[For a moment, hot-cold numbness spills down the back of their neck, robs them of feeling in their fingertips and toes. There's danger in not being able to lie. There's horrible, horrible danger in it. The peril of falling right back into that despised cycle, where they're not allowed to have any secrets from Sans, where privacy and autonomy are things children don't deserve, because they say the word "fail" and he points out that they just got sick. That it's not a failure, not something they did, just something that happened to them.]
It was a failure. I did fail.
[They can't keep it back. Wonderland won't let them. The blood is draining from their face, robbing their cheeks of rosiness, and their hands are frozen mid-stitch, pulling the working yarn wrapped around their finger tighter and tighter. They can't say it. They can't say it. It'll ruin everything. They'll ruin everything.
Have to keep dodging. Have to. If Wonderland's going to demand they tell a truth, they just have to reach for one that's safe to tell.]
...You're right. It's not too late.
[Focus on that. Focus on all the rest of the things he said. The conversation has already moved on. Make sure it stays moved on.]
Hard to keep those blinders off, is it not? Dig a rut deep enough, the only surroundings you can perceive anymore are just... dirt.
You know, back when I first came here... I used to ask Frisk something. I used to demand whether any of their friends truly knew and cherished them. People from the perfectly happy timeline... the child they met was born of rehearsing, weren't they? How much of it was Frisk making the choice they wanted to make, and how much of it was Frisk choosing the option that everyone had already told them they were supposed to pick?
[Actual perfection is impossible. There was no way to break the barrier like that on the first timeline. It had to be a performance. It had to be enough to get every last monster in the Underground willing to follow them to New Home.]
Nobody can really be that. Yet, even so... I think that's still the standard I'm holding myself to. That's still what "good" means. When I inevitably cannot be that... doesn't it feel like failure? Doesn't it feel easy to conclude that the reason you can't do it is because something's wrong with you?
no subject
It was a failure. I did fail.
[They can't keep it back. Wonderland won't let them. The blood is draining from their face, robbing their cheeks of rosiness, and their hands are frozen mid-stitch, pulling the working yarn wrapped around their finger tighter and tighter. They can't say it. They can't say it. It'll ruin everything. They'll ruin everything.
Have to keep dodging. Have to. If Wonderland's going to demand they tell a truth, they just have to reach for one that's safe to tell.]
...You're right. It's not too late.
[Focus on that. Focus on all the rest of the things he said. The conversation has already moved on. Make sure it stays moved on.]
Hard to keep those blinders off, is it not? Dig a rut deep enough, the only surroundings you can perceive anymore are just... dirt.
You know, back when I first came here... I used to ask Frisk something. I used to demand whether any of their friends truly knew and cherished them. People from the perfectly happy timeline... the child they met was born of rehearsing, weren't they? How much of it was Frisk making the choice they wanted to make, and how much of it was Frisk choosing the option that everyone had already told them they were supposed to pick?
[Actual perfection is impossible. There was no way to break the barrier like that on the first timeline. It had to be a performance. It had to be enough to get every last monster in the Underground willing to follow them to New Home.]
Nobody can really be that. Yet, even so... I think that's still the standard I'm holding myself to. That's still what "good" means. When I inevitably cannot be that... doesn't it feel like failure? Doesn't it feel easy to conclude that the reason you can't do it is because something's wrong with you?