go back to sleep

[punful]

Who: Sans and some figments of his imagination
Where: Sans's DREAMSCAPE
When: During the Subconscious Event
Rating: PG-13 for violence, suicidal ideation, self-hatred, and probably body horror
Summary: Sans is no stranger to nightmares.
The Story:

Everyone gets nightmares from time to time. It's not particularly uncommon. If Sans gets them more often than the average person, well, that's to be expected. It's fine. Not a big deal. He just wakes up and carries on with his day, whether it's the same day again or not.

It's different now. These dreams are vivid. They remind him of the dreams he used to have about someone who doesn't exist, and how when he woke up he could remember every horrible detail. Not just the typical blur of timelines and Resets and anomalies and vines and encroaching darkness. It's all sharp, almost lucid.

It sucks.

But he's no stranger to nightmares, not even vivid ones. Not even the ones where a friend wants to hurt him. You just train yourself not to wake up screaming.

Nothing new, really.

Max - of the way it stops (and starts)

He wakes up in Snowdin.

He always wakes up in Snowdin. The same day, the same room, the same unmade bed, the same sheets wadded into a creased, useless bundle at the opposite end. The same words issuing up from downstairs as Papyrus calls him, the same words every single time.

Only there's a girl standing in his room.

He wakes up in Snowdin.

The girl is still there.

And in a far corner, barely noticeable, is a shadow, like a hole in the dream.

Frisk - the blood runs crazy (with giant strides)

A golden hallway. Light issuing in through massive, stained-glass windows; a crack in the ceiling far up, allowing for late-afternoon rays of sunshine. He can only assume it's late-afternoon. How's a monster to really know?

A small human stands before him. An anomaly stands before him. Frisk stands before him.

Same old same old. Even the black space hidden behind a pillar, a gap in the dream, is familiar.

"on days like these, kids like you...well, you know the rest."

And he calls up his magic, ready for the same opening pattern he's used however many times now, and--

--nothing happens.

No sine wave. No bones. No blue. No Blasters.

No magic.

Nothing.

Zacharie - my enemy's invisible (i don't know how to fight)

Everything is black. No sky, no ground, no walls or ceiling. Nothing. Just blackness stretching forever. And floating above him in blazing white letters, is the word RESET?

The word flickers occasionally, colors running along the edges, the question mark pixellating at times.

He doesn't want to think about it. Tries so hard to not to think about it. But there's someone here who keeps reminding him, keeps forcing it into the back of his mind.

And at the edge of the darkness, a patch of black darker than the rest.

Mettaton - power, power (you had it too long)

He's sitting in some kind of hospital chair. Not strapped in, because this was his choice--but he might as well be. Can't move. Can't think. Can't do much but stare at the strange machine aimed for his chest.

Another familiar dream. Been here a thousand times before. Two figures at the edge of the room, obscured by static and visual tearing, not moving or speaking. A third figure, someone new, metallic form as clear as day.

"i changed my mind. i don't want to do this anymore."

They're not going to listen. They can't hear him.

Toriel - you told me not to (be like anybody else)

He stands in front of the Ruins door, the snow and earth torn to shreds around him. He caught them on the way out this time. Wanted to see if it would change anything.

It won't, he knows this. It has changed nothing. There's just a child in a green and yellow-striped sweater, lying dead on the ground, impaled by bones.

The Ruins door creaks open and there she is.

There's a shadow behind her, like a hole in the dream.

TBA

Comments

:)

[determinedest]

An anomaly stands before him. Familiar, isn't it? Striped shirt, empty expression. There's no smile there, not really; just an empty face, devoid of anything. No weapons. No Locket about their neck on a golden chain. Just an empty stare, dead and dead and dead.

Dead and dusted, like everything else.

A familiar line from a familiar script. How dull. How uninspired. How boring.

They brace themself for the first wave to come, but it doesn't. And they walk forward, evenly, their stride unbroken, closer and closer. No weapons. No armor. Nothing but bare hands, and a pair of dead brown-red eyes.

"Maybe we were always going to end up here again." Their head goes to one side, listlessly. It's all one great boring show, watching a skeleton's fragmented psyche go ever more to pieces.

