Sometimes he liked to pretend the world wasn't perpetually ending. It never lasted long, this false hope, and usually landed him wasted in Grillby's bar. An unfortunate series of event perpetuated by a series of entirely different unfortunate events.

This was one such time. Sans had been doing fairly well, all things considered. But then his brother had mentioned something totally meaningless and irrelevant that somehow sent Sans on a spiral leading him back to the resets.

So, in the end, the skeleton had ended up sitting at the bar, clutching something that definitely wasn't sobering. Grillby spent his night glancing down at Sans with a moderate level of concern in his fiery gaze, but no comfort beyond that. Instead, the elemental handed the skeleton a drink and then another and another until Sans was a blubbering mess of alcohol and angst.

There were some timelines where Sans would spill everything to the bartender in a drunken haze. The timelines and the kid's genocidal tendencies spilling out of him just like his tears were. The alcohol made it difficult to recall Grillby's response, but Sans could imagine that they weren't overly positive. This timeline, Sans didn't speak to the monster. Instead, he just quietly sipped his ketchup and stared into the bar's flickering shadows.

The fire monster cleaned a glass by hand, shooting Sans a worried look. "...What's wrong?"

"Huh?" The bar was empty and a quick look at the empty streets through the windows confirmed how late it was. Sans pushed back against the stool, wobbling to his feet as he stood up, "Sorry, Grillbz. Didn't notice you'd closed."

"…Papyrus usually comes to pick you up by now." Grillby observed, still cleaning the same glass. The glass was spotless.

Sans looked away. Darkness rimmed his eyes. "Yeah." The kid killed Papyrus first. A few monsters here and there. Grillby was something of an odd case in every timeline seeing as he sometimes didn't even realize someone had died. Other times it was Grillby telling Sans to evacuate with him. It was always a struggle with the element.

Grillby looked up from his glass cleaning, a crackle sounding from his flame in something like concern. "Is he... not coming?"

"Nah. See ya later, G."

"Sans, I... I don't know what's bothering you, but..." The skeleton gave Grillby a moment to collect his thoughts. One often had to wait for the quiet flame to form his words carefully. "...I think of us as friends. Is...Is something wrong between you and your brother? If you—"

"My bro is dead." The door pushed open with a small squeak that evolved into a loud groaning. Sans spared a final glance over his shoulder to see the red flames dimming low.

"...What was that? ...I-I didn't quite catch that?" Grillby moved around the counter and towards Sans.

A creak marked Sans' loosening hold on the door. "The human killed Pap."

"...Sans..." Grillby lowered himself to Sans' level, getting on his knees and pulling the skeleton into a warm embrace, "...I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"It's fine." Sans' soul thudded in his chest as he tried to push out of Grillby's hug. He pushed the monster back with an outstretched hand.

Grillby looked down, shocked. "...Yes. Of course. I-I'll let you go then." He looked at the snowy weather silently, save the crackling of his flame. "...If you... need anything Don't hesitate to come over. I'm...I'm here for you, Sans."

Sans left. He wouldn't be coming back to Grillby's, not that timeline, at least. Maybe the next one—no. Definitely the next one. Talking about Papyrus' death wasn't something Sans liked to do. Not because it was still a fresh wound but because it wasn't. He'd talked about his brother's death so many times over the previous timelines that it really held no meaning anymore. Sure, Sans' brother was dead. In an minute or so, he wouldn't be anymore.

Speaking of the resets, the world began to shake. Not physically, but some underlying current in the air began to vibrate and hum. The static noise played loudly in Sans' head. For a brief moment, everything went black.

Sans was suddenly aware of the warmth of wool covering his body and the turbulent whirring of a trash tornado. The kid must have reset because Papyrus was shouting from downstairs and Sans was painfully aware of how dead his brother was a second ago.

"Sans! Wake up you lazybones!" Sans knew his brother word for word, "We need to recalibrate the puzzles! I have a feeling that today will be the day, brother! Nyeheh!"

The older brother rolled over in bed and groaned. If he could have his way, Sans would choose to lie in bed all day memorizing the patterns in the blanket. If not that, then at Grillby's. "Keep it together," Sans told himself, sliding off the bed and onto his feet. Sans had to follow the script, there was no two ways around it that he could see. If the human child knew that he remembered their resets... Sans didn't want to think about it.

4444

No one had died in the timeline, which was a plus. But Sans would have prefered someone had. His hatred of pacifist timelines was born of countless resets. There was a time that he loved seeing the stars light up the sky, but seeing them over and over again and knowing that he'd be back underground eventually really put a damper on the whole thing.

Sans reminisced. The first few timelines were surprising, but Sans figured the human was just working things out. Trying to save everyone, including that stupid plant. Sans always figured the resets would eventually stop. But if that were the case, he wouldn't be waiting to judge the human in a golden hall like he was.

