entrancelogs | [closed] yesterday upon the stair

Entry tags:

[closed] yesterday upon the stair

Who: Sans and Frisk
Where: Sans's room
When: Evening, 8/30
Rating: PG-13 for suicidal ideation, possibly PTSD, other related stuff
Summary: Frisk said some stuff and Sans needs to be a grown-up and have a chat with them.
The Story:

It's kind of a weird feeling, being mad. Sans has never exactly been particularly good at getting mad, even back when emotions were a bit more pronounced and easier to experience. Anger takes a lot of effort and energy, so he has always mostly defaulted to annoyance and the sort of righteous frustration that comes with being a big brother. His brother is the most important thing in the whole world to him, but even the best of little brothers will be a royal pain in the coccyx at some point in their lives. It's just a fact of life.

The fact that this is Frisk, and the fact that it's all wrapped up with a certain nonexistent doctor gives it a cold, twisty feeling. Like his magic is constricting around his soul. Anger born from worry, probably. He hasn't felt like this in awhile, not since he was a kid and Papyrus decided to disappear on some adventure or another without telling Sans.

He waits in his room. He already had the notebook out and flipped open when he first messaged Frisk, as well as the drawing. That stupid drawing. Probably what caused all of this. You'd think he'd know by now not to trust flowers.

He stares at the old, faded pen markings on the paper, the two words written in his own font, and waits.

They've both got some explaining to do.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They take a long time to get there. Almost ten minutes, even if it's just down the hall. Purposefully take a long time, dragging their feet, stopping to perform little inane tasks. They smooth the sheets of their bed. They rearrange their little stack of belongings. They unwrinkle the creases in some of the drawings they have taped to the walls on their side of the room, still in glaring contrast to Chara's otherwise relatively spotless side of Room 12. Still haven't done much to claim it as theirs. Nothing but the essentials.

When they've stretched the limits of dithering, dragged this out for as long as they think is capable, they sigh and start making their way to Sans's room in earnest. Can't delay it any longer. He's angry. Mad at them. Shouldn't have let that slip, but - but they told Chara they wouldn't do it. They're trying to be better. Trying to be there for people, even if it means staying here.

Their heart is throwing itself against their ribcage, so hard it hurts, aches deep and irrevocable in their throat.

This is them. This is their life. Doing things that they hate doing, because they have to do them. So they do.

Hesitantly, they knock. Wonder briefly if they have time to run away. And then remember that he could probably just yank them back by shifting their gravity or - whatever it is he does.

And, well. It goes both ways, doesn't it?

They can't keep dodging forever.

There it is.

Ten whole minutes of sustained, cold, anger. Not a boil, not even a simmer. But still there. Showing in the rigidity of his grin and the sharpness of his eyelights, smaller than normal.

He's still holding the drawing when he answers the door a few moments later. He peers at them, and he can't help but be reminded, can't help but think of the golden hallway. Not even the bad version. But he judges them, no matter the timeline, always. It's what he does.

Somewhere further back in his mind he's elsewhere, not in the golden hallway, long before that, down in the very bottom of the Core. He wonders if maybe that was the last time he felt real anger. He can't even really muster it up now.

"thanks for showing up."

They're a good kid. Or maybe just an obedient one, which has nothing at all to do with goodness or badness. Obedience tends to just put you in harm's way; it can be catastrophic. Obedience is...

He stands aside.

"come in."

His room hasn't changed at all since the last time Frisk was here, except that 4 is lazing on the top of the dresser, and Sans's notebook is open on the mattress.

It still feels like they're trespassing, entering something that's forbidden, like that workshop that they took so long to access, the silver key that gleamed as it appeared on their keychain, like it had always been there. Maybe, in fact, it always had. It's just another one of those things they've never thought to ask him about.

They can't suppress the chill that races up their spine when he opens the door, lets them in. There's something dark and icy in his expression, and maybe it's the fact that he's projecting it so overtly or maybe it's that they think they've gotten a little bitter at reading into the subtleties in his smile, but either way it's dark and intense and intolerable and impossible to look at. And they hesitate, want more than ever to bolt like a frightened deer, but they -

Don't.

They suck in a breath, cross the threshold, square their shoulders, and stay determined.

"I didn't break my promise," they mumble, in that sullen tone they hate, before they can stop themselves. "I didn't."

He closes the door and heads back toward his mattress. He makes as if to drop the drawing on top of the notebook, but pauses and ends up staring at it for a few long moments. Maybe the photos will end up here as well someday. Maybe some damn flower will chat him up and then just hand them to him, as if it means absolutely nothing. Things like that just randomly happen around here. He would have been fine if the drawing had stayed untouched in a drawer back home. He didn't need it here. Didn't need the reminder to not forget.

He can't forget.

"yeah. you promised to tell someone, not necessarily me. maybe that's what you and chara were fighting about in here."

Maybe. Whatever. Given how keen Chara is on the entire concept of Erase, and how they're the one who is certainly still digging, he'd be surprised if Chara didn't want to throw themselves into the Core as well. As if that's--

"what exactly did you think would happen, anyway?" He's still staring at the picture when he speaks. "you leap into the core and that's all? poof, you're erased from time and space? that place is old, and it's huge. you probably walked through the top levels to get from hotland to the castle, right? that's the most that the average person sees of that place. it's enormous. the lower levels are a labyrinth. you could probably get lost and starve to death down there. rusted railings, big exposed pools of magic, generators, reactors...there's a thousand ways to die in that place. i'd say about one monster dies a year from some accident or another. and, yeah, some of them fall. fall right over the side into the core. they get torn up by the energy cascade or overwhelmed by all that magic. they just die. they don't disappear. they don't get erased."

He finally drops the drawing on the mattress and shoves his hands in his pockets, making a soft, frustrated sound. He looks over at Frisk, eyelights as sharp and cold as icicles.

Eyesicles. Heh.

"i mean, it didn't even work. he didn't even fully erase himself. no one remembers him but me, but parts of him are still around, and those parts are like...like ghosts, like actual ghosts, not ghost monsters. they haunt the underground, and they're aware. they don't exist and they have to be aware of it. frisk, you have no idea what that's like. no one does. chara might have a vague sense, and i can...i've heard directly what it's like, but i can't imagine it. but judging by what he's...what he's like now, it's...pretty much the worst thing that can happen to you."

They grimace, their eyes restive, flicking over the surface detritus littering his room as they wonder if maybe they should find someplace to sit - and then decide against it, because that would make it that much easier for him to skewer them with his cold, frustrated, angry gaze. Can't let him pin them down. Can't keep dodging forever -

They can feel their mind trending toward something else, wanting to snap into it, and they wrench it away. They think they know what happens when they do that, and that's the last thing they need right now.

"It's not just that." Every instinct screams against giving this up, but they do because they're trying to be better and this is what good people do, isn't it? They tell people when things are wrong. "It wouldn't matter what I felt. What matters is that everyone would've gotten out, everyone would've been safe from me. You could've had your happy ending. No more RESETs. I thought you wanted that!"

And doesn't it - doesn't it not matter? They can die a thousand times. They can handle whatever the world throws at them. Monsters can't suffer like they do. They can't take it like Frisk can. But this is - it's better, isn't it? It's acceptable.

His jaw clenches. They're arguing, like any kid caught doing something wrong, when they don't fully understand why it's wrong.

"of course i want the resets to end. and of course what happens to you matters. you're part of the ending. there's no happy ending without you, frisk. and if you stop existing, there's no ending at all, not even a chance for it. all you end up doing is handing control back to the flower. even if you just--i dunno, what was the plan? get us to the surface and then climb back underground and jump in? you still leave us at the mercy of the flower. or maybe by erasing chara as well, you negate the existence of the flower entirely. i guess that sounds pretty good, huh? i guess that must sound like you finally save everyone, even asriel."

He wonders if maybe Chara was in on this, too. If maybe they agreed on it--Erase the anomaly, Erase both Chara and Frisk, and everyone wins. Everyone but Frisk and Chara. Asriel never watches his sibling die and absorbs their soul. Asriel grows up and becomes the prince of the Underground. There's never any need to collect souls. Five kids eventually come to the Underground, one by one, and who even knows what happens to them? Maybe the Dreemurrs adopt them. It probably all sounds very nice. A real happy ending.

