entrancelogs | standing on the edge of my broken dream, searching for some kind of peace [OPEN + CLOSED]

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standing on the edge of my broken dream, searching for some kind of peace [OPEN + CLOSED]

Who: Frisk, some closed starters, and then YOU
Where: By the Rabbit Hole and then in gay baby jail
When: 12/27 and onward
Rating: PG-13 and up for a suicide attempt
Summary: The world turns on and on without me. This I know well. And yet I wonder. Despite seeing the same places, the people are never in the same spot. The only thing that remains is ȟ᷾̚ö͎᷆w͒̽̎ I̟᷿᷃ f̸̴᷾ͧ̑᷾͘e̯̮͖̓᷾ͧ͊l͈̭̼̟᷅̕͞l͏̶͆ͭ͊͌ͅ.
Story:

* Alphys might work faster.

* But the old Royal Scientist, Doctor ██▓░ █▓▓░▒▋?

* One day, he vanished without a trace.

                                                       * They say he shattered across ti̶͉̐me̺̻᷇ and s͕̥̃p̈́̾̇á̪̤c̨̙̿e̐̒͑.

                                          * Ha Ha...how can I say so without fear?

                                                                                                        * I'm holding a piece of him right h̷͔͖e̮̻̍re̲̾͟.

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The aching tension gets worse with the fourth reload. They expect Sans is getting pretty disoriented, too. Doing his best to bluff that he can follow a conversation that's been taking place over a few timelines.

But they can keep going. It's not even a matter of can. This situation won't allow the luxury of can. It's nothing more than have to.

"I was lying. I was telling utter fibs." They wobble, drop down to their knees. They'll lower themself if they have to. They'll beg if they have to. "I thought - I thought you'd have an easier time of it, if you could blame me. If you thought you'd escaped the clutches of someone who was just - just being selfish and manipulative. Someone who would have started wars." Leave room for the friend they wish they always had. Let it be a clean break, let them think that maybe it was for the best that they leave Chara behind. "If I told you the truth, then you'd just... then I thought it would be the worse manipulation. I thought I'd make you think I was another sword for you to fall on. That you had to forgive me, had to fix me, because that's all anyone expects of Frisk, right?"

But instead, they made it worse. No matter what they do, it doesn't get better. There's - there's no way out of it. There's no...

"Stop this. Don't hurt yourself." They can't watch Frisk do this to themself anymore. "If you die, you know I'll follow. If you go to the core, you can't do anything to stop me from going, too. You have never, not once, been able to make me forget anything. I know about Gaster. I was the only reason you, too, could dig up whispers of a person who has been ERASEd. You keep saying that this time, I am a variable that you can alter, but you have no proof. You have no reason to think you can True Reset me. Once you are gone, there is nothing you can do if you are wrong. If I remember, and I intend to follow you to the utmost."

Sans remembers. Alphys seems to remember. Chara is nothing but remembrance, a steadfast refusal to play along and ignore what isn't supposed to be there in a perfect world. "Over and over, all we've been telling you is that we don't want this. We don't want this Soul to stay Lost. What do we need to do to be heard, Frisk? What do you need for us to reach you and pull you out of this?"

Like an eraser drawn over a line of graphite. Scrub away the unseemly parts, the parts of Frisk no one wants to see. Have to make things right. Have to try to make things right.

"Maybe you're not the reason I know anything." Was it Chara who told them to turn back, to venture over to the edge of a pier where an empty-eyed child stared blankly ahead, begging them not to think about this anymore? Was it Chara who suggested retrieving an umbrella for them? Was it Chara who mentioned a door that Frisk had never seen before, a gray door containing a man whose face widened, spilling blackness, and then who vanished - who they could pass through effortlessly, as though he were made of mist?

"You'll forget." If there's a pleading note in their voice, ignore it. The words are flat and delivered without inflection, without emotion. They have to be strong. "I'm determined you will."

They have to do what they must.

Give your SOUL to Asgore. Let monsters be free.

Sacrifice they can do. Sacrifice is the easiest thing in the world. One broad stroke, one permanent motion, and then - they're done. And now they always will be.

If they do this right, if they time it right, it'll work. It'll work because it has to. Just one more impossibility for them to overcome, right? One more absurdity to achieve. One more means to an end. They've yanked out the tangled guts of the world now, the numbers that ran like bright circuits through their mind, white blood cells that boiled and burned and fought for conquest.

It will work because it has to. And so it will.

"You didn't break me. You found me broken." And they're determined to set things right. "And then you came to your senses and saw what I was."

It's all right. Everyone sees them, eventually. Mettaton saw them, and Sans saw them, and Leonard saw them, and then, finally, Chara. They don't have to exist in perpetual denial anymore.

Open their free hand, palm out.

"You don't have to pretend to care anymore."

