determinedest: (* (Golden flowers.))
* Despite everything, it's still you. ([personal profile] determinedest) wrote in [community profile] entrancelogs2016-07-09 09:21 pm

i might disintegrate into the thin air if you'd like [closed]

Who: Frisk and Sans
Where: The roof.
When: July 8th
Rating: PG, references to suicide and discussion of nonexistence and the like to follow
Summary: Things have been escalating. Everyone has questions that Sans might have answers to. Beware of the man that came from the other world.
The Story:

They meet on the roof. Frisk says they'll be there in ten minutes, but they get there in five just to have a moment to stare at the sunset, to look over the edge. Not so long ago they almost hit the ground in an error of judgment and an unexpected shift in gravity. And then, before then, they'd contemplated the most appropriate and painless way to die, and ruled out the option that lays before them.

Who'd that benefit, if they walked right off? It'd just be so easy, so easy. They don't take any steps forward or back, but remain where they are, eyes fixed on the horizon that doesn't really exist, the toes of their sneakers aligned neatly along the roof's edge.

The day has been exhausting, and they've hardly even done anything. There's images in their mind's eye of Asriel panicking, reciting lines of code with his eyes blank and hopeless and blacker than any void they've known, Sans self-destructing and gamely trying not to show it even if the little tells in his texts where more than enough. That's the problem with being constantly composed, consistently smug, continuously enigmatic - it's that much more obvious when your self-control starts to slip.

Briefly, so briefly, Frisk glances down, looks past their toes and past the roof's edge and straight down the plunging drop that would await them if they simply took one step, leaned forward in just the right way.

Always so easy.

Instead, they sit down, pull their knees up to their chin, and wait.
punful: (wanna know what my name means?)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-10 05:09 am (UTC)(link)
Sans is already there. He's been up here for awhile, on the other side of the roof. Came up here as he was sending Frisk that first text and just sorta...stayed.

Sunsets are nice. You don't get colors like that underground. Maybe from the magma, but that's a sorta constant orange glow, unchanging except for when the planet shifts a little, like some old monster turning over in its sleep. Working in Hotland you sorta had to get used to the magma, the heat, the potential that any of the bridges or cliffs might just give away someday and you'd fall right down into it. No coming back from it, unless you were a flame monster. Would your dust sink all the way down into the Earth's core?

The core. The Core. The bottom had been unbearably hot, even for a skeleton. Magma making the metal glow like a stovetop. Another drop, about forty feet to the floor, and then you'd probably cook yourself on the searing metal. Or you would, if there had been anything down there. Anything at all to break the fall.

Sunsets, though. Sunsets are nice. Suns have cores as well. It's usually the only thing left behind after the star dies.

Frisk is here.

He's really doing this, isn't he?

They're sitting on the edge of the roof. Jeez. If they go over the edge he'll have to catch them again. Frisk must be used to falling by now. He wonders if they fall every time.

He crosses the roof silently and goes to sit on the edge, a few feet away from Frisk. Feet dangling over the side. Awfully precarious for a guy with 1 HP, but this height would kill most people. He could just teleport, if he wanted. What was that stupid thing he said to Chara the other day? Falling down is easy.

Always so easy.

"did you hear the one about the doctor who fell into a well?"
punful: (but i didn't have the backbone for it)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-10 05:48 am (UTC)(link)
"...hah."

Boy, they go right for it, don't they? Jump right in. Sans leans back, braces his hands against the roof. Closes his eyesockets, since even a sunset is pretty bright, after all.

"he should have focused on the sick and left the well alone."

Caught him off guard. Bought Sans a few seconds. Didn't matter. A fair enough attempt...

It's still a pretty funny joke. Sans's grin is rictus. Moreso than usual.

"i'm not gonna tell you everything. but...maybe i owe you one or two things. you are the legendary fartmaster, after all."

See? It's funny. Everything is funny. It might as well be funny, because otherwise what's the point?

"don't repeat any of this to papyrus. okay?"