"you wanna know what actually happens?"

He huffs quietly, voice quiet.

"because i actually considered it. did some calculations. what if instead of trying to fight the anomaly, i tried to erase it? mostly a thought experiment--it's not like it was possible. even if i dunked you straight into the core, cause like i keep saying, it's not that simple. what happens is the--"

He pauses abruptly and briefly presses a hand to his left eyesocket, as if it's aching. It's not, not really, but he's...remembering.

He drops his hand.

"the exact same thing that happened last time. the exact same thing he tried to do. a paradox. do you know what a paradox is? it's when two things exist at the same time that contradict each other. the barrier comes down, but the barrier never comes down. the flower exists, but the flower never exists. monsters win the war and the barrier never exists in the first place--but the underground exists, and the barrier is right there. you know, uh...spacetime doesn't like stuff like that. he figured it out way, way before i did, and he...ha. he kept going anyway. realized what would happen and decided it was acceptable. for years. when you do that, when you break spacetime that badly, there are consequences. the original timeline...that happy ending you're thinking of, all of us on the surface, asriel back to normal or whatever...all of that is obliterated. annihilated. it's worse than an erase. everything stops existing, even in potentia. there never was, is, or ever will be, an underground where the barrier comes down and we all happily make it to the surface."

He rounds on Frisk, though they're not looking at him.

"that's just if chara disappears. you disappearing too would...i mean, worst case scenario, the whole world stops existing, or ever existing. i mean, i've told you that erase isn't the end. they've tried, back home. i die, and there's not supposed to be anything after that, because that's when the timelines end--but then i wake up again. they erase, and bring it back somehow. but that's the difference between ending something and making it not exist. and those are the kinds of consequences that we're dealing with when you talk about--about rupturing spacetime on that level."

He sighs heavily, eyelights straying to the drawing again. The badly drawn image of Gaster almost seems to be mocking him.

"you're smart, frisk, but you're not a scientist. so there's no way you could have known about any of this. it's not like it was possible to begin with. that's not why i'm mad."

They hate the way he's talking about this. Like they're stupid. Like they're a little kid - and they are, they have to remind themselves, they are a kid, and even if they open their mouth to interrupt he overrides them every time, and they let him. Never could push back as hard as everyone else. Listen when the adults are talking. Never interrupt.

So they don't. They wait for his angry, ground-out diatribe to finish up, and fold their arms across their chest, and glare.

ERASE. That power Chara wants, yearns for, aches for. The power to grind themselves out of existence. And then what? They...set things back to their start? Make the world happen again? How is that possible? Why would they - they wouldn't do that! What they want is to stop being, not to live the same life over and over, right?

Unless there's -

The something else they don't, can't think about. Aren't supposed to think about. That doesn't like to be talked about. Does it have that kind of power? That kind of leverage? Does it touch on the things that even Chara's not supposed to have access to? Opens the gray door, and lets spr_mysterman leach into Frisk's head?

All they have is speculation. That force, whatever it is, is utterly beyond their comprehension. And they don't even care to think about it.

"I know," Frisk says hotly. "I didn't want to make Chara suffer like that. I didn't want to ruin things for you guys. That's why I wasn't going to do it there. I was going to do it here."

He could confer with Alphys, confirm their story. Seems like he hasn't done so already, or he wouldn't be as surprised and furious as he is now.

"Using Wonderland's CORE," they continue, low and hard and intent. "It erases memories, so why not people?" Dipper said it wouldn't work, but he also admitted that he couldn't know for sure. And it purges memories, so maybe it purges everything else too. "The world didn't need me. It could've been anyone! Anyone could've fallen there, and, and it wouldn't change anything! It wouldn't matter! I'm not even the one who broke the barrier! I made it so everyone's happy back home. All I'd have to do is make sure it stays that way. So you don't have to be afraid anymore. So no one has to be!"

They're shouting again. Uncontrolled. Hurts, to be screaming like this at someone who's their friend, who's trusted them with this information he hasn't trusted with very many other people, and what do they do with it? They spit on it. They pervert it. They ruin it. So terribly, terribly good at doing that, aren't they?!

God, he hates this. He hates being mad, it always feels so...wrong. He hates arguing with people he cares about. Hates how little Frisk thinks of themselves, and man, it sure puts things into perspective, doesn't it? Is this how he's made Papyrus feel all these years, every time Papyrus is forced to confront that his brother completely despises himself? Is this what it feels like to find out your loved ones would gladly die or outright stop existing, because they feel the alternative is unbearably worse?

They say they were going to do it here. They mention the Core, a different Core. Which, god, it's got to be pretty similar to the one at home if it can do things like that. He's only ever heard that seeing it takes away a memory, a big one. And he's pretty sure he heard that the first time they destroyed the Jabberwock it was by throwing it into the Core.

"here, huh? even better. guess all the monsters left back home don't matter. guess it's only us handful of lucky jerks who get the happy ending. as if this place is a happy ending at all. wonderland's great, but it's not that great. mushroom zombies trying to kill everyone, yeah, that was a lot of fun. everyone completely losing control of their emotions, real great time. getting turned into an almost-human and then nearly falling down cause wonderland decided to switch off the magic for a little while, yeah, heh, that one was uh, that was just like old times. no big deal. oh, and watching you and papyrus--watching--"

He stops. Looks away, can't continue. It didn't really occur to him until now, but that was...the first time seeing Frisk die and not being the one responsible. That was the first time he got his brother's dust on him.

Yeah. Wonderland's great.

His hands go back into his pockets.

"you remind me of him, sometimes. stubborn, determined, powerful...all that power and not really knowing what to do with it. you know, i didn't tell you about him so you could go and follow in his footsteps. but this always happens. this always happens when i talk about him. he corrupts everything. everything."

He reaches up and balls a fist in his hoodie, over his ribcage, right over where his soul would be. Crackling, sparking light, the dizzying tumble of the machine, the feeling of his soul being torn open like fabric--

Breathe.

"...and if it could have been anyone, why was it you? why did you wake up chara? why didn't any of the other kids who came before you? maybe it could have been anyone, but it wasn't. it was you. it was frisk. you were the one who woke chara up, you were the one with the right amount of determination, you were the one who befriended us, you were the one who somehow brought asriel back. you were the reason he came back long enough to bring down the barrier. and you were the one who ended up with all this power. maybe you didn't want it, but you have it, and all this--this erase stuff is, is running from responsibility. you can't trust yourself enough not to reset once we all get to the surface, so the best solution is to disappear, right? cause that's a lot easier than growing up and figuring out how to use what you have responsibly. did it ever occur to you that maybe you don't fully know what you're capable of? that maybe you could find a way to control it better? that you could learn more about it, maybe find a way to actually make an ending an ending?"

Because they're not like Gaster, not in that sense. They're a better person than he ever was, even if they don't think so, even if they've killed everyone a thousand times. Gaster had hundreds of years to look at the world and judge it as not even worth saving. Not a single life. Not even Sans, in the end.

Every word's like a spike being driven into their skull. His tone is utterly unlike they've ever heard it: icy and vicious and scathing, raking over their ears like a pair of hands clapping over them. Want to struggle, want to throw themselves at him and scream and drive their fists into his stupid ribcage and rip off his skull and watch everything whisper into dust. Their vision flickers for a moment, at the hot, live wire of bright, unbearable fury coiling in their gut. Hands curling into fists, nails digging into the flesh of their palms, and the desire to do something is overwhelming.

They spin away, shoulders hunching. They can't look at him as he hurls those words at them, heavy with a disdain and a spite they only glimpsed intermittently during those many battles in that long golden hallway.

They remind him of him. Of a man who never existed, was little more than some kind of remnant of a person who made too many mistakes. And he says they have to live with it, like - like they haven't already decided that's what they have to do. Like it isn't unbelievable, how every day is them deciding, wearily, to keep going. Dragging themselves through this life and this world and seeing nothing but the wavering bright spots that are the people they love and knowing, without question, how much better they'd all be without them. Living without fear. Living without grief.