He's about to agree with Chara, tell them that all those other Frisks don't matter, because they're not the ones who are here. None of them are the Frisk that they've all known for almost a year now. He's long thought that no two of the people here from the Underground are from the same exact iteration of the Underground. No one but Chara and Frisk. They're the only ones who match.

But then there's the knife again, and it presses downward--

Jolt

He actually sways this time. Just a little, one foot shifting sideways in the snow. Chara drops to their knees. They're desperate, begging. They're also starting to wear out. He can tell.

It's something like five now. Maybe more, maybe less, doesn't really matter. All within a few seconds of each other by the feel of things. He looks between the two kids, trying to think. Chara keeps Reloading like that for a reason, because Frisk has done something in the interim, something horrible. Something--

They--

They have a knife. Don't they? Yes. There it is.

Chara is not getting through to them. Sans knows he is not going to get through to them. It's never going to be the easy way.

It has to be the hard way.

He has to cheat, as usual. Has to be underhanded and sneaky and disingenuous.

And Frisk's attention is completely on Chara. They're not looking at Chara, but they haven't said a word to Sans. They're focused on their Partner. Their sibling. Focused on trying to make Chara see what they think is reason.

They say that Chara doesn't have to pretend to care anymore. They've got the knife. The knife doesn't move.

Has to be now, then.

His hand has been raised this whole time, ready for them, so there's no movement to give him away. It's very quick. He turns them blue, and this time he doesn't push them back. He yanks, whipping them forward off balance, straight toward him, and he slides easily sideways so he can catch the wrist of the hand holding the knife. Pulls them upward by the wrist. Too awkward an angle to do anything with that knife in this position.

He doesn't take a second to apologize or to even look them in the eye. He doesn't take any time at all. He teleports as soon as he's got a grip on them. A quick sidestep through the folds of spacetime. Lands next to Chara, since he has no intention of leaving them out here alone, especially not so close to the Rabbit Hole. Grabs Chara--by the sleeve and nothing else, since he knows better now.

Three people is a lot more difficult when you haven't been sleeping, especially a jump this big. But they make it. They land in a random, nondescript room inside the mansion. Maybe not so nondescript--there's a bed and a chair, a small refrigerator and a bathroom, sure, but the window is barred, the door and closet both have complex locks, and there isn't a single thing in the room that is sharp or breakable.

It's kind of a miracle this room exists, since he wasn't sure if he was asleep or awake when he set this up.

He pulls the knife from Frisk's hand.

Then he lets go and stumbles back against a wall, clutching the knife to him and breathing funny. Got it. Got them all out. Got the knife away from them. Got them all away from the Rabbit Hole. Even if Frisk gets out of this room, well, it'll be quite awhile before they can find the Rabbit Hole again.

It's a stall, it's probably little more than an inconvenience, and Frisk will hate him for this, but all of that is fine, all of that is fine because it's a start if nothing else, and people are coming who will better know what to do than he does, who will do this right, and he is not letting go of this knife.

"shit."

They let them get to them. Hesitated for just a moment, for too long. The same fatal mistake they always make. The same they made in Quor'toth, even without a scrap of determination to their SOUL. A stick upraised, ready to scythe down with a decisive impact that would have soaked them in the EXP necessary.

But then, as always, Sans is there. He is there to watch and to judge. And, in the worst moments, in the darkest moments, when they stand apart with a Knife clasped in their hands, their shoulders hunching and their head bowed, he is there to stop them.

Why should now be any different?

It isn't.

And, as always, it proves their undoing.

They're whip-cracked across the short space separating Sans and themself, and he catches their wrist. He times it perfectly, and there is no time, no sparking determination, no moment in which they may slam down a ruthless SAVE.

He grabs them.

He

grabs them

and

holds.

They twist. They tear. Too late. Too late, always too late. Too late and not enough. Can't let go, Frisk. Can't make him let go. He's holding you down for your own good, can't you see? You think we trust you out here, like this? It's too dangerous, and you'll misbehave. You'll make a scene, so don't you start. Hold onto my hand, ▒▓░░░█. Don't you dare look at me like that. Don't you dare try and squirm away. Stay right where you are. Stay right where you are.

Don't you dare leave.

It's for your own good.

They know this story.

They know how it e͓ͯ̊n͔̊͠d̦s̡̐͝.

Hold still for me. If you hold still, I won't have to hurt you so much.

Doesn't let go. Doesn't let go. Stop. Stop. Stop stop stop stopstop stop stop just stop just STOP just let go just stop just STOP JUST STOP stop stop please stop stop stop JUST STOP

Stop stop stop
STOP stop st -

You must have misunderstood.
That's not how it works.
You didn't listen, and now I have to teach you a lesson.

S░o█.

Words, broken words, disjointed and guttering. Speak up, you little brat. How's anyone supposed to hear you when you mumble? Can't breathe, can't think, burns in their mind. Walls now. Walls up, and there's no chance anymore.

