* Despite everything, it's still you. (
determinedest) wrote in
entrancelogs2016-07-09 09:21 pm
Entry tags:
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.
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.

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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?"
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He looks tired. It's hard to tell if skeletons can look tired, but he does, worn down, even for him.
Their eyes blink shut for a moment, and they reach into the parts of their memories that they skirt, ignore, that their mind glosses over. Twist at the corners. Stop letting the thoughts glance off or snake by. Someone stands in front of an elevator. Someone stares, unblinking, ahead of them, speaking of how a life was cut short. Someone holds something that speaks and says terrible, terrible things. You shouldn't hold pieces of something that was shattered so. Someone says that it's rude to gossip about someone who's listening.
An experiment went wrong.
There's a punchline to that joke, but they can't for the life of them discern what it is or might be.
The thought began...
"I thought he fell into his creation."
...and the thought had no end.
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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.
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Still secrets. Always secrets. Does Sans deal in secrets? Brokering them in exchange for favors, or proof for purchase? The legendary fartmaster, an utterly childish phrase yielding one of the most peculiar secrets they've ever discovered. One of the most. Gray fragments scattered along the lines of, of the universe's guts. Its bones. Its...code.
Despite the joviality of the tone Sans might be trying to set, it's clear from the way he looks at them that his question - command might be more appropriate - is deadly serious.
"Okay," says Frisk. "But I don't think he'd be happy to know you're hiding stuff from him."
Ah yes, guilt. More of that old thing. Well, fair enough. If Sans deals in secrets, Frisk deals in guilt.
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"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."
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Doesn't need to be reminded. That just raises more questions. Papyrus knows? He knows what? If Chara found out he might know...if Asriel found out...
Well, they'd better make sure neither of them find out. Or Papyrus really will start hearing about some of this, and Sans might actually get mad. But Frisk says nothing, simply nods their assent, and tightens their grip around their knees incrementally.
Sounds like a bedtime story. They don't interrupt, simply cock their head to one side.
"The Royal Scientist," Frisk muses quietly. "His brilliance was irreplaceable."
What an act to follow!
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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."
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Frisk remains silent, lets him speak even if it's difficult. Halting, delivered in vague fragments. There's always a vagueness. A fog, a flare of staticky mist obscuring faces and strange characters written in pictographs. Pictographs that don't make any sense, and shouldn't leave their brain tingling. Messages left in rooms that were always there, but weren't always there five minutes ago.
One day, he fell into his creation.
"Have you ever thought about a world," says Frisk, their voice strange, the words broken out in dull monotone, "where everything is exactly the same...except you don't exist? Everything functions perfectly without you..."
Their shoulders hitch, a ripcord dislodged in their throat where a laugh might've been more appropriate. It comes out like a cough, maybe a stifled sob-like sound.
"Ha, ha...the thought terrifies me. But it's not raining. It's raining somewhere else."
It's not raining.
They give themselves an abrupt shake, jarring their mind back into the present, into reality.
"Is that what happened? Everything changed, and he...the tall scientist, he was..." A shiver creeps up their shoulders and their spine as they again strain to remember the words that don't belong to them, "shattered across space and time."
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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."
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"But there are threads," says Frisk, frowning. "Not a lot of them, and not every time. But there was someone holding a...a piece of him. And someone who wouldn't look at me. Just kept looking ahead."
And the disembodied head, its shape distended, unlike anyone else they met. It smiled at them. It said it was rude to talk about someone while they're listening to you. Like he was in the room. Like he was watching.
"He's not gone," they say abruptly. "Not completely. Needn't gossip. It's rude to talk about someone who's listening. But there's a door in Waterfall. A gray door. Did you ever see it?"
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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?"
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"It wasn't a room that was always there," they murmur, straining to remember. The memories are sluggish and slow, like swimming through tar. "After your telescope, but...before the room that came after." The SAVE point glistening beside a crystallized lump of cheese. Yes, yes, that has to be it. And then there was...room_water_fakehallway, no - no -
"The man who speaks in hands." Frisk opens their own palm, traces a circle on it. Never could tell if those marks were holes, or dots, or what. He always vanished before they could see. And when they drew near, they ghosted through him like he was empty air, and his eyes widened and his grin became large. "He smiled at me. And then he was gone."
Why can't they remember the name? The name, it should've leaped out at them, but it doesn't. It rhymes with something. The thought escapes them. It's just [REDACTED], [REDACTED], rhymes with [REDACTED].
It hurts to think about.
"And then there was...in one the labs..."
They think about it anyway, squinting at the graying purple of the sky as the last thin slice of sun slinks out of sight, staining the horizon with gold.
"Photon readings negative." Yes, that was it. "Entry Number Seventeen."
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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.
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And why, why can't they remember his name? It just clouds over. As soon as they remember, it just...
"Gaster!" They blurt the word the instant their mind grasps it, and then it skitters out. "W.D., like, like...wingdings?"
Yes, yes that was it. How could they forget? It rhymes with blaster, like the skulls that loomed out from the shadows of the pillars and the golden tiles, disintegrating them in a blast of searing white-hot thermal energy.
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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."
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And then, as quickly as it's there, it's gone again. Slipped from their head. Gast...G-something. G-something, redacted, wiped away, erased. It gets away from them.
"You said you missed the feeling of home," says Frisk, staring ahead at the star-sprinkled dusk without seeing it. "Back at MTT Resort. You said you knew the feeling."
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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."
no subject
For the first time in a long, long while - maybe the first time ever - Frisk focuses on the bones of the world. The numbers and letters that are Chara's specialty, that Frisk pretends don't exist. But they're there. They're always there.
room_mysteryman
room_water_prebird
room_g█████
spr_mkid_goner
spr_g_follower_1
spr_g_follower_2
spr_g_follower_3
ENTRY NUMBER █████████
DARK DARKER YET DARKER
THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING
THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER
PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE
THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT SEEMS
VERY
VERY
███████████
Shake your head. Back to now. Back to the present. Smile sadly, regretfully.
"Haven't you figured by now that telling Chara or Asriel not to do something will just make them want to do it more?" they say, somewhat wryly. "They're not as attached to the world as I am. They could probably remember more."
no subject
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."
no subject
Because Asriel did something, or almost did something. Chara screamed, Toriel's expression became knowing and drawn, and where are the knives.
"I know Asriel did wanna help," they add, "for what it's worth. He said you helped him, and he wanted to do something for you in return."
no subject
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."
no subject
"Chara told me about what happened with him," they say after a long pause in which they're not altogether certain what to say. "Said you took the knife away. Thank you for that. I think he just...felt like if anyone could help you, it'd be the one with the power to free all of monsterkind."
If that was an impossibility, why should anything else be deemed equally improbable? SOUL gone, body dissolved into dust, essence ripped out and displaced into a flower, transformed into a godlike being with incredible power not once, not twice, but innumerable times over. Why would boundaries occur to someone like that? Why would someone used to molding the world to their whims understand the concept of being unable to do anything?
"Thank you," Frisk adds, belatedly. "For helping him. I'm glad you were there."
no subject
"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."
no subject
Being mad at any of them would require more effort than they think Sans has in him, especially now. He just seems tired. Or - more tired than usual.
"I appreciate...how much you've told me," Frisk ventures quietly, after a moment. "I know you don't like telling people stuff."
Yeah, says Papyrus's voice through the receiver, a million years ago, Sans never tells anybody anything.
"I can try to, to nudge them away. Asriel and Chara. It might not do much, but it might keep them from ending up doing something they regret." Asriel in particular. He seems more vulnerable to the repercussions than Chara does, at least at this point.
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"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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cw suicide ideation
;;
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