"Doesn't matter anyway," they say, too thickly, their throat tight like they're about to cry and god they hate it, they hate their stupid kid body that defaults to crying even when they want to do literally anything else. They're not a baby. They can handle being talked down to by an adult. Because - because this is just how it is with them. How it has to be! If they didn't act like this there wouldn't be any call for it, would there? "I'm not even doing it."

Almost say but I'm not going home either.

But they don't. Bite the words back viciously, bite their lower lip.

"You're the one that told me," Frisk says, their heart racing and their chest aching, "that I had to - I had to do the right thing with my special power, right? And that, that was the right thing! I don't even know if I can die properly, I can't even do that right and if it's always there and I can always RESET, so I need to make sure I can never do that again! Not to anyone! Not to - "

A roar of frustration tears out of their throat, cutting off whatever else they might have to add, and that urge is still there, that burning, inconsolable need to just - just do something. The same that would start boiling inside them after dying to the same stupid Froggit, to the Dogi and their stupid big axes, to Undyne and all her stupid spears and her stupid grin, and they're too mad and too hateful and it's like how it was with the mirror, they spin on their heel and slam fists into the wall, teeth gritted so hard it's painful as they beat into it again and again and again and again and it's so stupid they're so stupid they can't do this and they don't know if they ever stop because it never stops and their hands hurt but they don't care. God, they don't care.

They ball their fists and something burns in their eyes and Sans tenses because for a split second it's the golden hallway again, for a split second they've got a knife and they'll charge him any second now and he has to be ready, has to dodge--

But it's just Frisk. No knife, no weapon at all, just an angry kid, a furious kid. And, well, maybe this is just another reason why he's never been good with anger. It's scary. It's downright frightening in other people, because people who get angry summon bullets or throw things, and suddenly a situation that was perfectly fine becomes volatile, dangerous. Suddenly you might be one wrong move from being dust.

He needs to keep it together. Needs to...get through to them.

"was this the plan the whole time? was this why you wanted to know about him at all?"

It was supposed to be some kind of...solidarity. Two friends talking about difficult things, trying to make sure each other was okay. Sans letting himself open up a little. Frisk worried about Asriel. Frisk worried about Sans.

"the right thing was being responsible. how is erasing yourself responsible? and just because you can reset doesn't mean you have to. you don't know what happens in the future because you've never let it happen. you're afraid of the responsibility and--man, trust me, i get it, but--"

They cut themselves off and make a horrible sound, and Sans flinches backward, hands raised slightly as Frisk whirls and drives their fist into the wall. And again. The second impact leaves a dent.

"frisk--"

Again. Again. The fourth impact leaves an actual hole, and Sans thinks he sees blood.

"frisk--"

He has half a mind to just let them, because maybe they need to get this out, maybe sometimes you just need to yell and hit things, and damn, he remembers firing off Gaster Blasters at nothing, slicing trees in half because life had become so painful and complicated and goddamn unfair and he just needed to--

But they hit the wall again, and they keep going, and they're going to break both of their hands at this rate and very suddenly he realizes that this isn't the first time, that something shattered a few weeks ago when they were in his room, the mirror shattered and he didn't realize what had happened at the time, but they must have punched it like they're doing now, drove their fist into the glass.

He reaches out and turns their soul blue, just for a moment, just long enough to pull them backward from the wall. He lets go as soon as they're a few feet away.

"frisk. stop."

There's a hole in his wall now, and the area around it is dimpled inward.

"...i think you've hurt my wall and yourself enough already."

They stopped wearing the bandages on their hands a few days ago but maybe they should've kept them on, they don't care how hard they're hitting or why and they think they might be sobbing or possibly screaming, and this is the second time they've broken down in this garbage pit of a room, and why, why does this keep happening? They know why it is, though, they know why it is, it's because they're like this, all the time!

Then there's that awful tug on their SOUL, that familiar yank that they've felt a thousand times and reflexively they try to shift their center of gravity to land on their feet as they go sailing to the wall or ceiling or whatever it is he's sending them toward, and they're entirely unprepared for when their feet go skidding harmlessly across the floor, taken no further than a few feet away so they can stand there, shaking, shoulders rising and falling unevenly with every shuddering pant, hands bloodied and clenched at their sides.

"It doesn't - matter - " they breathe out, hoarsely, staring numbly at the indentations they've made in Sans's stupid wall, their vision misting as they try not to cry. Try not to.

"I don't - want it. I don't - I never wanted to be this and I don't wanna be stuck with it forever. How's anyone - how'm I supposed to trust anything? That anyone l-likes me, that I won't screw things up again? I just ch-change everything whenever I want!"

He watches them carefully, hand still hovering in the air, ready to turn them blue again if he needs to. He hates this. Really hates this, hates turning anyone blue, hates turning Frisk blue, hates that he has to keep doing this to them to help them. To save them. Blue is a miserable feeling. It's like twisting someone's arm and telling them it's for their own good. Is it really helping people if you hurt them in the process?

Isn't that what he's doing by yelling at them? But they...don't they need to hear this? Don't they need to understand?

"i get it. you might not think so, but i do." He lowers his hand and takes a tentative step toward them. "power you never wanted. responsibility you never wanted. it sucks. you hope it'll just go away, like one day you'll wake up and be free of it. you'd rather do nothing at all or disappear than ever deal with it."

It's worse for them, of course. He knows it is. It's a thousand times worse for them.

He sighs.

"i like you, frisk. we all like you. but trust is...it's tricky. it takes a long time. a real long time. trusting yourself is--heh, it's probably one of the hardest things in the world. trusting in people who have hurt you before seems almost impossible. we all like you, but we've all...hurt you, haven't we?"

This kid has been hurt so many times. They've been killed so many times. Been betrayed, had their trust broken. Approached monsters with open arms, only to be attacked. Only to be hurt.

It's a goddamn miracle they like monsters at all.

"it's terrifying. trust, responsibility. being handed a devastating power, something that could hurt everyone, and then being...expected to know how to use it. being told that if you aren't responsible, if you don't do it right, then..."

He pauses and glances away.

"...you're gonna have a bad time."

He really didn't help them at all underground, did he? He did infinitely more harm than good to them. Why do they like him at all? Why would they want to still be his friend?

It's not about him.

"no one ever bothered to teach you. you had to just figure things out on your own. but you did pretty dang well, considering. you spared everyone. and of course you didn't do that all the time, but it's...kind of amazing that you did at all, that you got through the whole underground without even hurting anyone. maybe it took you a few tries, but you figured it out. so..."

He looks back at them, eyelights much softer than they were before.

"why can't you figure it out now? you don't have to be alone this time. you don't have to just...stumble your way through things blindly. none of us are trying to hurt you anymore. we can help you. you can ask us for help. you'll make mistakes, cause everyone does, but we can help you. i'm..."

He spreads his hands.

"i'm trying to do right by you for once. i'm no good at it either. but we can help each other. that's the point of friends, right? even if you can't trust me or any of us or anything right now. even if it takes forever to figure out things like trust and responsibility. we're still...here. we can still help. even in wonderland."

Why do people like them? Why do people deal with them when they're like this? They're like this all the time, and there's no getting rid of it or scrubbing it clean. It's like they're tainted. And they just spread to everything they touch.

They stand there, trying to hold themselves together, fists trembling at their sides, hot trickles running down between their knuckles, again, trying to make some sense of this, of what they are, of what he's saying. Giving them too much credit, acting like they didn't tear through the underground like some intent, nameless, destructive force several times, cutting down everything in their way, leaving behind a trail of dust in their wake. Because Asriel, Asriel, even stuck as a soulless flower - his first impulse was always to help people. He tried doing everything right the first few times before he turned to mindless destruction, and their first instinct, always, of course, was to see something coming at them with white powders of bullets and to strike it down. And they kept doing it, kept cutting away everything, everything, everything, even if it offered help, even if it was harmless, even if it did nothing more than encourage them and believe in them.

What kind of person are they if that's their first instinct? If even a soulless, angry flower could do better than they could at first impulse?

He stands there with his hands spread wide. Offering a hug of acceptance? How much of it is a double-edged, barbed thing, prepared to slam rib bones through their defenseless body the instant they let their guard down?