The Rabbit Hole is gone.

Reach for knife. Gone too. All gone. Took it all away again. Unsafe for kids to carry knives. For own good. Took it away for own good.

Can't even decide how to die. How sad. How pitiful.

Fall. Falling hard. LOAD. LOAD it away. Reach for SAVE File.

...

...

...

Nothing happened.

There are things that Chara knows, more or less. They know the wisest outcome is for Sans to teleport Frisk away from the rabbit hole. Didn't know when he would go for it, or that he would risk himself by putting in the exertion of bringing them along on the shortcut. Guess he didn't think it would be a good idea to leave them alone with a portal to oblivion.

Or maybe he needed someone else around, to make sure Frisk couldn't undo it. Make sure Frisk didn't make the most of 1 HP and some thoroughly exhausted magic, a soul pushed to its limit.

They know, too, how it had felt to be in library, a frantic giddy relief consuming the two of them as they made a pact, made a plan, felt nothing but light and unburdened as they hurtled toward an end. They know the crushing despair of being pulled back from that ledge, told you have to continue that arduous upward path instead. Feels like losing the only way out you had left. Feels like the one last light at the end of this pitch-black tunnel being snuffed out.

They know the Surface, and the things it teaches. They've come to understand that some things differ between them and Frisk. Things that made Frisk sit on a bench with an unwanted quiche for a long, long time, rather than revolt against the suffocating feeling of being watched, being smothered, having no control whatsoever. Things that Sans would understand more viscerally than Chara. They think that Frisk was never held down for gentle reasons, loving reasons, grown-up reasons. That they've never had what should have been affectionate twisted into something repulsive and horrifying and sickening. Frisk likes hugs. There's no undercurrent of unease that maybe one day their flirting will be taken seriously, and then they'd have been asking for-

There's none of that.

But there is the memory of a forgiving, sincere c'mere, pal and the jarring pain that followed it. The derisive, triumphant mockery of a Game Over. Being grabbed, held down, restrained for not-so-gentle or loving reasons.

The two of them have succeeded, have kept Frisk safe, but... success does not feel like triumph. They know the emptied-out, bleak despondency swallowing Frisk right now, and it makes their shrivelled, broken SOUL ache.

They don't know what to say.

Want to laugh, heavily and bleakly, at the idea that Frisk thinks they've been pretending to care. When have they ever pretended to care about anything? Isn't pretending to not care supposed to be their specialty? But maybe...

Frisk was right about everything else, weren't they? Knew what was best. It was Chara refusing to listen that made things go this far. Maybe Frisk's right about this, too. Maybe they're only pretending to be capable of compassion. Maybe that's why it always turns out this way, because it's not real love. It's something selfish and conniving. It only tricks itself into believing this is love because it's not capable of understanding what the real thing feels like.

They clutch at their own sweater, like they can clamp their fists around the four or five little fragments of soul that are left, force them to work. For too long, nothing happens. They're exhausted, straining for hope, trying, trying, doing their damndest to just- to have-

* Determination.

Frisk is safely here. Unarmed. No mirrors, no scissors, no boiling kettles or candles or sewing needles.

"Thank you," they murmur, struggling to rise from their knees up onto their feet. "Sans, thank you for protecting and watching over them."

They know it wasn't easy.

They know it doesn't feel like a solved problem for any of them.

Sans slides down the wall. He holds onto the knife.

Frisk collapses. Maybe not literally, but he can see it all the same. They're incoherent, they're completely gone in their mind. He knows what that looks like. He watches them carefully, just to make sure they're not going to come at him again, just to make sure they're not going to suddenly throw themselves at the walls in desperation.

He doesn't feel the Save twist into place, but he sees the motion that Chara makes out of the corner of his eyesocket and thinks he understands. It's done. There won't be any going back. There won't be any more Reloads.

It's done. Frisk is alive for a little longer. They're gone, he just broke the last scrap of trust that he never truly earned, they probably hate him now, might never forgive him, but they're alive for a little longer.

Been awhile since he felt this relieved or this terrified.

He almost doesn't even hear Chara. They thank him and it just--barrels him over a little. Can't quite parse it. What the hell are they thanking them for? This was almost the worst way any of this could have gone. The only way it could be worse would be if Frisk had succeeded.

He feels himself nod.

He pulls the phone out of his pocket again.

"i'll let everyone know. everyone's gonna want to come."

Everyone's gonna want to see Frisk. Everyone's gonna want to say their piece.

He fires off the last text, pockets the phone and covers his face with his free hand. He doesn't let go of the knife.

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standing on the edge of my broken dream, searching for some kind of peace [OPEN + CLOSED]

LOAD 1.4

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1/2

2/3 i lied

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SAVE 2.0

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