"What do you think?"

fuck me up

[punful]

He tries again, sweat starting to bead on his skull. Holds his hand out, curls his fingers slightly, the same old motion to try and grab their soul, like he's done a thousand times.

Nothing happens.

They're coming closer.

He raises a hand above his head to summon a Blaster, even just one.

Nothing happens.

They walk forward.

It's--it's fine. It's fine. He's had nightmares like this before, where the anomaly kills him even before he starts all his stupid dialogue, or his magic just stops working, it's--it's nothing new. A reminder of how useless all of this is, how useless he is.

"i'm supposed to be doing better, though. we both are."

He takes a step backward. They're still approaching. He feels...sluggish, more so than usual.

Tries to summon anything, just a single bone, and nothing happens. He feels like a kid again. A useless kid with nothing at his disposal, nothing he could do to stop anyone.

"if i'm honest? i don't want to. never want to end up here again. know it's gonna happen, but god, frisk, i don't want to."

:) :) :)

[determinedest]

It's a familiar motion, like reaching out to take hold of a fistful of air. Only there's no anchoring yank to tether them into place, no ping of their SOUL going cold and frosted over. He lifts a hand, and nothing happens. He struggles, and nothing happens.

Not so fun when you're not the one in control, is it?

"You don't want to." They draw out the words slowly, and their gaze drops, wandering across the square-patterned floor. Incredible, how the entire place lights up in a golden blaze even without any sunlight to illuminate it. It is, after all, a beautiful day outside. A warm beacon of Justice, glinting with all the intensity of a SAVE point.

A place where one might go to judge someone for their sins.

A tiny crease furrows their brow, until at last they lift their stare once more, pinning it flatly to him with all the intensity of a skewer that pins a moth to a bit of corkboard.

"And yet," says the anomaly, quietly, "Frisk trusts you to be able to. They always trust you to be there, to make sure they don't make the same mistakes. To catch them when they fall. Because they always fall."

Children are so very good at falling.

You would know better than anyone, wouldn't you, Sans? You know what happens when you get complacent. When you think it's all over, and things have moved forward, and it'll all be okay. You know what it means, when you entertain the notion that the world might finally, finally move forward.

It's never forever.

Anomalies get bored.

:3

[punful]

They're still approaching. He makes one last-ditch effort to turn their soul blue.

Nothing.

So damn appropriate. This is the whole point. The point is he's useless, even when he actually does try to be useful. Can't do the one thing he set out to do. Can't stop the anomaly. Can't be what they need.

This is what happens when he drops the sword.

"it's selfish, isn't it."

Selfish to want, to not want. It's not his choice. He doesn't get to want things.

They're awfully close now.

It's fine. They'll kill him, and everything will Reset. Or--if this is a dream, he'll just wake up.

"it's this place. 's given me too much time." He holds his hands out, palms up, and takes another step back. "maybe this always happen. i get this much time and i--i forget how to do it. i start trusting 'em to not make this mistake again. if i never trust 'em at all, even when i'm callin' 'em family, how's that any better?"

He doesn't know what to do anymore.

Hasn't for months.

Maybe never has.

* here we go

[catinthemask]

The world is ending. Or maybe it's just beginning? It's always hard to tell with Sans's world. Always hard to keep track of these things, isn't it? Always hard to answer these questions, right? Much easier to not answer them, to ignore them, to forget.

Too bad that's never in the cards. There is something here all right, and it may not just be Zacharie.

And it's no surprise that the NPC is here, is it? Bringing a bit of white to this world and some questions nobody wants to ask. But one can't deny it forever. * It's us.

Let's finally answer that question: "Who is the one in control?"

Zacharie admires the lack of view before moving on to find Sans. Given that it's Zacharie and this is just a dream, it's pretty easy to find himself standing before the skeleton with his hands in his pockets. A smile on his face even if the comic relief/NPC/Boss can't see it.

"Greetings. Or just hello, amigo. How are you?"

* you felt your sins

[punful]

It's the interim. The moment of decision. Schrodinger's world--will it Continue or Reset? There's always a Reset eventually, but for now, there's still a choice.

