, Sans would think in the dead of night with a sarcastic growl. Glad to see that him being dragged through the mud like a setpiece of a play made her feel a little bit better than possibly being single. The horror.

Sans finally listened to his brothers advice, and asked to meet with Asgore. It was a good call, of course his bro was right. The only other person that could understand would be the previous leftover of Toriel.

"Had she cheated on you as well?" Sans asked.

Asgore paused, narrowing his gaze onto his teacup like it had murdered him in a past life, then finally nodded. "Yes. With a few monsters during our marriage. There was even a good chance Asriel wasn't even my biological child. I stayed, though. I always thought she would get better. A fools belief."

Good thing Sans let the ball drop on that relationship, then. He sighed, gulping down black coffee.

"Have you been getting sleep? I hadn't slept for a month after our divorce."

"Nah. I keep thinkin' about her."

Asgore rumbled with disapproval, before he brought out a pencil and paper. "Let me write down some items I used to help me sleep after my divorce..."

That's how the meetings started. On Saturdays, Sans would arrive on the cusp of a sunrise, greeting Asgore with a similarly tired face that he held. They'd stay, and Sans was always offered breakfast. On the fourth meeting, Sans walked in to find a breakfast already made in preparation for him.

They mostly talked about Toriel. At first. The way she laughed, how sunlight caught her fur, those sort of things. When you got dropped as a leftover, you couldn't just up and walk away. The customer did. They had more meals to try, after all. But the dejected leftovers sat and would stew on their emotions, brewing in pain and misfortune. Unable to accept that, yes, they were simply that. Leftovers. Nothing particularly concerning, nothing wanted from the meal at first. Something abandoned in a container.

Their meetings shifted eventually. Breakfast lasted so long it became lunch. They even went out a few times in a park to get themselves out of the house.

"Those flowers are called Irises," Asgore said, gesturing towards a collection of flowers on the side of the trail.

Sans observed the blue flowers. Nothing like echo flowers, their only real trait was to sit there and look pretty. They did it well.

"Do you have a favorite flower?" Asgore asked.

Sans hummed for a moment. "No, not really. I guess I gotta go with these. Blue's my favorite color, why not make the first flowers you showed me my favorite?" Sans said, glancing over at Asgore. "How about you, Fluffybuns? Gotta favorite?"

"My favorite flowers?" Asgore scratched his bread lightly. "It used to be a Morning Glory, they reminded me of Toriel. Though I cannot say I stand by that anymore."

"Oh, yeah, that's gotta suck. How about... that one, over there." The skeleton pointed towards a soft shade of pink, sticking out from the ground. "Make that one your favorite. What's it called?"

"It's real name is a Dianthus, but it's common name is Pink."

Sans snorted. "It's color is the name?"

"Sadly, yes. With us being located within New New New Home, I don't think I have any right to judge the inventors of that name. I am about their level of creativity, it seems."

"Then that has to be your favorite flower. I mean, c'mon big guy, it's got a stupid name, which is your thing. Now you have no choice but to make it your favorite."

"What a great consensus we've come upon, Sans."

"Duh. We've gotta be buds on this, and come to a conclusion that Pink is your favorite flower before the daisy ends."

Asgore laughed, tilting his snout back and letting his beard get caught in the warm sunlight. "That was so terrible."

"I know." Sans said.

It didn't remind Sans at all how Toriel looked in the sun.

He liked it.

Once the topic of Asgore's interest in flowers got picked up, they found their conversations drifting away from Toriel until they forgot she was even the reason they had met. She wasn't on their minds as they talked to one another, enjoying the company as they enjoyed their new tradition.

"As a final say on your new favorite flower, I brought you these." Sans said months after the decision, handing Asgore a packet of Dianthus seeds. "Now yer can grow them in your garden."

The next weekend he arrived, the Morning Glory flowers were out of Asgore's flower bed and replaced with small mounds of dirt, covering new seeds.

The two men started meeting out in public. Asgore needed help shopping, so Sans accompanied him. Sans sometimes invited him over when Paps was away. Once, when Sans' dryer broke down, Asgore got onto his knees and fixed it. Sans stood behind him, watching from the doorway with a joke about his ass-sets hanging in the air.