"I'm not...going to do it anymore," they mutter, unable to look at him. "I told you I'm not. It's not - I'm not leaving Chara alone like that. I just don't know...why."

Finally their eyes flick up to meet his, desperate and searching.

"Why do you trust me? Why are you okay with me? No one will ever tell me when I do stuff wrong, it's just, it's just that 'oh, you're just a kid' and 'oh, you didn't mean it,' and 'oh, it's okay because things worked out'."

They hate the mocking tone their tone assumes, fierce and rapid and angry.

"But it's not okay! I can't fix all of it! And I don't know why everyone keeps - keeps saying it's okay when it's not!"

He knows there were timelines like that. He knows that even the most perfect of timelines, the most golden of endings, had all kinds of Reloads along the way, all kinds of moments where time jolted backward a few minutes and he found himself repeating something, or feeling like he was repeating something, or feeling like he had just done this, and having to act like nothing was wrong, like he hadn't just felt the world stutter. Say whatever he was saying and continue on, and then wonder if it was a Reload or a full Reset, and why. Did they make a mistake? Did Frisk just die?

Did they just kill someone and regret it?

It just wasn't worth wondering how many times such a thing had happened, and obviously it had happened. At least one of those Reloads stemmed from a regret, stemmed from frustration. The point was that they bothered to go back at all, the point was that they regretted. They didn't have to. They could have just decided enough was enough, and sometimes they did.

"for one thing...it's because my timeline is a good one." He shrugs. That part is really very simple. "i might remember bits and pieces of other times, but how am i supposed to judge you for something you did in a whole other timeline? that's another sans's job. the current timeline is...it's the only thing that matters, because i just don't have the energy to worry about what happened last time, what will happen next time. besides, what if i was remembering things wrong?"

He sighs again, finally stuffing his hands back in his pockets. He doesn't feel particularly angry anymore. He's not sure what he's feeling.

"i already judged you. and i can only judge what i know. what i knew was that you'd gained love, but hadn't gained any LOVE. even if you'd made mistakes or got frustrated and angry, you set things back and fixed it. i couldn't judge you on that. i can't, uh. i can't tell when you're jumping back because you'd...died, or when you're jumping back because you'd killed someone and felt bad. i just feel it and...judge based on what i know."

He hasn't been doing this right, either, has he? The whole time he's been here. Much as he says over and over that he can only judge them based on his own timeline, it must sound like he's glossing over everything else. Ignoring the bad stuff. Pretending it never happened. And maybe that's really what he's been doing.

He doesn't know what he's doing. Doesn't know if this is helping.

Doesn't know if what he now realizes he needs to say will help, either.

"if you want honesty...if you want real guidance..."

He stares at them. There's nothing in his expression, no emotion at all, because if he lets himself feel anything right now, he's pretty sure he'll break again. Or he'll break Frisk.

"you're right. it's not okay. you have an insane amount of power over us all. you hold our lives in the palms of your hands. you can casually choose whether to kill us all, or kill only a few of us, or kill none of us. the fact that it's just that simple, the fact that it's...it'd be so easy for you to not care, to never care about us, to treat us all not as people but as...obstacles. or puzzles."

He takes a breath. Keeps going.

"you've killed every single one of us. you walk out of the ruins and i see the dust on your hands. and i do nothing. you don't look human anymore, even at that point. you don't look like...anything i've ever seen before. you kill everyone you see. you go hunting for them. you track them all down. until they're all gone. you killed the dogs. you killed shyren. you killed the ghost possessing that training dummy. you killed every last royal guard. you killed mettaton. undyne. toriel. you must kill asgore, too. sometimes, you drive alphys to kill herself."

Breathe, breathe. He grips the fabric inside his pockets, forcing himself not to start shaking.

"you kill him. papyrus. you kill my brother, when all he does is...all he does is spare you. all he wants to do is help you. h-he doesn't even bother to fight you sometimes, but you do it anyway. i can never stop you. i can never save him. i get there in time to see him..."

And he does nothing. Stands there, sees it happen, and does nothing. Goes and sits somewhere for awhile. Waits to find out if he needs to get up and go fight the human, or if he just needs to get up and go spit a few words at them.

"you kill the most important person in the world. you kill everyone i care about. everyone i've ever known. and then you kill me."

He pulls a hand out of his pocket, presses it to his chest.

"you, you personally, haven't gotten to this part. i fight you until i can't anymore. i wear myself out and can't fight anymore. all this, heh, this power i have, it's real short-lived. and then you break the rules, like i've been doing up till then. i dodge the first one, and then you attack again, and i'm never...expecting it, even when i know it's going to happen. split me open like a gourd, from here to here."

He traces the line, from the clavicle, down and across, to the lowest rib.

"and then i wake up in snowdin."

Shoves his hand back in his pocket.

"i die. i wake up in snowdin. only papyrus dies. i wake up in snowdin. only undyne dies. i wake up in snowdin. a handful of monsters here and there, this monster, that monster. one monster. almost all of them. i wake up in snowdin. we all get to the surface, we all get the happiest ending, we see the sun for the first time in our lives, i see the sun for i can't even know which time it is, the first time, the hundredth? i wake up in snowdin. i wake up in snowdin and papyrus is saying the exact same words the exact same way every single time. and it's..."

His voice wavers but doesn't break.

"it's not okay. it's not okay. it's not okay, frisk, and half the time i want to ask you why you can't. just. stop. but no one else has to deal with it. no one else has to remember, no one else has to know what's happening. everyone else gets exactly the timeline they're in. everyone else can either hate you or love you. no one else even has context for any of this. you tell them you've killed them before and they probably look at you like there's moldsmals crawling out of your ears, right? and they believe you, but they can't remember it, can't conceive of it happening, so it's not worth thinking about, right? do you know how many times i tried to warn everyone? i don't even know how many times i tried to warn them. what are you supposed to tell people when there's this sweet kid befriending everyone and hugging their way through all these monsters who would gladly kill them and rip their soul out and hand it to asgore? when this sweet kid is dying, over and over, making mistakes and then setting it back and doing it over and doing it right, when they're going out of their way to spare everyone, to not hurt a single monster, to stand there and take it rather than fight back? when this kid could be doing the exact opposite. when they could choose to hurt everyone, but they don't."

He drags a hand across his face, digging fingers into his eyesockets, into his nasal cavity, because he's doing this wrong again, he has to be, none of this is making sense and he's making it all about him, like what he has gone through is the priority here, like it even matters. No one else has to deal with any of it. Only one monster has to know how the world works, has to live through Reset after Reset after Reset, and that should be fine, that's fine, that's a perfectly fine sacrifice if it means everyone else gets to be happy, gets the happy ending, if even Frisk gets the happy ending, right? Right? In the grand scheme of things, Sans and his stupid problems don't matter.

Especially not right now. Especially not when Frisk is desperately trying to understand, desperately trying to figure this out, desperately casting around for some ounce of self-worth, and all he's doing is throwing it all back in their face.

"that's...why i'm okay with you, i guess. that's why i trust you. that's why i love you. because most of the time you are just a kid, and you didn't mean it, and things did work out. because you're like this finite little god who could crush us all, but you don't. you choose not to. you choose to go back and save people, the times you must have gotten frustrated and hurt someone. because you'd rather see yourself hurt than anyone else. because you'd have every right to defend yourself, you have every right to get angry and fight back, but you don't. and maybe that's not the greatest thing, the fact that you'd let someone destroy you if it meant saving them. maybe that's all we've ended up teaching you. maybe that's why erasing yourself seemed like a good option."

This is his fault. This is their fault, the fault of all the monsters that Frisk faced. This is the Underground's fault.

He's exhausted.

"you bothered to be my brother's friend when you didn't have to. you bothered to be my friend, even after all the horrible crap i did to you. even though you remember every time i killed you and you still flinch when i turn you blue. i'd just...i'd just rather love you than hate you, frisk. i'd rather be your friend. we've done awful things to each other, but i...i'd rather try and look after you than hurt you again."