He turns and looks Frisk full in the face when he says it, eyelights fixing on them.
punful: (wanna know what my name means?)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-10 06:29 am (UTC)(link)
He almost laughs. Almost loses it right then and there. Of course Papyrus wouldn't be happy. Of course Papyrus wouldn't be happy. And Papyrus even told him to talk to him more, to actually come to him when something was wrong, and yet, wow, here we are.

"kid, i hide everything from him. i hide everything from everyone."

Hey, at least he can admit it.

He covers his mouth for a moment, getting himself back under control, or at least trying to. Looks back out at the sunset.

"it's not like that, though. something...happened to him. something related to all this. he just doesn't need to be reminded. that's all."

Papyrus sees a glowing memory and freezes. Forgets to even speak. Stares at someone who doesn't exist in confusion and actual fear. Papyrus has a metal plate on his hand, and Sans is supposed to as well, and there's a very short list of things that something like that can mean.

That's the thing about all this, he supposes--it messes with people. Thinking about it too hard, scrabbling for memories your mind can't hold onto. Papyrus freezes. Alphys breaks down crying. Chara and Asriel dig and dig and dig like starving dogs searching for bones.

And Sans, well.

Enough said.

He's quiet for awhile. Listening to the silence in his skull.

"once upon a time..."

Might as well do this right.

"...there were some scientists. three in particular. a tall one, a medium one, and a small one."
punful: (what do you call a skeleton in the rain?)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-10 08:05 am (UTC)(link)
Someone said that once, didn't they? His brilliance was irreplaceable. He can't remember who or when.

He sighs before continuing. It's a story. It can just be a story. Something to tell kids. Something Sans doesn't have to be a part of.

"all three of them were pretty brilliant. but the tall one was the brightest of them all. he had seen and done and created so much. no problem was insurmountable so long as he was around. no experiment too complex. with him in charge, it seemed like nothing could go wrong."

They were all so stupid back then. So catastrophically stupid.

"but one day, the tall scientist made a mistake."

One more pointless question...

"maybe he got desperate, or maybe it was just a simple mistake. but after that, the tall scientist was different."

we're worried about you.

"he was still brilliant. but he started to become reckless. stubborn. ...mean."

Did you ever think that maybe I could also take it away?

"the other two were worried. the three of them were working on something. something big. they were going to do the impossible. they thought it might save everyone. but were they really doing the right thing?"

His fingers grip the edge of the roof.

"but they kept going. the small scientist thought maybe he could help the tall scientist. that things might be okay if he could just fix it. he wasn't as smart as the others."

Promise me that you will know when to quit.

"finally, one day, they conducted the last experiment, the one that would help everyone. but the tall scientist did something bad. the small one tried to stop him. he succeeded, but it was already too late. so the tall scientist did one last experiment. he was swallowed up by his creation. and everything changed."

GOODBYE.

The sun has set. The sky looks like it's on fire.

Sans sits forward, dusts roof grit off his hands.

"this story doesn't have an ending. it doesn't really have a beginning, either. none of it ever happened."
punful: (gotta rest my weary bones)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-10 04:34 pm (UTC)(link)
That's not what he's expecting to hear. Not at all. He doesn't make a sound, but he sort of shrinks against the roof a little, hands folded in his lap. And the way Frisk says it, like they're a thousand miles away, like they're slowly falling apart.

It might as well be their voice. Might as well be a gray lizard whose name he doesn't remember, who never should have been that empty, giving Sans one final warning way, way too late. Reality chipping away around them until Sans woke up.

Years ago. There was a name once, but he's forgotten. They all had names. They all ended up like that.

"so you met them. they're still at the pier in waterfall, aren't they?"

Frisk shakes, clears themselves out, comes back to reality.

"i guess real stories should have endings."

Happy endings, the way most people like. The way Papyrus likes.

"hard to end a story if the characters no longer exist halfway through. anyone who's left just tries to pick up the thread, find an ending. thing is, there's no thread to pick up."
Edited 2016-07-10 16:46 (UTC)
punful: (it's going tibia okay)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-10 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)
They're still there, even when they're not. Always there somewhere, just a few degrees away from the real world. They all must be the same way. Sans wonders if they have any control over it, or if it's just happenstance. Something about Determination peeling back the layers.