A choice someone somewhere needs to make.

There's a voice nearby, and Zacharie is there, and this is not surprising. Sans turns to him, hands in his own pockets. There's some similarities here.

"well. the usual, i guess."

The letters above them flicker.

[catinthemask]

There are similarities but the biggest difference was that Zacharie never stood at this sort of crossroad. On or Off was the same choice either way. One just meant it was dragged out far longer than it should.

"I always did wonder what this looked like from your end." A strange thing to say but since it's Zacharie, it's probably not. Or maybe it can just be something that Sans files away like he does everything else he doesn't use across the game. Less talk and more action.

Too bad he couldn't keep it up longer, hun? But trying again just got them-him-her called a freak. And he should know better than anyone that he shouldn't gossip about someone who's always listening.

"Ahaha. I am assuming this is Frisk's power at work? Curious to see." May sound like Zacharie's repeating himself, but he isn't. Not this time.

[punful]

Sans shrugs, looking up at the glowing letters with a measure of wariness.

"more like what i imagine it to be."

He's never really been here. Never seen the--the--

Doesn't want to think it, but he's--

He does actually stand there, doesn't he? Toriel sits in a chair, reading or dozing. Undyne perches on Papyrus's head. Sans is just...sorta there, unless he leaves a comedic sign in his place.

Only none of that happens. That's all impossible, right?

He presses a hand to the side of his head.

"let's not think about it anymore."

(slides in unannounced with starbucks) hEY,

[fulllifeconsequences]

They're in Waterfall.

The air is thick and damp, chilled with subterranean moisture. Cyan fluorescence runs through the water, glints in fragments of quartz freckling the walls, hums softly from tiny mushrooms. The cool stone, worn smooth by centuries of erosion, is tinted integrity-blue and perseverance-purple by the haunting, eerie light. There's no sound but the trickle of water, and the repeating, endless whispering of an Echo Flower.

A child sits on a bench, holding a moldy quiche.

"I just wasn't ready for the responsibility," the Echo Flower whispers.

They lift their head slowly.

"I just wasn't ready for the responsibility," the Echo Flower whispers.

Their gaze locks onto Sans.


"I just wasn't ready for the responsibility," the Echo Flower whispers.

fUCK

[punful]

He's a kid again. First discovered this place when he was a kid, after all, when Papyrus was messing around with Bridge Flowers and accidentally arranged them just so. Papyrus thought it was boring; Sans thought it was kinda nice. Real quiet, out of the way. No one would find him back there.

Someone has found him all the same. And the Echo Flower is repeating some words he hasn't said yet. Or rather, that he said a long time ago.

He stares at the old quiche for a moment, then looks up at Chara, the flower still repeating his words over and over, the way Chara does.

"it was...it was just a quiche. it came out wrong."

Like so many other things in his life. Like Sans himself.

; )

[fulllifeconsequences]

"We spent so long just sitting here. Waiting for someone to come, maybe." Chara tells him, looking back down at the quiche. There's room for two on the bench. They're not the only ones waiting for something that's never going to happen.

"I had a lot of words I told to them over and over. They practically became Frisk's mottos. Stay determined. That was one of them." Their legs kick idly, softly, a back-and-forth to a solemn tune that maybe only exists in their head, that maybe was only heard by the person they hummed it to. The same notes that stood for a hero, in their heart. The notes they hummed in the Ruins, the notes they hummed for Undyne.

Wishful, melancholy notes, here in Waterfall. It's a place, after all, that's made of wishes that go unanswered.

"There was another one. But nobody came."

"I just wasn't ready for the responsibility," the Echo Flower whispers.

"I told them that one a lot."



They smile down at the quiche.

"We spent a long, long time here," they repeat. "I didn't understand why, at the time. I wanted to say something funny, but I couldn't think of anything. Maybe you would have known what to say."

"I just wasn't ready for the responsibility," the Echo Flower whispers.

[punful]

He doesn't sit down. That's not his place. He's just as small and weak as they are, so how is he supposed to help support them? How can he support anyone?

He reaches across himself to grip his arm, feeling smaller every time they glance at him. Can't help but feel relieved when they look at the quiche instead.