At some point during all of it, they feel their knees begin to tremble, their legs folding beneath their own weight. They sink slowly onto the ground, their body a broken, concave arch, defeat stark in the slope of their shoulders and their hands trailing uselessly on the ground even if it's coated with grime and detritus and unwashed clothes and a thick, dark red substance that might be blood and might be ketchup.

He tells them that he wakes up in Snowdin. Papyrus says the same thing in the same way, oblivious to the way the world only ever turns so far before it spins back again. He tells them that he dies. They kill him. Split him open, rend him in two, reduce him to dust. It'd be so easy, they remember, except he'd dodged every blow even though they'd been panting and desperate and angry and furious and the voice and whispered, urgently, that he * Can't dodge forever. And they'd kept attacking and attacking and attacking until they felt ready to collapse with the sick weight of it. How tired they were. How exhausted they were. And their determination was fraying, and they could see the pain and exhaustion in his eyesockets, in the lines in his expression, the way he kept smiling even though he must have felt about ready to crumble at the lightest touch. It must have been some kind of death. It must have been some kind of death.

Maybe that's what lay at the other end of that hallway, past him. Past Asgore, past Please don't kill me. and past all that frustration and agony and raw determination. Past the ERASE.

Someone else, an additional voice, some kind of higher tier than Chara or Frisk. Maybe they had that kind of power. To ERASE the world and then remake it. To put everyone through that. But if they say that, are they just - shirking responsibility? Claiming it's someone else's fault? That's what they tried to do with Chara at first. What they were desperate to do. Didn't want to acknowledge that they could mess up, do bad and dark and horrible things.

That's why I trust you, says Sans.

That's why I love you, says Sans.

There's a thrill of panic shooting through them, their heart pounding like a trapped bird, and they shift, want to bolt and be free from this place, tear down the hall and hide somewhere where he'll never, never find them and - this is it, this is what Chara feels - what they must have felt when Frisk said those words like they were nothing, like they should just be accepted without question. No wonder they hated it. No wonder they didn't dare call it love. To call a sensation like this - to call it love would just taint the definition of the term, pervert it beyond recognition.

They choose not to destroy the world. Oh. Well how nice of them.

He's smart. He's smarter than this. Why's he letting them manipulate him like this, make him think that they're somehow better than they are? They're an anomaly. Human. Evil! They should be burning in hell! And he changes his tune to - to placate them? Because -

Oh, no. They know why. They know why.

"Are you saying that because you actually want to," they whisper at last, their face feeling too stiff from the hot streaking of tears that have begun to dry on their skin, "or just because hate takes too much work?"

They fall. Sink. Go to their knees, and he watches them go, wants to sit down too, just drop, maybe Fall Down, but he swore he wouldn't do that. Promise he wouldn't. Not even just here, not even just to Frisk. Promised his brother once upon a time, i'm better now, won't fall down anymore.

It's absurdly easy, as easy as dying.

He is smarter than this. And he's let people manipulate him before. Always knows when it's happening, learned very, very quickly to pick up on it during his time with Gaster. Manipulative from day one. Manipulated from day one.

That's not what's happening now.

He knows it when he sees it.

He crosses the room. Crouches down in front of them, leaving a foot of space between them both, because Frisk probably wants to run and god, Sans wants to run too.

"yeah, it's too much work. and i actually tried. maybe the first few resets i actually did hate you. but i got used to it, accepted it all, decided it didn't matter. gave up, i guess. once i did, it got easier to...separate things in my head. this timeline, that timeline. i'm...not gonna pretend like it's not hard sometimes. like i don't sometimes look at you or chara and feel a knife in my ribs, or see papyrus's dust again."

It's hard sometimes. It's hard.

He sits down.

"but this is still a good timeline. you're not faking it when you're good. you're not lying when you're kind. you're not tricking us into caring about you. you're not manipulating me into loving you. cause...i know what that feels like. i remember it. and even if you remind me of him sometimes, you're nothing like him. i...told this to chara the other day, and i'll tell you now. he did worse to me than you or any anomaly ever did. he hurt me worse than you ever could. and you know what's really funny? i still care about him, too. maybe there's something wrong with me."

Maybe he's fucked up in the head. Maybe he's some kind of masochist.

"i think i just decided that i would care about you. even knowing what i knew. why do you think i try to reach you, even when we're trying to kill each other? i mean...that's also me being manipulative. getting you to pause and drop your weapon, maybe, but it's...it comes from truth. i really do miss my friend. i really do wish you'd QUIT and reset and go back and we could all be happy again and i could pretend to forget it ever happened."

They've never talked like this before, have they? They've never been so frank with each other. So honest. It hurts.

"i think love is also just pretty irrational. but how could i not love a kid who made my brother feel like he was on top of the world? how could i not love a kid who helped my friend face her problems and feel better about herself? how could i not love a kid who let me stack thirty whole hotdogs on their head? how...could i not love a kid who decided they wanted to wear a hoodie like mine? who--called me family?"

It's like he knows exactly what's running through their mind, the hot currents of frustration and hatred and loathing, plucking the thoughts that he must know are there, he must know, because they're - well, they're the same, aren't they? More similar than, perhaps, they've given either of them credit for. They've said that he and Chara have a lot in common, and should learn to...to get along better. Have they ever once bothered to think the same thing about themself?

He sits across from them. Leaving distance gapped between them but close enough for his words to still ache. How can he? How can he possibly love a thing like them? Who could love a thing like this, broken and abandoned and cast aside? Who would ever, ever love them when they're just some rotten little parasite leeching off everyone's kindness and compassion and mercy? And eventually they knew people would see. They'd see them for what they were, and hate them for it, and they'd be right in hating them for it and they wouldn't dare to believe that anyone could, that anyone -

"I keep saying sorry," whispers Frisk, their voice thick with unshed tears and a lump constricting their throat. "I keep saying sorry, sorry, sorry, and I can't - I can't fix it. And you're - you're right to be scared. To hate me. Even if it doesn't last, it's - it's okay."

And they don't understand why he can't. Especially since it'd take so little -

Fire hurled in their direction by an angry, hurt, betrayed Boss Monster, sparks flaring at them and her expression murderous and mournful, and he'd yanked them back and free from the danger.

Gravity switching off and on, and they went plummeting to earth until they'd jolted to a halt with a catch on their SOUL and lowered gently to the ground.

Even when their death could be as simple as his inaction, like it always was back home, always, always, always, their roads littered with deaths that were little more than a punchline over dinner in MTT Resort.

"I told Chara..." They scrub their heel across their face, grinding the heel of their palm into an eyesocket, trying to grind away the tear tracks with little success. "I told them love is supposed to hurt and...and it's terrible, and scary. Was that - was I wrong?"

They're too much alike, and maybe that's why it's easy. Maybe that's why it came almost naturally; why he decided to just care about them, despite everything. He had Papyrus, and they had no one. Toriel loved them, sure, but she stayed in the Ruins. Everyone had to stay behind for one reason or another. But he followed them, tracked their movements through the Underground, watched them do whatever they did. Didn't help them, didn't guide them, didn't do a goddamn thing for them, except...except sort of be there, in the most minimal, threatening of capacities. Be there for jokes and hotdogs and threats and judgments.

He doesn't understand why Papyrus loves him. Never really has. Just accepted it and believed it. It sort of hurt every time, knowing he didn't deserve his brother, knowing he hadn't done a single thing to save him, and also knowing that his brother loved him more than anyone.

And he can see it in their face now. They're just like him. They can't understand. Can't even fathom how they can be worth any scrap of love.

They're both such a mess. They're all such a mess.

"i know you do. i know you are. you don't need to say it anymore."

It loses all meaning once you've heard it enough times, and he knows they are. He's known that much, since the first moment he saw them in Wonderland and saw their face. They were sorry. They were always sorry. Sorry for everything.

Like looking in a mirror.

He shakes his head.

"no, you're not wrong. i think that's...just how it is. love is complicated. it's too complicated to be any one thing. even with papyrus, it hurts. losing him hurts. getting him back hurts. hearing...he says such nice things about me and believes them with everything he is. you know, i...heh. i had a talk with him the other day, actually. about some of this stuff. about how i...am. how...you get it, right? how scary it is? how--it's so damn easy to feel like you're...not worth it, like you're just...tricking this amazing person into loving you. but he does love me, for real, and...half the time i don't get it, but i...believe him. and that hurts. all of that hurts. the stuff we talked about really hurt, but i think, uh. i think we both needed it. i think you and i needed this too, maybe."

