(Sans x Reader) When Two Souls Meet

An Unending Cycle

Sans' Perspective

The kid sure is pushin' it this time, I think. What's it been, three days? That's gotta be some kind of record.

My crude attempt at a cheerful thought fails epically, and I can't help but sigh, staring up at the ceiling through the inky blackness that is my room.

Any minute now, the kid'll reset, again.

Any minute now, Paps'll burst in, telling me that I'm late for sentry duty, again.

I'll go back to my post, to find that everything has started over from the beginning... again. Just like it did the last time the kid fell down here, and the time before that, and the time before that time... My entire world revolves around that kid, and the uncertainty of it all is torture.

Will Chara get to the kid before I do?

Will Chara make the kid go on a killing spree?

Will the kid snap out of it before they... before they reach Papyrus?

And in the end... will I have to kill the kid to keep her from moving forward?

I can't stop tears from springing to my eye sockets when I think about it. The genocide run. One of those hasn't happened in a long time, but those images, those events... they've been burned into my memory so fully that I can't so much as fall asleep without reliving them. Even now, laying in the darkness like this, I can see it all so clearly... Papyrus turning to dust, the kid's broken body laying at my feet in the Judgment Hall...

I shake the thought away, trying to stay positive.

The kid and I have had good times, too, I remind myself. Puzzles. Grillby's. That one time at the hotdog stand. Heh, that was a good one.

The smile that's permanently fixed to my face slackens slightly at the edges, the closest thing to a frown I can accomplish. Yeah, there'd been good times... but they never last.

The kid dies, and resets.

The kid gets frustrated, and resets.

The kid gets bored, and resets.

The kid even resets accidentally, out of curiosity over what the reset button does.

Every time the kid reaches the castle, I can't help but hope that it'll be for the last time. But it never happens. The kid always, always resets. This isn't the first time that the kid's defeated Flowey, or the first time she "decided" to stay down here with the rest of us. No matter what I say, no matter what I do... I inevitably find myself in my bed, being woken up for sentry duty. In this unending cycle of resets, everything I do is ultimately pointless, just another action to be forgotten.

Heh... why even try? I ask myself. It's not as if we'll ever get a "happy ending."

No monster, in any of the timelines, has ever succeeded in gettin' a hold of the kid's soul. And I've seen the kid try, and fail, to break the barrier herself a hundred times. If not even her, with all of her determination, can break it... then it just can't be broken. Simple as that.

That doesn't keep her from trying, though—over, and over, and over again. I can't really blame her, though. She doesn't remember anything. No one does.

...No one but me.

That's what hurts the most. I'm completely alone. I instinctively wrap my arms around myself, hoping that the pressure will somehow keep me from going completely insane. I can't tell anyone. The idea of time resetting itself is absolutely nuts—no one would believe me.