+ Let's go for a dreamwalk! + [OPEN PLOT CATCH-ALL]

[mviw]

Who: Everyone who wants to participate!
Where: The Mindscape (and elsewhere in reality, if specified)
When: September 6th through September 8th
Rating: PG-13 to R for potentially disturbing, violent, or dark subjects.
Summary: Thanks to an explosion on the third floor, every time a person falls asleep, they enter the Mindscape...

The Story:
Plot information is here!

Comments

[postictal]

What isn't real can't hurt you. What isn't real can't hurt you. What isn't real can't hurt you.

The fish lady's webbed hands, undoubtedly clawlike, scythe through the doctor's coat as though she's nothing more than a ghost. She can't be real. If he squints his eyes shut and shakes his head and waits for the medicine to work, to fix him like they said it would (is medicine magic? we know that it's not) but he still flinches when she tells him to tell them she's real.

What isn't real can't hurt you.

"What's it doing right now?"

What isn't real can't hurt you.

He glances at her once more - nervous, blindingly terrified - and then back to his feet, bare and cold against the floor.

"She..." He has to wet his lips to try again, his voice tremulous and quavering. "It - it says to tell you it's real."

"You know it isn't real." The doctor's response is immediate, and stern. "You know that. Don't you?"



Another pause.

Another nod.

[ngah]

Undyne stares at him, eyes wide, but she doesn't feel panic. She doesn't feel her SOUL sinking in her chest, when he nods, confirming she's not real. She doesn't feel growing horror in the pit of her stomach.

She feels nothing at all. Which is appropriate, considering she's apparently not real.

She lets out a shuddering, held breath through her fangs. Her eyes narrow at... not at Tim, or even at the faceless human doctor, but at the air between them.

It's fine. This isn't really something she could've predicted, but... does it even really matter? This is probably a stupid dream or something, and struggling against something that's ultimately pointless seems like a lot of energy she doesn't feel she still has in her to expend.

She doesn't have the determination left to insist she's real. That she's not an "it". That she has a will and a mind and a physical body, even if she doesn't seem to have any of those things right now.

She gives up. She folds her arms. She backs up into the corner of the room -- not much movement needed for that, considering the tight quarters -- and slides down the wall to the floor.

"Fine," she says, defeat in her voice. "I'm not real. You got me. I'll just be over here, not being real. You can figure out how to fucking get rid of me, punk, 'cause I ain't gonna help."

[postictal]

"Good." The doctor's tone is brisk. She turns her attention back to her clipboard for a moment, denoting the specifics of his prescription before she sighs, sounding more or less resigned. "We might have to try upping your prescription. I know that's not any fun, but I really think this is the best option we have."

Tim doesn't protest. He's too busy staring at the shape in the corner of the room, paralyzed with indecision. It reminds him of -

It reminds him of him. Of how he can get. Is that what this is? Just some...extension of who he is, some hateful fragment that doesn't want to exist?

The doctor realizes she's not being listened to, and sighs again.

"Timothy." The word is stern.

His gaze snaps back to her.

"You were getting better."

His mouth opens and closes soundlessly, and he stares at his feet in concession to that point. She's right. He was getting better. And he's messed it up again. He keeps messing up, no matter what he does. He tried really hard this time, and even that wasn't enough.

"We'll just have to try harder." Tim nods out of miserable rote. Try harder. Like he hasn't been trying. Like it doesn't feel like there's nothing left of him to be trying any longer.

She doesn't even ask him to describe it. She thinks it's just his friend again. And before long, she's closing the door behind her, and he's gone back to staring at the fish lady in the corner, quietly terrified. He has to wet his lips several times over before he can venture the trembling question - and when he does, it feels horribly like he's breaking some venerated rule.

"...why aren't you going away?"