Maybe. He's still not convinced he's doing this right.

"love is complicated, and it's not easy, and it's scary, and it hurts, and it's also...it's...the best thing in the world. makes it worth getting up in the morning, even when you don't want to. makes it worth...living. even when you don't want to. cause it...i dunno. it means we're not alone."

"I - yeah. Yeah." Another burst of sound peels from their throat, raw and disbelieving and relieved. He...he knows exactly what that feels like, doesn't he? To feel like people will love you, and trust you, and accept you, but just the acceptable you that they present to the world at large, and the minute they discover who you are, the moment they see how horrible and distasteful and hateful and unlovable you are, there is no coming back from it.

Tell you they love you. Tell you that they care about you, and they only do this because they love you, don't you understand? If you didn't act like this, maybe they wouldn't need to...

Well. Love is complicated. He's right. And maybe they were right then too, telling Chara that love is - it's not as simple as perfect smiles, and fixing things with hugs, and saying it's all going to be okay and then it being okay, magically, and things always being fine. It's messy, and it takes work, and sometimes it hurts more than they can bear.

"I know exactly how that feels," says Frisk, the words a cracked whisper. "I think - I always think that - that I'm just making everyone think I'm better than I am, and if they could just see me, everything I did - like Toriel did, like Napstablook..."

And even then, the two of them are warming to them, if gradually. Warming to Chara. Refusing to accept that things are as straightforward as hating someone, blaming them for everything.

Maybe they're right.

"That's why I couldn't understand." The word splits cleanly in two down the middle, clipped oddly. "Why you were just - okay with me. You know what I did. You know better than anyone. And, and you still just...you say stuff like how you love me, and no one ever says that, no one ever - "

Their shoulders are shaking again, and their throat has closed. No one says that and means it. They love you and kill you and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts, and they love you and the bruises on your neck and on your arms and on your thighs were because they loved you, the spears and sharpened bones skewering your body to the ground like a butterfly to corkboard was out of love, out of love, out of love. The fire singing your hair and your skin and burning a hole in your SOUL, that's out of love too! Everyone loves you so much, know what you want and what you are so well, better than you do, that they're willing to kill you for it!

That's the kind of love they're used to. That's the kind of love they...deserve, isn't it?

So what is this? Tenderness and understanding and quiet words exchanged in a trashed room, baring their SOULs to one another and leaving themselves open and raw and vulnerable, like exposing a half-healed wound before it's even scabbed over.

That's love, too.

They never would have thought it.

They do get it. They really do get it, and god, no one that young should be able to understand that so acutely. No kid should ever be made to feel like that.

Maybe if they hadn't felt like that to begin with, they would never have bothered to hurt anyone at all.

"yeah. like if they know what you'd done and failed to do, they'd hate you. they'd finally reject you. and they'd have every right, but you know it would--it would destroy you, to lose them like that, you don't think you could come back from it. so you hide it. don't let anyone see it. put on a smile and act like nothing's wrong. only you feel like a fraud. and you end up wanting someone to pull the mask off, see the real you, because they deserve the truth. they deserve the chance to get away from you."

Maybe no one should be made to feel like that, no matter how old they are, no matter what they've been through, no matter what they've done. Maybe that's just too cruel a punishment.

"it wasn't automatic. at first it really was just...easier, to just be okay with you, to just care, to just not think about it. but it got...it got more complicated. it kept getting more complicated. i thought things would have reset by now. i thought we all would have gone home, or that--or that all of you would have gone home, and i'd--that anything we'd managed to say or figure out would be for nothing. that we'd never get to--this. it--it, heh, it honestly scares the crap out of me, how it--how things keep moving forward, how we all keep figuring each other out and caring about each other and--and i know it's coming, i know no one stays here forever, but god, sometimes i want to. not this place, not wonderland, but this, all this...whatever you call this. what we've all built. everyone's changed so much, everyone's...better. or getting better."

It'll come. They'll lose all of this, they all will. He'll lose everyone all over again. There's always a Reset eventually.

There's always...

Only...

If they could do this back home, if all of them could just. Talk. If Sans could find out about Chara, if Frisk could open up about how they feel. If the others could find out about the timelines, could all see each other in the full light, could all come to the same conclusions they've all come to here. How Mettaton refuses to hate Frisk, how Alphys worries for Chara as much as she worries about them, how Toriel is finding ways to move forward, how Asgore is finding ways to move forward, how Papyrus knows almost everything now and still loves Frisk, and still loves Sans.

If all of that can happen here then...can it happen at home?

Can the Resets end?

Does he know? He doesn't know. The same experiment done over and over will always yield the same results. Until you change the right variable.

And they won't know what variables to change, won't retain any of this, but if it can happen here, in the right environment, under the right circumstances, with the right variables, then...

It's dangerous. It's dangerous to think about. It's incredibly dangerous to hope, utterly deadly, downright absurd.

But.

But.

He holds out a hand toward Frisk, palm up, and manages to smile. A real smile.

"but i do love you, kid. despite it all. maybe partially because of it all? maybe cause i've seen the best and worst of you, and i'm...taking you as the whole you. the whole...heh. frisky package, i guess. you're kind and troubled and dangerous and a real pain in the tailbone sometimes, and i...wanna see you grow up. figure yourself out. see you become someone who knows themselves. knows their worth. see if--"

His words catch for a second. You wouldn't think a skeleton could sound like he had a lump in his throat.

"see if maybe someday the resets really can end."

What an experiment that will be.

Yeah. He understands. He knows what it is to put on a mask, every day, and eventually that mask just becomes who and what you are and there's no changing it, and you think, this is better. It's better because it means everyone else is happy, and if they ask if you're happy too you can say that of course you're happy, you're smiling aren't you? And no one will bat an eye. No one will suspect anything. No one will be the wiser.

But it's not really that simple. Sans only has to hold that façade for a day, maybe, until they wind things back to their beginning again. He never has to stretch it beyond that, and now he's been here for months. For months. And the longer they stay here the harder it gets to hold everything together, to pretend they're fine when they're not, god but they're not, in any way, fine.

Maybe they never will be.

But they're being transparent here. Both of them.

"I don't think I wanna go home," says Frisk softly, admitting only one part of the admission they know they should build toward but don't know how to. "I don't think I wanna go back if I'm just gonna forget. I don't wanna forget this. I don't wanna forget you, and Chara, and everyone I've met, I - I don't wanna lose that. It's, it's hard, but - "

But it's worth it?

He extends a hand and he extends something they never thought they would've heard from him.

Hope.

Hope.

Hope.

Maybe the RESETs will end. Maybe one day he can be optimistic and see an end to this and they don't know what to say, what to say to that, to any of it, because it feels like such a reversal of what their roles should be, here he is encouraging them, rooting for them like he always has. Maybe they can - they can actually grow up and be okay. And "okay" is such a foreign concept, such a strange thing that they don't think they've ever been except in the most fleeting of instances, laughing as they cook with Undyne, clutching Toriel's warm fuzzy paw as she says of course they may live with her, laughing as they dance with Chara in the most haphazard, slapdash way possible in their weird fancy clothes, making runny blueberry pancakes with Sans even though they feel like they're about to fall apart at any moment.

Maybe they could - one day - be okay.

And maybe he could be okay too.

They don't take the outstretched hand. Instead they shuffle forwards and slowly, tentatively, pull their arms around him, burying their face in his jacket front.

"I love you too, Sans," they mumble, muffled with tears and a thickness in their throat and the way they're awkwardly pressed up against his jacket.

"yeah." His voice is quiet. "i don't think i want to, either."

Wonderland isn't perfect, but it's...it's different. That's what he's been telling himself over and over, all year, right? Wonderland is different. The right set of variables to allow for horrible things, to allow him to watch his friend and his brother die in a place none of them should ever have gone. The right set of variables for Frisk to admit things to him, and for him to admit things to them, and for them to...make something. Make something fragile and weird, and he's still not sure if he can call this whole thing family, but...

