Chapter Text
The timeline reset back to the beginning again. At his Snowdin guard post, Sans wondered where to start this time. Hotland? Snowdin? Waterfall? He recalled the previous timelines… and then his mind drifted to the Ruins. Since he’d started remembering every timeline, not once had he knocked on the door to the Ruins. It was because he knew he’d have to hear that promise from that woman. The promise from the lady that he could not keep. And since his only drive was to kill the human, Sans had long since given up on looking for the friend behind the door.
He leaned back in his chair and organized his thoughts. Sans crossed his arms and tapped his fingers a few times onto the wood, making a dull, pointless sound. He decided. He’d chat with his friend for the first time in a while.
—
Sans arrived at the ruins and immediately knocked on the door. After a third knock, and a fourth knock, he got the response he’d been waiting for from behind the door. A kind, joking voice of his friend.
“Who’s there?”
“who?”
“Who who?”
“you know who, buddy.”
The two exchanged jovial puns that were used as greetings. Like before, and the before before that before, Sans’s joke was the same as always. Yet his friend behind the door didn’t know that, and so she simply laughed softly.
“Could you… can you do me a favor?”
“... heh. only if you listen to a joke first.”
“A joke? Uh, okay, but-”
Sans cut off his friend’s worried request, and told a joke that just occurred to him.
“what kind of food does the mad skeleton like to serve to others?”
“Mad… a mad skeleton? This joke… it’s different from your usual ones. But I’m not quite sure.”
“... that’s an issue.”
With a familiar whirr, and an even more familiar blast of light, the Ruins door easily crumbled to rubble. Despite having been shut for such a long time, it easily fell.
“the mad skeleton likes to serve ox-bone soup.”
But there was no response to the pun. Only a pile of dust beyond the door. His friend didn’t have any time to laugh at the joke, nor did she have any time to feel offended at the betrayal, whether that betrayal be of a friend or that of a young child. But Sans didn’t ponder that dilemma much, more happy that instead, his LOVE had increased significantly. What satisfying and valuable EXP. As he watched the dust flutter around in the air, he spoke to finish the forever-unended conversation.
“even in times like these, you’re a good friend, old lady.”