He's quiet for awhile. The light and color is fading from the sky.

"when you erase something, you leave eraser marks. nothing's ever completely gone. but it doesn't matter, cause there's no getting back the original picture."

You have to know when to quit.

"never saw the door, but i figured there had to be one somewhere. he..."

He shakes his head, cutting off whatever he was going to say.

"do you remember which cave room it was in?"
punful: (it's going tibia okay)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-10 06:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Basic physics. Energy cannot be created or destroyed--just moved. Rearranged. Altered.

The man who speaks in hands. Is that what the kids are calling him these days? It's almost funny.

"he had an odd way of speaking. an odd font. it was hard to understand him, so...he conveyed meaning with his hands."

Or his bullets. He could carry on whole conversations with just bullets. Literally and figuratively.

"you need to be careful with him. well...not that you'll see him again. or remember this. he's mostly harmless, but he can be dangerous."

Still has a bit of a temper, after all. Still torn up by what happened, as well he should be.

Sans pulls his feet out from over the roof and sits cross-legged.

"yeah. 'dark, darker, yet darker. what do you two think?' he kinda had a flair for drama."

Should have stopped him sooner, is what Sans thinks.
punful: (wanna know what my name means?)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-10 07:20 pm (UTC)(link)
"i don't remember. don't remember any of the others."

It might have been Alphys. Was it Alphys?

He flinches at the name and any attempt to remember their names fails. Gaster always trumps the others. Takes over all other thoughts, even though it doesn't matter, since not even Sans can keep Gaster in his head for long.

"well. like someone said. rude to talk about someone who's listening."
punful: (gotta rest my weary bones)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-11 03:51 am (UTC)(link)
He shrugs. It's even more languid than usual. "who can say? he's everywhere. nowhere. nothing about any of this makes sense, kid. don't think we'll find any of your gray doors here, but..."

But there's always going to be a piece of him following Sans around. Not that either of them ever intended it. Not that both of them wouldn't change it if they could.

Since Asriel asked yesterday Sans has been starting to wonder if by some miracle, Gaster could ever literally show up here. If Wonderland could somehow drag him here from before everything went wrong; or if it could piece him back together and dump him here. Both just seem impossible, and not the same sort of impossible as bringing someone back to life or dragging someone here from the moment of their death. That's a simple matter of timing. With Gaster, it's a matter of making something exist that doesn't exist, that never existed.

But Wonderland is awfully powerful. It could happen. Sans can't think of many scenarios that would be more heartbreaking, or terrifying.

He remembers that. Regrets saying it now. Honestly, there's a lot about that entire conversation that he should have done differently. Though he tries not to dwell on regrets. There's just too many of them.

"also said it's better to take what's given to you."

That old saying--you can never really go home. Because home changes, and your concept and understanding of home changes, and you fool yourself into thinking that things were actually better, that things must have been better, when all it really is is nostalgia. When everything's just too changed and different and broken for things to ever be how they once were. You can never go back, and you can never really fix anything, and the longer it takes you to figure that out the more everything hurts.

He doesn't want to talk about this anymore. Never wanted to talk about this in the first place. He wants to be done. Wants to sleep for a thousand years. At least endless Resets were simple in their own way. Always the same thing, over and over, with a few variations. Changing variables. Predictable, calculable.

"i know you think that somehow any of this matters. but it doesn't. none of this matters. it hasn't for a very long time. you don't...you, chara, asriel. none of you need to keep digging. it's not worth it. at this rate, someone's gonna get hurt."
punful: (it's going tibia okay)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-11 05:01 am (UTC)(link)
Frisk goes quiet. He's watching when he sees them go distant, go a thousand miles away. It's the look of someone completely disregarding what he just said and diving right back into the trouble. They're digging, sorting through something complicated, and even through all the fog and quiet in his head, it's a little fascinating to watch.