4444

The first time they chose Neutral.

Neutral being the route the human child, Frisk, had taken. Sans began classifying the timelines pretty soon after he noticed a pattern. He liked the Neutral timelines the best. Well, that wasn't entirely true. True Pacifist were optimal. Frisk didn't kill any monster and everyone made it to the surface.

The second time they chose True Pacifist.

Sans liked this one the best. Well, that was true either. He did at first. Seeing the stars. Seeing the sun. It was all he really wanted from the surface world he'd dreamed of for so long. He liked the surface, sure, but the kid was a bit... trigger-happy with the whole reset thing.

The third time they chose True Pacifist, again.

Frisk spoke to more monsters and doubled back a few times. They spent longer in the ruins and called Papyrus more. The ending was the same, for which Sans was grateful, if not a little concerned. The human child seemed upset when they reached the surface. Sans didn't know why.

The fourth time they chose Neutral.

But it wasn't the same. They killed a good few monsters. Just some froggits and other monsters that Sans tended to overlook. Frisk made it to his hall and he judged them good enough and they went on to the king. Sans didn't go to watch.

The fifth time they chose Neutral.

There was no voice behind the door. Sans tried not to blame the kid. They were curious and they had power to undo everything. He could understand, sort of. He still hadn't told the kid he could remember the resets. Someone with a dark curiosity and power. He wasn't sure he wanted their full attention.

The sixth time they chose Neutral.

There was a red scarf in the snow.

From there it only got worse. The kid, Frisk, slowly worked their way through all the monsters. It began as just a few. Then the next time, they'd kill just a few more. The next time they'd kill all the monsters who attacked them.

The twenty-ninth time they chose Genocide.

It was the most emotionally draining for Sans. First Toriel. Then Papyrus. Then Undyne. Then Mettaton. And everyone in between. And everyone after. Sans, too. He could always feel it, even in the better timelines. Diagonally, right to left, tearing through bone until it dissolved into a powdery dust. It itched a constant reminder that he should be dead along with every other monster in the underground. But he wasn't. And they weren't either.

Genocide was always Sans' least favorite. The human would kill everyone. Not just his friends. But everyone. The froggit. The temmie. Everyone. When they fought Sans, it was a real struggle. He found it mildly difficult to keep his smile smiling and not to spill everything. That he remembered and to please just stop. He couldn't let the human know because they were curious and had power and were running out of things to do. He found himself telling them a little anyway.

It took the human a very long time to kill him. Which is to say it took them many timelines to kill him. Sans was powerful, surprisingly so, to many. Monsters were always underestimating him, but that was fine. Apparently humans did too. When the human-that-might-not-be-human-anymore finally did land that striking blow, Sans accepted the darkness that followed with open arms. He was so, so tired.

Which is why he was surprised when the next timeline they chose pacifism. The entirety of monsterkind made it to the surface. And Sans was shocked by the stars all over again, to a lesser extent than Papyrus had been, however. But nothing was good and he should have known all along.

That was around the time that Sans realized the human child was playing soulless now. Something else was in control; something darker. It was official. None of the timelines could end without at least one monster dying. Sans stopped looking forward to the remote possibility of a Pacifist timeline.

For the next however-long, his brother died every single day.

And that became his normal. Everything about the timelines and the resets was abnormal, but it went on for so long that it became normal. It was complicated to explain to others so he usually didn't. Sans had tried to explain what was happening to others a few times but they always forgot in the end anyway.

The worst part was that Sans stopped caring. He'd seen his brother die so many times it didn't come as a shock to see a red scarf in the snow anymore. He'd pick it up and take it home. Sometimes he'd wrap it around his neck, but always removed it before leaving for Judgment Hall. Because the kid couldn't know.

4444

But they already did.

Or at least they had the suspicion. Sans would say things. Odd things that the human would pick out of his sentences and ponder over sometimes. Usually during their fight. But they couldn't be sure. Not yet, at least. Sans had always been a bit of a mystery to them, anyway. So when he flinched at their words sometimes, it rose a few questions. But the human couldn't jump to any conclusions because they had just killed a lot of monsters and were also pretty threatening with that knife.

If Sans had been hiding his memories from them, he was doing a pretty good job.

4444

It was funny that the Judge judged himself hardest of all. It wasn't, really, but Sans had a good, long laugh about it anyway. He didn't so much judge himself for what he had done, but for what he hadn't. The timelines were completely messed up at this point, and really only had himself to blame. There were so many things he could have done, still could do. But if the world was already broken, what could a few more cracks do? Eventually, the world, time, space, everything would just be one big, shattered mess of a place and Sans would be to blame.

