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The underground wasn’t supposed to be a boring place. The place had enough events, activities and entertainment between work and free time respectively, but not if you re-lived the same week over and over and over and over a nd over—
Sans was bored.
Sure changing up his comedy routine on Sundays was fun— if it hadn’t been a genocide timeline —or trying to help Papyrus cook something edible for dinner was fun, but life got boring.
Stars knew that he’d actually tried to ask Flowey for advice, yet the monster only sighed and mumbled something about killing. Sans wasn’t too keen on that idea.
That’s when he started to notice details in everyday life, sometimes Undyne came over for dinner, sometimes Alphys called the skeleton for help with some complex physics problems, even Toriel had a new joke once in a few resets.
Sans clung onto the anomalies, a sense of life beyond the underground, beyond the same routine, beyond trying to figure out what thing was doing this to that human to make them reset.
So, where was his hoodie? Sometimes interactions differed, things moved around before, but never vanished from the face of the earth.
Sans felt how cold their house usually was as he walked down the stairs, “BROTHER, YOU'RE UP EARLY-“ Papyrus looked up from his oatmeal happily but the expression quickly changed to surprise; “WHERE IS YOUR JACKET?”
“I dunno, paps. have you seen it around?” It was too early for this, the skeleton was used to at least a few more hours in bed contemplating life and going on his phone before waking up, he reached for the coffee machine, even if he despised the taste.
“HOW ODD, I SWORE I WASHED IT LAST WEEK!” His brother spoke rhythmically,
“more like last year,” Sans replied dryly, knowing the joke wouldn’t land, as expected, his brother frowned, mumbling about not getting the joke. Whatever, Papyrus would forget about this in a week anyway.
Papyrus insisted they should wear matching battle bodies, even though Sans hated the idea of the anomaly, which controlled Frisk and thereby the reset ability, to see them derailing from the usual ‘script .’ Surely that would mean more resets.
He couldn’t wear something different.
Sans wore a hoodie with ‘cool dude .’ as he shook Frisk's hand, the fart joke was getting old even for him. Much to the skeleton's relief Frisk wasn’t covered in dust, their eyes didn’t match the colour of their soul; Frisk had complete control over this reset, thank Stars .
Sans honestly had been dreading the interaction with the human because anything out of place would kickstart a series of resets in a short amount of time.
They motioned toward the change of clothes curiously. “can’t a skeleton try a new look?” Sarcasm dripping in his voice,
‘
The anomaly
,’ their hands shook slightly and Sans didn’t know if Frisk was cold or still struggling with the sign as their hands moved stiffly.
‘You didn’t know if this was going to be a pacifist timeline.’
The human finished,
“tiba honest i couldn’t find my hoodie.” Frisk cringed as Sans unconsciously used the same pun for the millionth time.
‘Is there a glitch, should I reset?’ Before Frisk een finished signing Sans already disagreed,
“nah, you finish this run. I’m sure paps would let you rest at our place once you guys hung out.” When even was the last time Frisk did a full pacifist run? No, they couldn’t reset the kid deserved some rest. “don’t work yourself to death .” he winked, the kid looked at him with a deadpan stare.
“can’t let paps wait too long” with that Sans wanted to get on with the usual routine,
Suddenly the kid tugged on his clothes pointing to a gap in the air. ‘ Have you seen that before?’ Frisk questioned.
Sans lowered his voice when he saw a glitchy shape through the opening in the sky, “no. but objects have never vanished before either so maybe this will explain somethings…” He looked back toward the kid, “you can handle papyrus by yourself for a bit, right?”
Frisk nodded. “ok, I’ll ketchup with you later.” A displeased look from the kid was the last thing the skeleton saw before he took a shortcut right before the portal— ( rip in space?) — closed, the monster that was in it didn’t have time to react before Sans grabbed him by his collar with a lazy hand,
“hey buddy.” It came out breathless and his bones felt heavy, he wasn’t used to acting so quickly. “never seen you around before.”
This is the closest Sans had ever been to the other monster, he had yellowing teeth, dark bones and blue tracks running down his eyes, his expression was pure wonder though,
“You R-ReaLY aRe L-leFt hanDed!” The other shrieked, or atleast what Sans assumed was a shriek as the voice became more and more glitched.
“ what .” Unintentionally his eyelights had disappeared as he stood frozen wondering if maybe he had finally lost it, it wouldn’t be above all those resets.
“DoEs YØu- YouR eyE ReaLly GlOw YellOw?!”
“slow down pal—“ Sans subconsciously decided that he wasn’t in any danger based on that reaction because the skeleton's grip loosened every so slightly, and in the blink of an eye there were blue strings around his arm, creating an unmoving distance between his arm and the taken aback glitchy monster.
Sans ignored that in favour of his question; “you act like you know me from tv or something.”
That seemed to snap the other skeleton back to reality as he seemed to falter and began pacing around mumbling to himself. Sans noted they were in a void and silently tried not to freak out at that fact, the glitchy skeleton was mumbling something about abominations and timelines frantically.