"Makes a guy wonder what the other part under the pants are like," Sans said.

"Would you like to find out?" Asgore asked, muffled behind the dryer.

Sans paused. "Are you joking, or...?"

"I thought I was flirting. Is it working?"

Sans was consumed by a vibrant blush, that of Irises. "Y-Yeah."

"Then would you like to accompany me for a date?"

And so, they were dating.

Dates followed, each and every one attended by both parts of the relationship for the first time in Sans' dating life. A pleasure. He didn't even expect Asgore to be this good of a guy, but he was freaking perfect. He opened doors for Sans, paid for their restaurants, and once even took him for a six month anniversary picnic on a mountain to watch the stars. Sans glowed about it the next day, standing next to a blushing Asgore, while they explained to his brother why they returned to Sans' house wearing the same clothes. Didn't take a genius to figure out what transpired there.

Sans held up a dress shirt at the store, trying to figure out how to best look. Asgore was making them dinner that night. He had a certain feeling about it that left Sans giddy the entire morning, since they had a marriage discussion a week before, coming to the agreement that both would be ready if Asgore brought out a ring. And Asgore, bless his heart, did a terrible job of pretending this dinner wasn't going to be special. Sans could see the ring box outline from the goat monsters jeans when Asgore said he'd like to make Sans dinner that night. The skeleton totally didn't see it. For his boyfriends sake of surprise.

"Sans?"

The voice alone caused him to freeze in place, frowning. Yikes. Not how he ever imagined meeting her again.

"Toriel," Sans spoke quietly, turning around.

She didn't look well. Her usually combed hair stuck out with wind, and her fingers tapped, inpatient. Despite the divorce occurring so long ago, she still wore the ring, even after all of these years. She had told Sans she threw it away when they started a relationship with Sans. Liar.

"How are you?" She asked, eyes looking to him with a hopefulness he didn't share.

"Uh... doing good," Sans said, "I got a job at the astronomy place. The one you said wouldn't accept me. I'm leading worker there now."

"Oh, are you? Good, good..." Toriel trailed off.

They stood in a very awkward silence, and Sans felt the natural social desire to sprint from any weird situation. They didn't end on a good note, after all.

"How are you?" Sans asked.

That seemed to snap Toriel out of any silence she had, ignoring his question and blurting out a single statement. "I heard you and Asgore are dating."

Oh. Yeah, this was awkward.

"We are," Sans said, "Guess we aren't really your leftovers anymore, huh?"

He didn't bother to lie or beat around the bush. Long ago, he thought about her every night. Now he didn't so much as ponder her name, even for a second. He liked not being stood up, and not being cheated on.

Toriel turned into a frown. "Why?"

Sans looked towards the door. Maybe if he ran, he wouldn't be stuck in this awful situation. It was like watching the Scott's Tots episode both he and Asgore cringed at, only that he was living in that moment.

"Because he's cute, and he gets this big smile and sorta gets blocked by his beard, and sometimes when we're kissing I fold back his mustache like some sorta curtain because it gets in the way and I find that very funny and -" Sans stopped his gay tangent and pulled at the front of his shirt. Best not to talk about how much he loved his soon to be fiance in front of his ex girlfriend.

"I made a mistake," Toriel admitted, "The monster I dated cheated on me, I left him. I'm single now. So we can date again."

Not a very tempting offer. Sans looked back at the shirt. Nah, he'd stick to his usual clothes. Asgore never made him change like Toriel did. "No thanks."

He turned, placing back the shirt onto the rack. Asgore said his hoodie made him look as cute as a button, so he'd wear that tonight. Instead of nice clothes, he'd bring Asgore some new flowers he hasn't gotten to plant yet. The King loved a new challenge.

"But -" Toriel objected.

"Again, no thanks." Sans turned to shoot her a smug look. "In a few hours I'm getting proposed to, so I don't want to be late. Have a nice day."

With that, he stalked off, hands inside of his hoodie pockets.

That was the final point of the statement monsters whispered. Sometimes the buyer came back for the leftovers when they couldn't buy more food.

Pity. The food already moved on.