Sans AU One-Shots

Reaper || valentine's.

Pairing: ReaperTale Sans x Reader
Prompt: For someone that's been around for a real long time, Reaper sure doesn't know much about Valentine's Day. But then, can you blame the guy when the roses he would try to bring you die in his hands?
Type: Valentine's Day fluff, romantic drabble
Length: 2.8k words
Background: If you don't know much about Reapertale, Sans is the God of Death (Grim Reaper) and Toriel is the Goddess of Life. Everything Sans touches dies, he's addicted to coffee, and he hates what he does. If you know Reaper Sans from the AfterDeath ship (Geno x Reaper) then you likely don't know how he canonically acts, as he acts more like death warmed over - and honestly I would too if I had to kill undeserving people for a living. [If you have more info on Reapertale, hmu cuz finding anything canon on it is putting me in an early grave lmao.]
Notes: There are so many death puns it'll be the death of you (lmao), so if it looks like it's a pun, it probably is. Happy Valentine's Day kiddos! <3

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Reaper had lived for a long, long time, but death never got any easier to accept. His job was hard, and tedious, and draining, and he hated it more and more every day he had to do it, but somebody had to reap souls and he was made to do just that. Too bad he didn't get legally required breaks, no? You'd think after all that time that he would stop caring about life, or that he never liked the lives that Toriel created to begin with - like he was a cruel grim reaper that hunted mortals down for the thrill of killing them - but it never got any easier. Until he met you.

You liked to say lives only had meaning because they ended. "If we lived forever, then it wouldn't be nearly as special to be here with each other in this moment, you know?" Your smile was bright as you said it, the recent tragedy of losing someone you love and meeting death himself not scaring you like he was used to. "I'm choosing to spend my limited time with you, and that, I think, makes it all the more special."

Reaper tried for a while to figure out what made you tick. He'd seen his fair share of souls that were happy to be reaped - not everyone ran from him, of course, but that made it all the more painful to take the life that they didn't even value in the first place - but you weren't on death's door and you were always smiling like a little ray of sunshine despite being around, well, death. He was the very definition of an ominous warning of bad things to come, yet you only saw him as a skeleton forced to do a job. And that struck him as odd, so against his better judgment, he visited you again.

"Everyone always says death is the cruel one," you had said when he asked for your thoughts on death and life. "I think it's life that's cruel. I mean, we're in this life just to suffer until we're finally laid to rest, and death is the sweet release we all long for at some point - even if we try to escape it when our time comes." He'd never met someone that thought of him as the hero, and that was perhaps the moment he realized how much you meant to him. You noticed the way he was looking at you and cracked a grin. "Sorry, that probably makes me sound like some kind of amateur philosophist that's trying super hard to sound deep but they don't actually have anything clever to say. I just meant: we spend our whole lives running from death when we know it's inevitable. Why worry when we can focus on how we want to spend the time we're given instead?"

It had been a while since anyone had made him think about his job outside of just a necessity, and Reaper found you to be the most fascinating thing he'd seen in a millennia, sparking what almost looked like life into his dead grin. "Are you sure you're not depressed?" he had joked, watching your face light up in a laugh.

"It's a dead giveaway, isn't it?"

He let out a chuckle, tapping the scythe in his hands. "Your jokes are killer, mortal." It had been a long, long time since he laughed, and for once, he didn't hate his very existence. He was talking with a being he was meant to end the life of, yet you weren't scared of him and instead you almost seemed to admire him - if he was reading your odd way of speaking correctly. And maybe you weren't going to live very long, barely more than a blink in comparison to his life, but as you said, he should enjoy the time he was given with you - even if it wasn't as much as he wanted.