“you doing ok?” The monster snapped his gaze toward (what Sans considered himself as) his new hostage as he couldn’t move, they just stared at each other in silence and the skeleton cringed slightly at the apparent staring contest he entered, the other skeleton said nothing.
With the new monster dissociated, Sans instead focused on anything else, for example, where the strings that burned through his bones while holding his hand in place came from. There seemed to be a ceiling, even though sans couldn’t see it, puppets were hanging from some string,s and there was a bean bag with—
“hey, you found my hoodie!” Or took it. Though Sans decidedly shut up before he said anything of the sort, “…why do you have it?”.
The other took a breather, facing away from the other skeleton before trying his best to respond normally; “sOrřy, NEedEd iț F-for re-refeRence.” Like that would explain anything.
Sans just stared at the other while the dark bones skeleton let out a big sigh before freeing his hand from the strings. Sans walked toward the beanbag and, while grabbing his hoodi,e noticed a doll version of himself .
“do you know me from my stand up orrr-“ grabbing the doll and holding it up to the others' glitching face.
“Øħ- OH NO- I- I. Yøų’Re- You.“ The monster sounded embarrassed as he began to glitch more and snatched the doll from Sans’ hand, his fingers graced the other and left glitches on the skeleton's hand that slightly tingled and hurt but he was still on 1HP.
The skeleton seemingly mumbled to himself again, facing away from Sans as he began an argument with no one, but before Sans could even question the other began speaking.
“I- I Æm-“ — He was a stuttering mess, trying to calm himself before speaking (Sans swore he saw the skull glow a faint yellow, blush?)— “ I am a- A bIg f-Fan of yOu?” That sounded more like a question than an answer.
There was an oncoming migraine Sans could feel coming, yet he decided not to be rude. “you mean my comedy?”
“nO. You-You’re the Øř-Orignal. Th-e classic UniVerse..” Sans had way too many questions swirling in his head, “ The- ǒnły NǒnE æB- Abomination !” The glitchy skeleton breathed in awe.
“look, dude, I know ‘bout the timelines, resets- blah blah. but you lost me.” It felt like he needed to sit down for this and maybe a PowerPoint presentation.
“Yo-you… D-DOnt kNow abOut the-thE othEr AU’s?” Sans shook his head quietly, echoing the Aee-Uuh sound the other made, giving him a comically questioning look.
Suddenl,y blue strings were manhandling him onto the beanbag before sans could even begin to dodge. Another rip though space was made in front of the beanbag like a television as the other skeleton stood next to him, “L-Look, hEre.”
It was him, it was him and Papyrus, but in different clothes, while the human did their puzzles, but that wasn’t Frisk, and why was Papyrus wearing a hoodie? Sans shot the skeleton next to him a look, eyes big with confusion and his smile sagged.
“U-UndersWap.” The Skeleton answered the yellow returning for the second time they made eye contact, “A uni-Universe where Yo-You all swApeD personality’s.”
The portal switched to another universe like a television with a snow screen and everything. “Ou-outerTale.” The other supplied, “A-a universe WhEre MoNsters wEre bAnisHed To the mOon iNstead o-of the UndErgroUnd.”
Sans was barley listening. These were things he’d only seen in books. The moon, the earth, and so many stars. He reached out toward the sky, but before he could even dare to touch the portal it switched to another dimension.
“Yo-Your UnIverse.” The other skeleton continued, Sans tried to recover but it felt like a dream had been ripped away from him as he took a shaky breath and looked up to see Papyrus, his brother - fighting over a bone with a small white dog.
“so.. Where are you—“ He was interrupted before he could even ask; “cALL me ErrOr.” The skeleton- Error, tried to smile but it ended up being a little creepy as he grinned.
“sans.” He extended a hand not expecting it to be shaken with strings instead a bony hand. He silently noted that Error was probably not a touchy person, “so to be clear, you stalk me?” He stated.
Error’s skull turned almost entirely yellow in what Sans assumed was blush, “N-O. I-I-“ He couldn’t even comprehend the fact Error made a crash sound of an old windows computer while his eyes went to a blue error screen before… he came back to consciousness.
“I’M ju-Just a bIg f-FaN of-of the OriGnal UniVersE.” Error crossed his arms slightly embarrassed, Sans never had fans before, maybe he should ask Mettaton about dealing with this sort of stuff the next time Frisk managed a pacifist timeline, but for now he could joke about it.
“what, you got a body pillow of me or something?”
“…WouLd yØu SiGn I-It?” Error sounded a little too excited.
“no.”
“YO-you sH-should Probably g-go H-home befOre yOur brOTheR geTs SUspicIous.” The skeleton sounded deflated as he changed the subject before Sans could even begin to unpack that newfound horror. A portal silently glitched open into his living room.
“wait.” Error snapped his gaze toward him. “could you take me to that one universe sometime? the one with the stars.” It was Sans’ turn to feel a blush crawl up into his skull, the magic tinting his face a light blue as he rubbed his fingers across his hoodie.
The darker skeleton’s blush was much more noticeable, “YêAh. YEş. I- I’Ll țēXt Y-Yoü!” He stepped through the portal, and even though they didn’t exchange numbers, Sans was sure Error would know.