Late night cooking adventure

[pleasereset]

Who: Asriel and anyone who is up late
Where: The kitchen
When: 8/3 at 1 a.m.
Rating: PG
Summary: Asriel can't sleep, so why not try cooking some pancakes?
The Story:

[Sleep usually doesn't come easy to Asriel anyway. He hasn't really adjusted well to Wonderland, despite the happy, peaceful life it almost seems to promise. And when he isn't wide awake late at night thinking about that, his dreams are enough to stir him awake anyway.

Tonight is another night like that, and he's tired of it. Both figuratively and literally.

Doing his best not to disturb his roommates, Asriel decides to have a late night mansion adventure. This time to the kitchen. Making his own late night snack could be kind of fun, right? He could make pancakes. He's never made pancakes before. But he's seen his mother and father do it, and he's seen recipes for it... he thinks he still remembers what ingredients to use.

After snooping around, he finds a bag of flour and a frying pan. There's some loud rummaging as he tries finding what he needs. If anyone decides to investigate, there's a small goat monster digging through the refrigerator. The bag of flour is slumping over, leaving a white powdery mess where it's sitting.]

Okay, I need milk, eggs... and um... maybe sugar...?

[He has no idea what he actually needs. Care to join him?]

Comments

[punful]

[The kid's startled all the same, and it's expected. Considering what Sans knows, and what Asriel must know that Sans knows...]

[This is stupid. There's too many damn layers. It's exhausting just to think about. Asriel recovers, puts on a smile, tries not to look like he's...terrified.]

[He has every right to be terrified. He should be. Even under the best of circumstances, Sans knows they're not gonna get along. He just also knows he's not gonna just go for Asriel's throat right off the bat or something. That isn't his style, and there's no call for it.]

[Asriel isn't the flower. Maybe if he thinks it enough, it'll be true.]

[Sans rubs at the back of his head.]

nah. i was thinkin' i might...

[Now he actually takes stock of what Asriel is even doing.]

...those pancakes?

[pleasereset]

[Sans' reaction comes as somewhat as a relief. Honestly, with what Frisk told him about him being here twice, he didn't know what Sans knew about him. Whether or not he does know anything, Sans' attention seems to be elsewhere. More specifically, on Asriel's cooking.

Okay. Just breathe. You can do this.]

I um... yeah. Or they're supposed to be anyway.

[They look more like a mess than pancakes. It's been a while since he's tried, and he wasn't good at making pancakes when he was much younger either.]

[punful]

[He wonders if he should just leave. Probably. These kids, all three of them--they don't need him. They don't want him around. All he is to any of them is a source of stress at best and terror at worst.]

[But honestly, just walking away right now will just prolong the inevitable. He already went a month or so without even knowing Asriel was here.]

[He studies the pancakes from the doorway, making absolutely no move to actually enter the kitchen.]

try, uh. adding more flour. batter wants to be kinda lumpy. less runny.

[God, what is he doing?]

[pleasereset]

[Sans is... giving him pancake advice.

To be fair, it's still probably not the weirdest thing that's happened to him here. But Asriel's quick to latch onto anything resembling a normal conversation instead of awkward questions.]

Oh um...

[Asriel does as he's instructed. A little more flour goes into the pan and he looks back at Sans.]

... like this?

[punful]

[This is objectively weird. This is objectively stupid. He should just say goodbye and make his exit. There's no way that Asriel could possibly want him hovering like this.]

[The kid probably assumes by now that Sans is here to make sure Asriel doesn't flip out and attack someone. Or attack himself. He hasn't forgotten the last time he found an Asriel in a kitchen.]

[Asriel takes the advice, though, which is also surprising.]

yeah. that looks okay. the...other trick is to flip 'em when bubbles start forming on the top.

[pleasereset]

[Honestly, Asriel doesn't have any real reason to believe that Sans is here for anything else but to use the kitchen. Though the atmosphere in the kitchen is still tense, and Asriel wonders at what point this conversation is going to go wrong. When he's going to say the wrong thing, or when Sans gets tired of pretending that Asriel is still Asriel...

He... probably should say something, shouldn't he? Isn't that why he's here? To make amends and then go back where he belongs.

But he's still too cowardly, and he's not ready yet.

For now, he scoops the spatula under the pancake when it starts to bubble. Tries to flip it upwards, and it goes a little too high-

-and it splats, right onto the counter. Asriel just. Stares at it.]

... It escaped.

[punful]

[Sans, quite frankly, has had a lot of weird experiences in the Wonderland kitchen. This is probably at the top of the weirdness scale, but it's not like this sort of thing is all that uncommon for him anymore.]

[Asriel tries to flip the pancake and it ends up on the counter. Sans huffs a faint chuckle; not at the failure so much as at the sound it made.]

heh. that happens.

try slower next time.

[pleasereset]

[Asriel sighs, but he doesn't move to peel the half-cooked pancake off the counter. He tries again, pouring some batter into the pan and letting it slowly cook before he tries to flip it again.