This is a human thing. A Frisk thing. A Determined thing.

Then they come back, shake themselves out a bit to clear the cobwebs.

"yeah. so i've noticed."

Dirty hackers. He can't even be mad. He's too tired. It's been too long, too many years to feel anything but tired.

So. This is going to be inevitable. Someone will dig it all up, maybe drag the rest of it out of Sans, and there it will be. For awhile. Until it sinks back underground again, because it always stays buried. That's the one bright side to all this. It fades. Sinks. Disappears again. Even in Wonderland. They can't even hold onto the name. What makes them think they can hold onto any of the rest of it?

Why bother?

The damage will be done, though. It's already being done. Sans can take it, but Alphys might break. And Papyrus...

What would it do to him? If facing a vague, fake memory makes Papyrus freeze up, what will actually confronting all of this do to him?

"maybe they'll listen to you." Doubtful. And it's asking Frisk to do Sans's job for him.

Pretty awful.

"this needs to be left alone. he wants to be left alone."
punful: (just a lazybones)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-11 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
"yeah. fair." He sighs. "shouldn't ask you to keep secrets for me anyway. nah. forget it."

He'll just. Deal with it as it comes. That's what he always does. That's all he ever does, is deal with things. React to things. Because being proactive, trying to change things, anything at all, never works. Not unless you have Papyrus's compassion, or Undyne's ferocity, or a human's Determination.

Looks like he's going to give up on this, too.

Typical. He's not sure why that whole lost soul business was even surprising. Just give up. Why even try? There is nothing at all that you can do. So might as well do nothing. Give up. Just give up.

He peers over the edge of the roof for a moment.

Falling down is so easy, but funnily enough, doing nothing is the easiest thing of all.

"good for him."

People always mean so well. Always trying to fix him. Let's fix Sans. Let's try again. That poor guy. Such a strange, secretive fellow. Miserable little monster. Smiley trashbag. One hit wonder. Worthless, useless, lazy. Broken.

Too tired to be mad about that, either. Too used to it. Everyone loves puzzles, right?

"this isn't helping me, though. ain't helping anyone."
punful: (it's going tibia okay)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-11 06:36 am (UTC)(link)
Wasn't careful enough there. Caring and being careful go hand in hand sometimes. And he's always been selfish. This isn't really about him.

"oh. that. well...papyrus was a bigger help there than me. don't know why i'm the one he wants to help."

Asriel's a weird kid, and for good reason. You wouldn't really be normal after all the shit he's been through. And he once had every single monster soul inside him. That's gotta mess with your sense of privacy and tact.

"i didn't even really do anything." He just saw a familiar look on a kid's face, saw a knife, and put two and two together.

The thing is, you can't fix it. You can't fix people. All you can do is distract them. Make them laugh. Everyone deserves to laugh once in awhile.

He sighs again, more heavily.

"i'm not mad about any of this. just so you know. not mad at you or asriel or chara. i'm just not a fan of thinking about this stuff. even less a fan of talking about it."
punful: (but i didn't have the backbone for it)

[personal profile] punful 2016-07-11 06:43 pm (UTC)(link)
He makes a nondescript sound. As far as he's concerned, he didn't do much other than hang around and keep an eye on Papyrus and Asriel. But sometimes that's all it takes. Hell, even Papyrus doesn't have to do anything other than exist somewhere nearby and Sans's mood lifts. It's the little things. Hearing dishes clattering in the kitchen downstairs, smelling burned spaghetti, seeing Papyrus run off bright and early to his sentry station. It ends up being enough.

"sometimes I almost wish i could." It feels strange to admit it. Strange and rather shameful. "some of it is...heh. habit, i guess. but some secrets are just too big and damaging to tell people lightly. you know? the fewer people who have to worry about stuff the better."

It's not just about being a burden on people. Nor is it about protecting them, if that's even what this is. Sometimes the truth is destructive.

"i appreciate that you didn't push as hard as you could have. and don't worry about those two. i'll figure something out. always do."

Another lie.

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