That stupid quiche. How was he supposed to know it would become such a metaphor?

But this isn't about metaphors. This is about actions. Inactions. Consequences.

"i'm sorry." And he is. He is. So damn sorry for all the endless ways he's hurt them. But what good does sorry ever do? "i didn't--i didn't know."

[didntknowbest]

The door opens, and there she is- and it's obvious from her face, her stance, the way that she stomps out into the snow- she doesn't need to look, to know what he's done. Because she knows everything that he's done.

Here, right now. In the future. In the past. In other timelines. She knows all of it, and there's only one emotion in her expression: Disgust.

Her gaze drifts over towards the body, one that she recognizes- but then it's right back to Sans, looking even angrier. "Really? You could not even attempt to keep the promise this time? Not even seem like you aren't such a terrible creature?"

There is no sorrow in her voice, no grief of a mother losing her child- she speaks in the tone of someone who's already had to watch Sans kill them so many times that it's become almost mundane.

[punful]

He stares at her, eyesockets going wide.

He's had dreams like this before, where she finds out, but not quite like this. Usually there's fireballs by now. Or, a thousand times worse, there's apathy, a shrug as she tells him he didn't really have to keep it after all.

Everything is vivid here, sharp. Too sharp. He takes a step back.

"i..."

He never knows what to say to her when it's not just stupid jokes, when he's not just trying to make her laugh.

"i thought...maybe if i stopped them here...just once..."

[didntknowbest]

There's no fireballs- but she's obviously not interested in playing nice. She comes right up to him, while he stares at her like a deer in the headlights- grabbing him by the collar of that disgusting hoodie of his, and slamming him against a tree so she can look him right in the eye- maybe he should have been able to dodge that, and by all accounts such an action should have reduced him to dust- but things don't always work like that in a dream, do they?

She's not going to blindly be throwing fire in a fit of grief. She's not depressed and broken about the death of her child. No, she's holding him here, and holding him accountable.

"Do not lie to me. You have killed them enough times already, you know how it works. You just wanted to hurt them, like you always do."

[punful]

She walks up to him and he tries to back away, tries to dodge, but some part of him knows he deserves what's coming. He doesn't quite make it. She seizes him by the front of his hoodie and slams him against a tree, hard enough that his vision goes white for a moment. He feels his feet leave the ground.

Always was real easy for people to just pick him up when they were upset. Once again he's caught, trapped. Maybe she's going to just kill him.

His hands go to hers as he tries half-heartedly to pry her fingers away.

"no, please, i--this isn't supposed to--she can't know about this. please, i'm sorry."

He wakes up in Snowdin!

[mypartnerintime]

The girl is facing the wrong way. Her back is too him, her shoulder's drooping, her short brown hair tangled and messy.

She tilts her head to one side as Papyrus calls out downstairs, listening to his words.

A jolt- a sudden awkwardness as the reset pulls them back.

Papyrus calls out, and she mimics his words exactly, down to the tone and the inflections. She's had a lot of time to memorize it.

"I get it now," she says. "I get why you never cared."

A jolt- a sudden awkwardness as the reset pulls them back.

Papyrus calls out, and she mimics his words exactly.

"This is better, isn't it? It's better with Papyrus, alive."

A jolt- no.

No, not a jolt. Not a sudden awkwardness. A slow, steady crawl, barely moving, barely edging backward in time.

"Wasn't it better when you didn't care?"

and then he dead

[punful]

She's not supposed to be here. She's...he never sees her in Snowdin, right? No, there's just the anomaly. Just Frisk, with Chara.

"what are you--?"

Jolt. Reset. He wakes up in Snowdin, and there's a girl in his room who isn't supposed to be there. She repeats Papyrus's words exactly.

"no, that's--"

Jolt. Reset. He wakes up in Snowdin, and she's still there, quoting Papyrus again.

He doesn't answer. Of course it's better when Papyrus is alive. Of course it's better when he's here.

Jolt--no.

It drags him back, and he feels every non-moment of it, a relentless tug behind his left eyesocket. His jaw clenches.

