The Smell of Old Books (Sans/Reader)

Preventative Phone Breaking

"Sans," Undyne huffed, "_____ isn't here today. I made her take the week off."

"do you know if she's mad at me?" Sans said quietly, not really wanting the fish monster to hear his words.
Undyne made a sound of surprise, "I don't think she is. It's not my job to tell you how she thinks, y'know? Try talking to her."

"but i have-"

"Then wait until she messages you back, bonehead. Didn't you know that girls hate when boys seem desperate?"

"..."

Undyne sighed, "I don't think I've ever seen you so upset about anything. What the hell happened?"

"i messed up," Sans said, "i did something really bad."

"Oh my GOD," The slap of Undyne hitting her forehead could be heard, "I'm not ____ and your relationship counselor. You two need to talk to each other at one point. I can try to help your cause, but I'm not going to be able to fix it. You know that, right?"

"uh-huh."

"If you messed up that badly, ____ wouldn't want to talk about you to literally anyone," Undyne said bluntly, "But she's the one who told me she screwed up somehow. SO MAYBE. Instead of talking to me, you should be talking to her."

"she thinks she screwed up?"

Shuffling sounds could be heard in the background, "You know her. Always thinks everything is her fault."

"I have to go, Sans, I'm watching the bookstore for the week. Just try to talk to her, she's having a bad time with this whole situation - just like you. Talk to you later."

"thanks, undyne. see ya."

Sans hung up the phone and prevented himself from throwing it at the wall. Undyne was real helpful, yeah, just telling him stuff he already knew.

God, he had really messed up this time.

Sans was typically easy-going and relaxed when it came to most things. He dealt with Papyrus on a daily basis (which wasn't bad, of course not. just exhausting) for heaven's sake. His job wasn't some run of the mill hot dog stand anymore, he worked with Alphys on human sciences. Like that wasn't some job you could stand around and have idle chit chat with co-workers.

He was as he was. It made him Sans. And, honestly, it was one of the few things he liked about himself.

Except for now.

All that relaxed nature went away almost instantaneously when he was around you.

His soul felt like it was running a goddamn marathon. (Were human souls different? What color was your soul?) Sometimes he even felt like he was going to vomit out of anxiousness around you. You weren't like most of the other humans he had met - you were caring and thoughtful and you genuinely cared about people whether they were human or monster.

It was a damn good change.

He remembered when he had first met you, when you dropped that stupid ketchup bottle. Sans realized you were trying to help him at first but he wasn't quite sure if your intentions were malicious or not. He'd heard horror stories about humans doing kind things for monsters to only throw that same thing back into their faces.

When you dropped that bottle, he didn't really know what to say.

So, like Sans's typical nature, he got ready to say a stupid pun about it.

The look on your face was in sheer terror and you looked ready to cry. You apologized profusely, something humans really never did when they were in the company of monsters.