Chapter Text
Sans had been looking forward to this moment. It was always the best moment of every timeline. He had severely regretted that the government had chosen to meet with the monster community that week, as it meant he was going to miss your initial meeting with Grillby.
There was no coherency among the timelines when it came to you. You were always different and you always met them in a different way. Once you had been in an alleyway and it had started to rain. You had found Grillby stuck under a sheltered area, which was steadily shrinking, and had offered him your umbrella as cover. The two of you had ended up stuck in a storm, sharing a dry spot together. Once you had been a street artist and drawn Grillby after seeing him in the street. Once was when you had been a musician in a band in Muffet’s café. His current favourite, however, was when he had met the version of you that was an astrophysicist. He had had a lot of interesting discussions with that instance of you.
Sometimes the two of you met naturally. Sometimes one of the others had to give the two of you a helping hand. Sometimes the timeline reset before you met. Sometimes you were in a relationship when the two of you initially met. But you always confessed to each other. It usually took a while. Grillby’s shy nature and your somewhat oblivious nature were frustrating on more than one occasion.
Initially, seeing one of his best friends so undeniably happy and infatuated sent happy vibes all throughout his SOUL. After having gone through several timelines of it, though,
Sans thought it might dull the impact on him. He thought the repetitive nature of the social interaction on the surface would become tedious. That he would somehow blame you for Grillby’s regression into a quiet recluse when they inevitably returned to the underground. He even tried to distance himself from you. Avoiding all conversations and interactions with you, so he could blame you. And so, when Grillby regressed into his shell, he could be angry at you. But he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried. In much a similar fashion to the way he couldn’t be angry at Frisk. Every reset he thought he would be angry. But he wasn’t. He was other things. Bitter, afraid, jealous but mostly he was just tired. Everything became numb and tedious. That’s why he enjoyed pranking so much. They put a small twist in how people would react.
He felt the same for you. You were different to everyone else. No matter the timeline, you had a different career. You had different hair lengths, different hair colours (usually obtained artificially), a different clothing style but your SOUL was always the same. It was always the same friendly, fun and excited person. He always loved the initial meeting. Pranking you for the first time and you drawing Grillby out of himself in a way Sans never could, even if he himself applied your technique to the fiery bartender back Underground. It made all three of you feel younger, less world weary. You were a living contradiction, kind but stern, nerdy but somehow cool with it, and more sophisticated than he could ever hope to be. A complex character, unlike Sans who was undeniably simple. He'd mentioned this to you once and you had merely scoffed, remarking Sans was the most complex person you had ever met, hiding pain behind layers of diversions. You really were quite perceptive.
So when the skeleton walked into the bar and saw Grillby happily humming to himself, blissfully unaware of his presence, he grinned to himself. It was innately obvious he had missed Grillby’s first encounter with you but he was sure he could coax out the details from either you or Grillby. You weren’t the best at hiding things but you were very good at keeping secrets if you knew there would be serious consequences upon sharing the information.
He knew this after the one timeline he had told you about timelines, deciding on a whim that it didn’t matter. No matter what happened: Frisk was going to reset. It was the same timeline that you had been a physicist. You had spent a long time theorising with him on why Frisk did what they did. You’d also spent a long time comforting him. You’d taken him to see the stars for the first time with your new telescope from work. He’d really enjoyed that timeline. You and Grillby hadn’t been as close that time. He couldn’t help hoping you might have liked him a little, even if it was subconsciously. He also couldn’t deny he’d developed a small crush on you after that but he didn’t dare encroach on Grillby’s happiness.
The happiness of everyone else had to come first. For, even if it was fleeting, they at least could enjoy it without looking over their shoulders. His own happiness was so inconceivably contrived at this point, he had no idea what it would take for him to genuinely achieve it. He didn’t hold much hope for this timeline. The previous one had been a genocide. Before he had killed them, Frisk had been apologising in a puddle of their own tears, promising they wouldn’t reset again. If it was the first time he had heard that spiel it might have struck a chord with Sans.
Unfortunately, at that point he was so used to being their plaything, he was merely feeling a stinging disappointment that they wouldn’t give him answers to their motives. Heck, he wasn’t even disappointed at them but because of his own failure to solve them, even with the psychology books you and he had poured over before. His first guesses at why they reset proved to be wrong. He had no idea what motivated them by this point. He only fought to slow the time to the next reset down, in hopes that he would get to see you before it happened. He didn’t know why he tried. He had never obtained a timeline where he managed to get his happy ending with you but seeing you always made him feel better. The constant variable that was you against the predictability of the rest of the timeline.
He let out a small, resigned sigh. Being around you made him want to fight Grillby for you, for your attention and Frisk not to reset. It made him want to not be lazy. Or at least, not as lazy. He would never forgive himself for the Fatal Timeline. The first one after developing his crush on you. You had died. It was the most earth shattering experience because even though he knew you’d be back in the next timeline; he didn’t get to see you. He didn’t get to see your slightly asymmetrical smile, or the way your nose wrinkled as you laughed at one of his bad jokes. He didn’t get to see the shine in your eyes when you were enthusiastic about something, or the little dimples that formed at the corners of your cheeks when you smiled. Even after seeing his friends and family fall in the Underground over and over he couldn’t handle your death. For some reason, your glassy, blank eyes gazing towards the sky, lying in a pool of your own blood as it seeped through your shirt was worse than anything his mind had so far conjured. The slick noise of the knife the mugger had used, and the sickening squelch, followed by a clatter as he dropped it to the ground. He'd tried to save you, but by the time he had reached you, even with his powers it had been too late. You were gone. It replayed in his mind over and over, your cold immobile corpse, broken on the ground. The knowledge you would never get your happy ending in this time because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. His thick, salty tears mixing with your blood caused by the knowledge you wouldn’t be buried like you deserved because your family had disowned you after your friendship with monsters began. He could only be grateful for the fact Grillby had not met you in that timeline. He remained the quiet, stoic character he had always been without you. They didn’t do that every timeline but in the ones they did you were slightly sadder, not bitter but melancholy. You were angry but at the ignorance of humans.