And it's not up to them. This Reset, Wonderland's Reset, isn't up to any of them. But he doesn't want to lose this.

He can put up with the rest of it if it means he doesn't have to lose this.

They move forward, wrap small arms around him, hold tightly. It always surprises him how strong they are, how tight their grip can be. He hugs them back and holds them as close as he can.

He's not crying, but he can feel that telltale prickling at the corners of his eyesockets.

Love isn't the only terrifying thing. Hope is terrifying, too. Family is terrifying.

"aw, frisk." He leans into their shoulder just for a moment. "gonna catch something in my eyesockets at this rate."

What a pile of mush he is, lately.

There's silence for a few long moments as they just hold each other.

"...we should. find some ice for your hands. that must be hurting."

Their shoulders jerk once, twice, in a sob, still muffled by the way they're pressed awkwardly into his front. Slowly, hesitantly, they draw back, dip their head in a clumsy nod. Their hands hurt. Again. They've really been beating themselves up lately, haven't they? Ha-ha.

That's not funny.

"Sorry," they say again, the words a cracked whisper. "That's not why I asked you about him. About...the man. The one that isn't real. I didn't just - I didn't just want to use that. I was worried about you. The idea only came after."

Maybe it doesn't matter so much now. But they're not - they told Chara they weren't doing it anymore. And so they're not. They're staying here, as long as the choice is theirs, and they're staying with the people they love.

With the people who...love them?

The people love them.

The people who love them.

Even now, they find the words difficult to believe.

He gives their shoulder a squeeze before he draws back and lets go. It'd be nice to hug them a bit longer, but he really does need to do something about their hands. He gets up and heads to the closet.

"i believe you."

They didn't really understand what happened or the nature of Erase until he talked to them, after all. Chara was the one who was after Erase from the very start. It just...it makes a horrible amount of sense, that both kids would independently come to the same conclusion. That the world was somehow better off without them.

He gets a small bucket of ice from the closet as well as some band-aids, then goes back and crouches down near Frisk again.

"here, this should help. i, uh. i'm actually not too sure how these things work, but...yeah. sorry. heh, don't know the first thing about first aid."

Should probably do some reading, considering this isn't the first time something like this has happened. He could technically just use healing magic but he's utterly terrible at it. And fixing human injuries is a whole lot different from fixing monster ones.

They try to smile weakly, but it's tremulous and trembling, a feeble fluttering of facial muscles. They're held together by too little, and they come apart too easily. It takes only a few words exchanged, a conversation over text, and things inevitably spiral downward. They don't know if it's actually possible to have a complete conversation about something innocent without involving everything they've done, could have done, will do.

Perhaps they just invite it. No, they amend privately, they absolutely do.

"It's okay," Frisk says, softer than they mean to, the words nearly inaudible. They grab a handful of cubes and hold them against the swollen parts of one hand, wincing at the sting of the cold against both bare and tender skin.

"Humans are...complicated," they say after a moment, and they might as well be speaking to the ice for all the staring at the ground they're doing, unable to meet his eyes. "Delicate. More delicate than you'd think." Their eyes flick up to the damage they did to his wall, guiltily, and then down again.

"...sorry about your wall."

He knows what that's like. There's a handful of things that can do that to him, that have done that to him. Age and experience and his general ability to get used to anything have just sort of...dulled the reaction.

"yeah. so i've noticed. it's kinda funny. humans seem so tough, until you see otherwise."

He can't remember the first time, the very first time he killed the human, but it must have been...

He doesn't do too well with blood, and he finds himself sometimes thinking about how little pressure it takes to actually break skin, and how if the bone goes deep enough you see a lot more than just blood.

It's kind of incredible, just how much is held in behind thin skin.

He shakes his head a bit, both in answer and to clear his mind. He opens the box of band-aids and pulls one out, though he's not sure what one does next with these things.

"nah, it's okay. mansion always repairs itself real quick. plus it wouldn't be my room if it wasn't a disaster area, right?"

They use the hem of their shirt to wipe away the icy trails and the redness crusting their knuckles and sides of their palms, and gently take the band-aid from his fingers so they can peel off the paper and stick it over the worst of the cuts and bruises. They'll have to do a better bandaging job later, they think - these stick-on types of adhesives fall off so easily when they're laid across so many moving joints and parts, and the hands never stay still long enough for them to hold.

Bandages don't do much for bruises anyway. Nothing except cover them up. But that's the best you can get, most of the time. That's exactly what you need.

Still, their movements are practiced and steady as they follow suit for the other hand. It's easy, always in their muscle memory. Always easy to recall. They've had to do this more times than they can count.

"I shouldn't have done that," they murmur, still apologetic. "That's the - the part of me I don't..." The words fade unexpectedly, and they have to breathe for a few moments, breathe through the pain shooting up their fingertips, the way the cold makes their fingers numb and clumsy, before they can continue. "That's the part of me that - that ends up killing monsters. I just get so mad and I..."

They try not to flex the hand they just stuck the band-aid on. The restive motion would just make the thing fall off.

"I just - try to make it so that it doesn't hurt anyone else. So I don't take it out on people." Turn it inward. Turn it inward. "So the only person who gets hurt is - "

They can't finish the sentence, but it's probably obvious.

Me.

He's quiet as they talk and bandage their hands. The more they say, the stiller he goes.

So the only person who gets hurt is them.

On some level, he sort of had a feeling. It comes back around to this. A human facing down monsters, taking every blow and not fighting back. A human never hurting a single soul, except one. Except themselves. Because it's the same sort of mindset that you'd need to take every bullet and not even fight back. The same sort of mindset that makes you consider holes in mountains and poisonous flowers and the Core.

He's pretty sure Chara has said it before. In the good timelines, the only one who gets hurt is the human.

So they don't take it out on people, they say.

Were there times underground that their suffering was self inflicted? Did they ever stand in front of a volley of bullets and think they deserved it, that it was at least better than hurting or potentially killing someone else?

They must have, right? They must have thought they deserved it. They must have thought it was punishment.

Because he's one of the ones who made them feel that way.

"that's...that's not okay, either. you...do know that, right? not just that you're hurting yourself, but that...that's the lesson we taught you."

The lesson that he taught them.

you never gained LOVE, but you gained love

That's not what he meant. He never meant...

Honestly, how dare he? How dare he be close to this kid at all?

"...maybe there's something else you can do. so you don't hurt people but don't hurt yourself, either."

"I know." The words emerge a cracked whisper. Again, they try to smile, and again it flickers, a pained, uneven crooking of one side of their mouth. They know. They know it's not okay. It's not something good kids do. It's not something kids are supposed to do at all. But you stop FIGHTing for a moment, the weapon drops from your hand, and you let the fire sear your SOUL into nothing. You drop into a row of bones again and again. You're picked up and basically slammed into the walls by the force of abruptly shifting gravity, skewered through by a line of femurs, and it's okay. It's okay because you know what you deserve.

"I know. They say that - that you should never - " Their breathing hitches. They focus solely on taping the last band-aid over their skin. Dropping the stray cubes of ice back into the bucket. Fiddling with their new, improper, clumsy, ill-fitting bandages that they'll have to change as soon as they get back to their room.

Breathe. Breathe.

They breathe.

"It's a lesson I taught myself," Frisk admits, drawing their knees up, wrapping their arms around them, resting their chin on top. "Before I fell. The surface taught me. I taught me. It wasn't - it was never anything new."

But it was the same lesson they all taught them, Underground. The rest of the world needs to continue. The rest of the world cannot afford to die. The rest of the world is more sensitive to everything than you are. The rest of the world is not expendable.

But you are.

He watches them struggle. Watches them fiddle with the bandages, and damn, maybe he really should put in a bit of effort and learn some human first aid. So the next time something happens he can maybe do this right.

Assuming there's a right way to do this at all.

They confirm something else he had suspected and his eyesockets lid partway. This just...doesn't happen underground, at least not that Sans is aware of. Parents and caretakers don't just hurt their kids, don't just teach their kids that they deserve pain and that they're less important than everyone else.

Sans might have learned some unpleasant lessons as a kid, but nothing like this.