This timeline had gone normally, as far as a Soulless Pacifist timeline could. The kid was nice to the extent that they could fake without coming off as too forced and everyone had believed that false warm glow of theirs. Everyone but Sans, of course. He knew how to fake things well enough to know the signs.

Judgment Hall always had a golden glow to it. Sans might have found it calming if he hadn't known what would be walking down the hall soon. A veritable monster, really. Not the monster kind, like Sans was, but the darker, more nonphysical kind. But if he were to fight them anywhere, Sans was glad it was this final hallway. To be standing there just felt right. It felt final in the way that dying should and he was definitely going to die in that hall. Just not in this timeline.

Speak of the devil.

The human child proudly strutted down the golden hallway. At some point during their runs, the kid had switched up the old purple striped shirt for something yellow and green. Sans couldn't care less, really. But he did find it odd that the kid would switch up something so trivial.

A faraway bell chimed three times.

"So you finally made it," the skeleton repeated from his script. It wasn't a literal script, he just had a really good memory for what he'd said the first time. Sans wasn't sure he could forget. Sans wasn't sure he wanted to remember. "The end of your journey is at hand. In a few moments, you will m—"

"So I've been doing some thinking." The human child conversationally cut into Sans' mandatory monologue, "You used to smile different."

"—eet the king. Together... You will determine the future of this world."

"Oh, you and I both know that's already happened." They smiled.

Sans trudged through the rest of his dialogue while attempting to maintain his calm façade. The kid was talking like they knew he remembered the resets. It wasn't the first time they'd attempted to get a reaction out of him. He usually continued on without much of a reaction, but maybe that gave him away more than anything. But, seriously, how did the kid know? Had he been too obvious? What had he done different? The skeleton tried to think of how the human could have figured out the secret of his memories, but came up empty. As far as he could recollect, he had always followed his script perfectly. Perhaps he had been too liberal with his timespace shenanigans and references to the resets. In the end, he was his own undoing, he supposed. "That's then." He continued, voice quiet and tinged with a sternness he hadn't known of, "Now. You will be judged."

The child smiled. Grinned, really. It was dark, but not entirely fake. Perhaps more morbid and shadowed with hate that Sans had seen before, but not fake. This smile was the kid's true smile. "You will be judged for your every action." They piped up, mimicking the words Sans' mouth was already moving to form but hadn't quite yet. "Hey Sans. Do you remember when I killed everyone?"

The skeleton took a step back, eye alight with fear and suspicion. They knew. The human knew that he remembered. They knew and they were curious. Terribly, terribly curious. And determined. It was a deadly mix. The curiosity to know something and the determination to actually get up and do it. Sans breathed out heavily, despite not having lungs. "I-I don't know," his chest shuddered, "what your talking 'bout kid." But his eye was flaring with color it wasn't supposed to know. Not in this type of timeline, at least. Maybe it was his face that gave him away in the end.

"Well, Sansy! I'll be honest, I had my suspicions!" The were still smiling. So was Sans. "But it is true, isn't it? You can remember them? My resets?"

"You gonna let me finish my speech or are you going to keep cutting me off?" He was still hoping to get the conversation back on track.

"Cutting you off has been working pretty well so far. I think I'll keep it up." The kid walked forward confidently, slipping into place at Sans' side, "So it's true, right?"

"Don't know what your talking 'bout, kid."

"Come on, Sansy! You can tell me!"

So he was found out. There was really no way to salvage this conversation and Sans was tired of lying. He'd kept up a mask of ignorance for countless timelines (300? 400? He lost count a long time ago). Sans' eyes briefly turned to the human in thought. He could come clean about his memory. He wouldn't be alone. The only downfall being that he would become the focus of a sadistic killer. Sans weighed his options.

The human, for their part, was silent, seemingly giving Sans time to think. Their eyes gleamed with the excitement of something new in a monotonous world.

This was a bad idea. "You got me kid. I remember your resets."

"Wait, really?" The human turned to look Sans in the eye, "Oh, Sansy, this just got so much more interesting!"

Sans grew still suddenly.

"Think of the possibilities! You and me versus the Underground! It must be so boring to live the same day 486 times in a row." The soulless human seemed to have planned this all out ahead of time and Sans quietly wondered how long they'd suspected him. "I'll help out with that, okay? From here on out, these timelines are all about you!"

4444

Sans was a wool blanket and his mind was a trash tornado.

"4444" being to break up the story. If anyone has any better ideas to break up the story, I'd love to know them.

Okay! So I just finished another fic and wanted to go ahead and get this one started up. Not sure when the next update will be, but there will (probably) be one. I've got some vague ideas of where I want this to go, and I fully intend to get there. As of now, I have a few parts of this story already written, but not much. And I definitely do not have the next chapter written, though I may be encouraged to get it done faster if some people like this. Thanks for reading!