What's left is... complete silence in an empty kitchen, with him and a skeleton who he used to hate with every fiber of his being. Because Sans always figured him, even with Asriel thought he had covered all of his tracks. Because Sans was being "unfair", because he wouldn't let him have his fun.

And with every fight, every attempt Sans made to stop him, he was always a little more tired each time.

The silence is too uncomfortable.]

So you're... Sans, right?

[Obviously he is. But Asriel isn't going to immediately reveal everything he knows without getting a feel for what this Sans knows.]

[punful]

[The conversation lapses. The silence is deeply uncomfortable. Asriel keeps messing with the pancakes (seems he's doing better with this one), and from the tense lines of his body it's clear he's...working himself up to something. Sans knows he should leave, but he should have left several minutes ago. It's sort of too late now. They're both stuck in this.]

[Asriel finally speaks, and Sans's gaze shifts slowly away from the pan to the little goat monster who caused so much trouble for so many people.]

yep. that's me.

[He knows what this is.]

and you're asriel.

[Cards on the table.]

[pleasereset]

That's right.

[It's said a little quietly, and without Asriel looking at Sans. He can't. He'll lose his nerve if he looks up now.]

...

[Haha what is he even doing? What's he accomplishing with this?]

How much do you actually know about me, other than just my name?

[He doesn't want to know the answer. He really doesn't. But the fact that he was here before and he can't remember, it was driving him crazy. What did everyone else here know that he didn't?]

[punful]

[His first instinct is that he should ask Frisk.]

[His hand closes around his phone in his pocket. He could just text them, let them know that he's talking to Asriel, ask if there's--if there's anything he shouldn't say. But he told them he wouldn't text them out of the blue anymore, except for actual emergencies. This is not an emergency.]

[He knows what they probably would expect him to do, anyway, because it's exactly what he would do, if this was a few months ago. Omit enough truth, hang onto the really important parts, so he can wait for the right time to yank the rug out from under Asriel. Reveal just how much he actually knows at the worst possible time. And hell, the flower probably did that to him dozens of times back underground, because he never could retain enough memory for anything to actually matter.]

[He's supposed to be doing better. This whole honesty thing. It's just so much damn effort, though, going against his first instinct. He could just leave right now, but that would have about the same effect.]

[He's quiet for awhile, debating, sorting it all out, staring at the floor between them now.]

i know you were the flower.

[Honesty. Just be honest. Why is it so goddamn hard? It's an effort just to speak. Though as ever, his tone is neutral and disinterested, as if they're discussing the weather.]

i know that if you're asriel right now, it means you're not the flower anymore.

[Not for now, at least. All it takes is a push. All it takes is an opportunity, or for Asriel to get properly upset, and then he'll be coming after Alphys again, wearing Undyne's face. The flower is a part of him, inextricably.]

...you were here once before, as asriel. and before that, as the flower. has anyone told you?

[pleasereset]

["i know you were the flower."

Sans confirms what he was dreading to hear, and his stomach knots up. His body stiffens instinctively, enough that he can barely focus on cooking.]

Frisk told me. They said I was here twice before, but I don't remember any of it.

... Is that how you found out?

[punful]

[It's better. It's better this way, it has to be. Sans doesn't trust himself not to use that kind of information against Asriel somewhere down the line, the way he's done with both of the other kids. He can't just do that to people anymore. Can't be that kind of person anymore.]

[Asriel already looks so upset, like he knew it already but didn't want to believe it.]

that's how it is in wonderland. when you leave and come back, you don't remember being here before.

[Never mind that this might be a whole different version of Asriel. That's irrelevant, and considering the last Asriel's issues with disassociating, Sans figures he shouldn't mention it yet.]

something like that, yeah.

[That's the one thing he can't say, the one thing he knows he has to keep secret. He can't tell Asriel how he found out. He can't risk Asriel blaming for Frisk for something they couldn't control. He's caused enough damage to these kids already.]

[pleasereset]

[It's upsetting that he doesn't know. That he doesn't know what happened between his past self and everyone else here, and now suddenly everyone seems to know more than he does. It's so aggravating and he just wants to demand what exactly Sans knows, and every little thing that happened.

But he can't be that kind of person anymore. He can't let himself get mad, or upset, or he'll undo everything. He'll ruin everything. And after all... isn't this what you put everyone else through?

Doesn't feel very good, does it?

Asriel scoops the pancake up, flipping it over. It turns over a little messily, but he keeps it in the pan this time.]

Does everyone else know too? Or is it just... you?

[And Frisk. And it seems Chara as well.]

[punful]

[He gives a heavy, tired sigh.]

alphys knows about the flower. mettaton might know. i'm not sure. frisk and chara know, of course.

[He shifts his position against the doorframe.]

your parents don't know. at least not that i'm aware of.

[He watches the pancake sizzle in the pan. The kid flipped it pretty well that time. Practice makes perfect, doesn't it? It's all about repetition.]

i can go, if you want. just say the word.