"i'm sorry, kid. nothing like that should ever have happened to you."

He sort of wants to hug them again but it's probably not appropriate right now.

"maybe we can...try and learn different lessons this time."

They pick absently at the band-aids they've just applied, fighting the urge to rip them off, one by one, flick them away like flakes of dead skin. That would be counter-intuitive, and probably also kind of unsettling and wrong. Maybe rude.

They've only started to tell people this stuff. It always attracts the kinds of looks they hate. Looks of pity, looks of disgust, looks of confusion. Something Flowey-like writhes up inside them briefly, spitting spare me your worthless pity, but they fight it down immediately.

It's okay. It'll all be okay.

"Yeah," says Frisk, not daring to raise their voice over the nearly-inaudible murmur. "Keep saying things can be different here. I guess they'd have to be. I just don't...I don't know how to stop."

A taut, self-deprecating giggle leaks out of the corner of their mouth, and they clap a hand over it. They don't know how to stop.

He knows what that's like, and he's trying not to let it come off as pity. Pity is so damn annoying, as is that whole mix of emotions that comes when people find out what a damn mess you really are.

Ninety percent of the time it's better to just not talk about it. Or laugh it off.

"yeah. i get what you mean. real hard to escape that, uh...the default. the kinda...rut you end up in, but maybe that's putting it too mildly."

It's a lot more than just a rut, but the metaphor still applies. You get on a certain track, get into a certain habit, get into a...heh, vicious cycle, and then it's almost impossible to break out.

"have you talked to anyone else about it?"

"Not really," they admit softly. "No one's ever really - I mean, no one's asked. Chara knows. Asriel - " There's an unintentional hitch in their voice when they say his name and they try to press forward and continue with as much neutrality as they can possibly bring to bear. "Toriel, maybe. She might've...I mean, those few days in the library were...they were hard."

But he already knew about it. He knew some of it, anyway. Knew how they'd felt with Chara, what they'd almost done if Toriel hadn't happened upon the pair of them at the right time and known what to look for.

"Souji knows," they admit after a moment. "The guy who runs the diner. I didn't really mean to tell him. I ended up in his room and we got to talking about it."

The sorts of terribly engaging things you end up talking about with Frisk. Subjects such as death, and dying, and wanting to ERASE yourself from existence! No wonder they've made so many great friends, huh?

Of course Chara knows. And given everything that's happened to Asriel, it makes sense that he knows as well. There's a pretty obvious connection between wanting to hurt yourself and wanting to end yourself. And Toriel, considering she's Chara's mother...

And someone named Souji. Sans has heard of him, though they've never met.

"wish i had...some kind of suggestion. something else you could do--some other outlet."

They've probably heard it all before, or if they haven't, it's absurd. Punch a pillow. Scream. Take a nap. Sniff a candle or whatever.

Bullshit. Stuff like this can't be fixed so simply. And it's exhausting to hear it. Like how anytime someone other than Papyrus tells him to just "try a little harder" Sans just wants to lie down on the spot and go to sleep.

"...we'll figure something out. we're all, heh. constantly figuring things out, so."

"Yeah," Frisk murmurs, curling slightly in on themselves and then...stopping. Uncoiling. Prevent themselves from folding in, twisting themselves into a mess of confused, contracted muscle and bone.

"I just don't like to FIGHT. I don't like...hitting things like that. Even if it's a mirror. Er - glass kind."

Not that that had been any better. Maybe marginally better than driving their fist into their own mirror's face, as much as the temptation might pull at them sometimes. Mostly it just terrifies them that such a thing even exists inside them after all. That they have the capacity for violence, even if they've sworn off it, stopped carrying a weapon.

They've stopped carrying a weapon, but they haven't stopped carrying a pair of scissors and a roll of bandages. Haven't stopped wearing long sleeves. Just in case.

"I guess I could try a punching bag," they offer without much enthusiasm. "Better to hit that than...walls and stuff."

"hm."

He considers that for a moment. Weighs what he's going to say next.

Still doesn't really know what he's doing.

"frisk..." He keeps his voice gentle. "you say that, but aren't you kinda...fighting yourself? aren't you excluding yourself from your own pacifism?"

Obviously it's not their fault, of course it's not their fault. But...you get into habits, or ways of thinking, headspaces. God, does he know it. You get set in your ways. And then it's almost impossible to think anything else.

"why are you the only one who doesn't get to be spared?"

It's a question he already knows the answer to. The Underground didn't see fit to Spare Frisk, so why should they Spare themselves?

He's being a hypocrite again. It might take no effort at all to be nice to people, but it sure feels goddamn fucking impossible to be nice to yourself.

"i'm sorry. i'm not blaming you, uh...far from it. i just..."

He doesn't know how to help.

He sighs.

"if the problem is, uh. misdirected energy and anger, then. maybe the key would be destroying something without actually...destroying it? something that feels like destruction, but isn't."

He casts about rather hopelessly, and for some reason his mind lands on,

"...have you ever seen what happens when you drop mints in a bottle of soda?"

Trust him to find the holes in their abstracted, poor methods of coping, expose them plainly so Frisk can't just pretend they're not there. Of course, there's an endless parade of people ready and willing to show them just how much of a hypocrite they are, complete with long chains of proof. They can't say a thing that Frisk hasn't already told themselves a hundred times over.

"'Cause it doesn't matter," they answer tiredly, the words trotted dully, rote and to the point. "No one spared me."

No one spared them. Because they did not deserve it, because it did not occur to them, because it was not their job. It was not their job and it didn't matter. Frisk could come back from death. There was no point in sparing someone who gets as many tries as they need to keep going.

His last question earns him a quizzical look, the same sort that he got when he proposed the making of pancakes while they were lost and alone and crying in the library. So bizarrely conversational, and yet - ten times easier to talk about than what they've been discussing before. Monsters who never existed, people who learned how to ERASE, the crushing weight of existence.

"No," says Frisk after a long pause. "What happens?"

It comes out wrong. Naturally. Far be it from Sans to do this right.

But this is...more deep-seated than what happened Underground. This is bigger than that. Not something you can solve with a few words. The fact that they're talking about it at all, is...a step in the right direction, right? They can work on this. For as long as they're in Wonderland.

He nods quietly at the comment, looking away. No one spared them, Sans least of all. Sans was the only one who lied about it. Pretended to Spare them until the last second.

But they've done enough. They've both talked themselves to exhaustion at this point.

He smiles faintly.

"well. if you don't know, i don't wanna spoil the surprise. i'd show you now, but uh. getting late and...we're both pretty tired, huh? remind me tomorrow, or the next time we talk and i'll show you."

His grin widens a bit.

"it's really fun. i think you'll love it. might even be persuaded to show you a baking soda volcano, too, though that's real cliche. i can think of a bunch of neat, harmlessly destructive things. something to look forward to, right?"

It's the kind of solution that's beginning to feel quintessentially Sans to them. A quick conversation and a burger at Grillby's, the experimental making of pancakes when it's way too late to be cooking anything, and now an offer of sticking mints in a bottle of soda. Some kind of mindless, meaningless task that won't do much in the long run but might, possibly, distract their mind from everything they disclosed in this moment.

It's not by any means the strangest proposition or offer they've gotten from him, but for now, it's enough. Frisk nods once, short and jerky, trying for a smile but falling tremulously short.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'd...it sounds fun, I guess."

They look awfully unsure. And yeah, it's just a distraction, no better than whoopee cushions or horrible pancakes, but it's...he's pretty sure it's the only thing he can do for them. He can't fix them. You can't really fix people, anyway. This is the most he can do.

Plus, making messes with science really is fun.

He reaches toward them slowly, giving them time to pull back if they want. But if they don't, he's gonna ruffle their hair. Just a little.

"we'll...figure it out, kid. or we'll at least...try. yeah?"

It's the most he can ever do.

He ruffles their hair in that affectionate matter that brings them back to themselves a little bit, a reminder that they're here, they've alive, they're human. Their hands really hurt. That's nothing new.

"Okay," Frisk whispers, closing their eyes with a small, pained smile.

Okay.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[closed] yesterday upon the stair

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cw self harm

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cw for like two lines of abuse allusion

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