Thankfully there hadn’t yet been a timeline where a full war had erupted between Humans and Monsters. Frisk, for all their flaws, was a very good diplomat. It was one of the factors that prevented him from killing them when they fell, regardless of the route they intended. That and his promise to Toriel. Also Papyrus would never forgive him. The young skeleton didn’t have much experience with death and Sans didn’t want to expose him to more of it than was necessary. He knew Asgore and Undyne might understand his actions to a degree, but they could never truly appreciate the conflicting happiness and terror he felt when he saw Frisk. Would he have to watch his brother die, over and over again? Or would this be one of the rare timelines where they didn’t kill anyone and he got to see you again? It was usually the first. The only person who could even come close to comprehending what he went through was Flowey. And his memory was always wiped with the true resets. Sans didn’t think Frisk had figured out yet that true resets didn’t affect him.
He didn’t intend to share that knowledge with them either. Maybe one day they would slip up and tell him something which would allow him to unravel the monstrous deeds they did.
He knew Frisk was not one entity. They were not two entities either, as such. He knew Frisk’s appearance in the Underground had awoken Chara’s soul. He knew it was far easier to try and separate them into Frisk in the pacifist run and Chara in the Genocide. But that simply wasn’t the case. From the moment Frisk completed their first genocide run and gave Chara their soul the two had been inseparable. They weren’t two beings, more like two halves of one being. Two halves which could not be separated into good and evil, but just Chara and Frisk.
Chara seemed to be the more passionate side. Hot with emotion, anger, passion, revenge. They didn’t care who it was targeted at, they just wanted to release their resent and hatred, and usually the dominant force in the Genocide route. Frisk in contrast was cool, calm, collected. They were the voice of reason. They directed Chara’s anger, from unbridled rage into a deadly weapon. They were determined to see their end goal, regardless of what it was, or what they had to do to get there.
They were a deadly combination; which Sans couldn’t understand. The last timeline they had promised, in a puddle of their own blood that this would be it. The last reset. Their tears mingled with the blood and they seemed so genuine Sans wanted to believe them. But Sans couldn’t bring himself to believe them, much less hope for so much. They had promised such things before, only to turn around and sting him with the harsh reality of the lying nature that came with being a ruthless murderer. He had cast his eye over their sobbing form, and coldly ended their misery, a few bones nailing the child’s corpse to the ground.
Sans didn’t think he was without compassion. Even after killing them so many times, it still hurt to end Frisk, even knowing they would be back in the next reset. He had once thought they were friends, that there was some remanence of a person trying to do the right thing in there. After so many resets he stopped believing that. It still made him laugh though. A bitter laugh. Sans. Without. Without hope. And that’s what he was. Even you couldn’t change that. You would be no match for Frisk. He had been trying to reason with them for years, years of the same routine, over and over. He thought, hoped, that they would grow tired of it. It didn’t make sense to him. Did Frisk get bored with their life on the surface? But then why did they reset? People might not remember them, but they still acted the same way, said the same things. How could they get bored of the ever-changing surface but not of the same routine in the underground?
Being the Judge was hard. One was born every lifetime. A monster with the ability to read people. He supposed it was vaguely comparable to the Oracle of Ancient Greek mythology. He was no Seer however. He couldn’t see the future, and he couldn’t see how time would be affected by the actions of an individual. He could however, see time and space. It was like a shimmery fabric which he could see the pathways through, like electric markers. This naturally enabled him to use these pathways to travel faster through the world. He liked to call them shortcuts. He could also use the residual magic in the air to strengthen his own. He never had a lack of magic due to this ability. But since monster mental health and HP were inexplicably linked the pressure of dealing with Frisk lowered his HP to a measly 1.
He hated it, he really did. He could remember once, when he used to have an abundance of HP, similar to Pap. He wished they didn’t have such a sick fascination with him, with testing his limits, both mentally and physically. Now he was forced to dodge every move they made. He knew he could never dodge forever. But he also knew they couldn’t dodge him forever. That one day they would slip up and he would realise why they played this awful game. They were now 6 months into the surface. This was not the furthest they had made it, that was around 3 years, but it was a luxury he was indulging in. It wasn’t the shortest amount of time he had
He sighed and shook himself from his thoughts, focusing on the thick scent of the ketchup bottle which had appeared in front of him at some point, and the hum of Grillby’s happiness, his vocalisation and magic mixing together mellifluously. He watched as the slender black box on the bar glowed softly, notifying Grillby that he had a text. He hastily grabbed the phone, whisking it out from under Sans’ watchful eye. He was too late, and Sans had already seen what it said, the words ‘Hey, Hotstuff, you there?’ standing out from the harsh white screen.
He cocked a brow at Grillby, who promptly flushed brightly, flames growing a few inches, and greenish tint blessing his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.
“Really Grillby? Aren’t you the player lately?”
“N-no! Sans it’s not like that!” The elemental protested. “They’re just…really nice and cute!”
“Oh I bet.” He chuckled, causing the elemental to cover his face with a squeak.
“Stop it. “He mumbled from behind his hands.
Sans laughed softly, enjoying probing Grillby. He had missed this part of the resets. Too bad it probably wouldn’t last long. He found his mind drifting back to you. What would you be like this time? He couldn’t wait to find out. Would he even be here long enough to meet you? He hoped so.
He couldn’t wait to see you again.