"it was easier." The words come out muddled, like he's speaking backwards and forwards at the same time. "not better."

"easier not better" wow!

[mypartnerintime]

She turns to face him.

Her eyes are bloodshot, her hair and clothes wet, her hands shaking. She's leaving a puddle on the floor as water drips down the fabric of her clothes and patters against the carpet.

The drag becomes stronger- not faster, but more insistent, more unrelenting. The whole room seems to shake, to exist in multiple ghostly images that overlap and occupy the same space. In one image the puddle isn't there- in another it's grown larger, as though after many minutes- in a third the water drips backwards, rising up to Max's jacket.

Time beginning to unravel, spinning in all directions, like the threads of a rope coming undone.

"But y-you'd trade us all, anyway..."

There are many Maxes speaking at the same time. Many voices that overlap, words forming at different speeds, different moments.

"Isn't... isn't an eternity of the same day with your brother... Isn't that better than having any other friends?"

Pain, just synapses firing in our brain

[mettatonvevo]

Two of the three figures do not turn. They do not acknowledge Sans's words. The third, however, does. And he turns to look at the skeleton curiously.

"You changed your mind? Is that what you said?"

He strides over wearing a long white lab coat with a mandarin collar and an embroidered hot pink MTT over the left breast tailored to fit the robot perfectly. The heels he is wearing are not laboratory safe, but if you asked him, it's an experiment in the heightened probability of dangerous lab accidents in relation to fashion. He peers down at Sans, Mettaton's grin purely amused.

"What a silly thing to declare. Don't you think its a little too late to go back?"

[punful]

This doesn't make sense.

Mettaton isn't supposed to be here. He doesn't even exist yet. He won't be built for another--what, six years? Hard to tell, given the nature of time.

He's wearing a labcoat and he stands there and stares down at Sans with that little smirk of his. He's--this doesn't make sense. Sans looks between him and the shadowed, static-covered figures at the edges of the room. Looks at the crystal-clear machine again. It's still powering up.

Not a slip of paper this time. Ah. Ah, okay. He gets it now.

"i know. i know it is, but i thought maybe--i could do it different just once. i..."

It might have changed something. He doesn't regret it, still doesn't regret it, but he--at the same time he doesn't want this to happen.

"please. you can't be here."

[mettatonvevo]

He laughs, loud and bright and harsh as he starts to adjust something on the machine hovering menacingly over Sans.

"It's already different, Sans! I'm here!"

Mettaton leans against the machine, that smirk of his still firmly planted.

"Though perhaps it's not different enough for you? That's a shame! Luckily today's torture is brought to you by MTT Brand Medical Malpractice! I assure you that this will be invigorating in what mental trauma we dig into!"

[battlefront]

The room is pretty quiet.

Probably because Sans is laying in here. It always is around him. He just lays around in that stupid bed all day and does nothing, because he can't. Because it'll kill him. Everything'll kill him. A freak, a one-hit wonder. It's no surprise the other kids don't want anything to do with him.

This particular instance had come when Cloud, not thinking much of it, had tripped him around a corner just out of spite. Sans fell and the adults came yelling again, scooping him up and bringing him back here.

So now Cloud sits at the foot of his bed, having snuck in some time ago.

"Guess ya just came out wrong, huh?"

[punful]

It's always quiet when Papyrus isn't here. He's not good at loud, not like Papyrus is. All lowercase, that's him. And it's only ever Papyrus who comes in here. His parents stopped coming awhile ago, and it's not like he has any friends.

He looks up when Cloud speaks and figures he must be having one of those dreams again. People keep popping into places they have no right to be in. There must have been some others over the last few days. Quite a few, knowing him.

"i know that." He sighs tiredly and pulls the blanket up to his chin. Let's just get it over with.

"i've always known that."

[battlefront]

Cloud crawls over him a bit, pulling the blanket back down again to stare directly into his face. The whole time he's done nothing but smile, seeming even friendly aside from his words.

"Doesn't make it any easier though, huh? That poor kid. Dyin' over and over again. You made a promise and you can't even keep that." Cloud laughs, shaking his head.

"Man, you can't do anything right."